Perhaps I was more confident in my position on deliverance until I read chapter 20 in Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology. Like he does in so many previous chapters, Grudem takes a middle of the road approach to items like deliverance. He says rightly in pt D.2. "Not all evil and sin is from Satan and demons, but some is." Grudem explains that he wants to guard against an over-spiritualization of everything--the example I gave above. At the same time he doesn't discount demonic influence.
Grudem's linguistic analysis is very interesting in this chapter. He states in D.3.,"The Greek New Testament can speak of people who 'have a demon'..., or it can speak of people who are suffering from demonic influence..., but it never uses language that suggests that a demon actually 'possesses' someone." Furthermore, Grudem suggests being very careful when speaking of these things with other Christians because many Christians have bought into an unorthodox possibility of being both a Christian and "demonized/possessed". This belief has been pushed in large part due to an emphasis on demonic experiences over biblical truth.
The point of my confusion rests in how "even the demons are subject to us in [Jesus'] name" as in Luke 10:17, works out in