The stories in the gospels in which demons are driven out of people are impressive. In particular the fact that Jesus merely gave the demons brief commands, which they, whether under protest or not, had to obey, must have struck the people present with amazement and bewilderment. They must have thought, who is this Jesus?

Readers of the Bible in the twentieth century will have much difficulty in identifying themselves with what is happening in those stories. When people today read the stories of demons being driven out, many will ask an entirely different question, namely, who are these demons? The bystanders accepted the demons as a given reality and they looked up to Jesus. In contrast, Christians in the twentieth century who accepted Jesus as Lord, wonder about the demons in the gospels.

Why this difference? Is there a fundamental distinction between the time of the New Testament and the world in which we live? Bultmann characterized the entire New Testament as a mythological book that we have demythologize as we read it. That would therefore certainly apply to the belief in demons. In a world view in which heaven and hell have a place together with angels and demons it makes sense to express one’s faith in the form of stories in which angels and demons appear. But our world view, as it functions in Western science and learning and as it is experienced in Western culture, is more confined and controlled by laws of nature or chance. Supposedly, it has no room for demons. And so modern persons have to express their faith in God’s renewing power in other ways.

Is it indeed true that, among other things, the demons of the New Testament impose on us a hermeneutical necessity to demythologize? We believe that this solution is very debatable. ¹ The demons were not explanatory models of a world view for people in the time of the New Testament, as laws of nature can be for us. They saw the demons as realities that were not time-bound and they experienced them as such during the moments they were driven out, screaming loudly and resisting wildly. The demons are not a component of a particular world view, but part of the world of experience. When you see demons at work in a person, you can apply that reality to the formation of a world view, but you do not derive that experience from your biased view of the world. We cannot escape it. Demons were experienced as reality. Do they no longer exist, or do we only see them less clearly today?

Based on what we have said so far, the ideas of suggestion and projection are also unhelpful. The driving out of demons took place in public and there is no real basis for thinking that somewhat sensitive minds were influenced by suggestion. The accompanying phenomena, such as loud cries and convulsions also preclude the opinion that in those days people projected a particular animistic vision on such phenomena, whereas we look at them from a different perspective as part of the ‘normal  healing process’ and so on. Approaching the matter from a psychological or religious-historical point of view does not help us.²

There is every reason not to use the difference between the stories about driving out demons and our own experiences of the world to silence those stories. Rather, we must read them carefully in the willingness to let the text speak to us without letting our short-sightedness govern the text. In doing that, we are well aware that the Bible has not been given to us to learn about demonology. But you can also not read the stories about driving out demons seriously if you are not prepared to consider which preconceptions are inextricably connected to such events. The stories are about Jesus and not about the demons. But if you want to forget about demons in the twentieth century, you can hardly still ask in amazement, Who is this man that even the demons obey him?

Consideration of the Terminology Used⤒🔗

When we read the stories about driving out demons it is important that we consider carefully the terms and designations used in them. For there is a great danger that otherwise our understanding will be misled from the outset. For example, people speak readily about the healing of a person who is ‘possessed’. But that term is accompanied by a particular, albeit vague, image. Such ‘possession’ is understood as a particular kind of illness that differs from others. The interpretation can then still lead to discussion, but the framework has already been fixed. It is better to avoid a term such as ‘possession’ and consider later whether it is actually appropriate as a summary designation for the topic under discussion in the driving out of demons.

The word daimon is used a few times in the New Testament. Only once according to the Nestle-26 text (Mt 8:31), but in the majority of the manuscripts we also find the word in two other places (Mk 5:12; Lk 8:29). It is possible that the word is also used in the following texts: Revelation 16:14 and 18:2. That it is sometimes ousted in the text tradition by the word daimonion, is not surprising. Although that word originally meant ‘something demon-like’, in the New Testament it has the same meaning as daimon, namely ‘demon’. Both words are used interchangeably, but daimonion appears more often. ³ Originally daimon was a vox media in Greek: it could have a favourable or an unfavourable meaning. In the New Testament it is always unfavourable. The demons are idols who are worshipped in the heathen temples and who are the opponents of the true God (1 Cor 10:20). They believe that God is one and they shudder before him (Jas 2:19).

These demons can also be identified as pneuma akatharton (unclean spirit), or pneuma ponèron (evil spirit). In that case an adjective is necessary, because pneuma is a vox media in the New Testament: both good and evil angels can be referred to as pneumata (spirits) (cf. Heb 1:14 with Rev 16:14, ‘ministering spirits’ versus ‘spirits of demons’). Occasionally an unclean/evil spirit is identified simply as pneuma, but the context then makes it abundantly clear what kind of spirit is being referred to (Mt 8:16, after 8:15; Mk 9:20, after 9:1; Lk 9:39 contains a description of the behaviour of such a spirit; 10:20, after 10:17).

A few times the malevolence of the spirit is identified further. Thus, we read about a pneuma alalon (mute spirit, Mk 9:17), that is also identified as “unclean spirit” (Mk 9:25), and is addressed as pneuma alalon kai koofon (mute and deaf spirit, Mk 9:25; cf. Mt 9:33, daimonizomenon koofon, deaf through a demon). Luke 11:14 speaks of a daimonion that is mute. We also read about a pneuma astheneias (a disabling spirit, Lk 13:11; cf. Lk 8:2, “evil and infirm spirits”), identified a little later as having been bound by Satan and made infirm (Lk 13:16; cf. 13:12). Finally we read about a pneuma puthoonos (a divining spirit, Acts 16:16).

Twice we come across a combination of pneuma and daimonion (or daimon). Revelation 16:14 speaks about ‘spirits of demons’ and Luke 4:33 speaks about the ‘spirit of an unclean demon’, but a little later Luke calls this spirit simply a ‘demon’ (Lk 4:35). This confirms that the unclean/evil spirit is the same as ‘demon’. So we could also render Luke 4:33 as ‘A spirit, namely, an unclean demon’. Did Luke, the first time unclean spirits appear in his gospel, want to make  it abundantly clear to his Greek readers that he is speaking in a negative sense about the ‘demons’ when these are being discussed?

The person who is being possessed by demons or unclean spirits is called daimonizomenos (someone who is being controlled by a demon), or daimonistheis (someone who is controlled by a demon). Word usage varies (cf. Mt 8:28-33 with Mk 5:18; Lk 8:36). Other expressions are: ‘having an unclean spirit’ (Mk 3:30; Lk 4:33; Ac 8:7; 19:13; and other places) and ‘being afflicted by unclean spirits’, or ‘tormented’ or troubled’ by them (Lk 6:18; Ac 5:16). These descriptions are necessary because you cannot derive a verb from pneuma, as you can with daimon.

The difference between the person and the demon becomes clear from the act of driving the demon out (ekballein) and the consequence of that, namely that the demon leaves the person (exelthein; ekporeuesthai). The people who were tormented by demons are ‘healed’ (isthai; therapeuesthai), or ‘set free’ (luthènai, Lk 13:2; cf. Mk 7:35) from their infirmity.

From this investigation of the terms used, it is apparent that demons have their own autonomy and, as unclean spirits, can torment a person or control her. They are spirits that are connected to Satan and therefore take sides against God. But it is difficult to derive much more from the terms. That is clear especially when the term ‘spirit’ is modified (deaf spirit, spirit of weakness, divining spirit, etc.). It is also clear from the fact that demons have different powers. Thus, for example, an unclean spirit can take seven other spirits with it that are ‘more evil than itself’ (Mt 12;45).

The Unique Nature of Jesus’ Action Against Demons←⤒🔗

It is striking that one group of words is missing when Jesus takes action against demons. That is the group of words that describes the act of exorcising (exorkizein), or the exorcism (exorkismos). Is this because the Palestinian Jews of Jesus’ time did not know about performing miracles and exorcism, as Schlatter postulated against Feibig? Van der Loos denies that, among other reasons, by an appeal to Luke 11:19. There Jesus refers to the sons of the Jews who also cast out demons. ⁴ One can also refer to Acts 19:13, which speaks of itinerant Jewish exorcists. It is the only time that the New Testament uses the word exorkistès! Why is Jesus not called an exorcist and why are his actions against demons not described as acts of exorcism? You can find the answer in Matthew 8:16: ‘he cast out the spirits with a word’. What is striking is that Jesus does not drive out the demons by acts of exorcism, or by exorcistic formulae. Such formulae contain an appeal to higher powers. Jewish exorcists made an appeal to the LORD, the God of Israel, but Jesus spoke in his own power. He just gives commands to the demons and they obey him (Mk 1:27). That is what amazes people. Although they knew the phenomenon of exorcism, they did not know of the power of someone who drove out demons by his own power. This is also what gave occasion for the slander against Jesus. While the people wondered in whose name Jesus performed his miracles, his enemies suggest that he acted in the (undisclosed) name of Beelzebul. Jesus points out to them that their sons know better: demons disappear only in the name of Israel’s God.⁵ That experience was intended to teach them that Jesus’ secret lay in his union with the Father (Lk 11:18-22)! He does not exorcise with an appeal to the LORD, but he commands as the LORD. That is why the apostles are able to drive out demons in Jesus’ name (Lk 10:17; Ac 19:13). In a certain sense one can therefore again speak about the apostles exorcising demons. Hence, in the ancient church the group of words surrounding this verb was used for driving out demons. That exorcisms in Jesus’ name are effective, proves that Jesus is Lord who, as God, is too strong for the demons. The following quotation from Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with the Jew, Trypho, (middle of the second century) is illustrative for more than one reason:

Every demon is overcome and subjects himself when he is exorcised with precisely this name of the Son of God, the first-born of all creation, born of a virgin, made man, subjected to suffering, crucified under Pontius Pilate by your people, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. In contrast, if you perform an exorcism in the name of people who were kings, or righteous, or prophets, or patriarchs, not one of the demons will subject himself. But if one of you performs an exorcism in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he may possibly subject himself. However, your exorcists already employ the technique of the heathens in their exorcisms and use incense and amulets Dialogue 85, 2-3; cf. 76. 6.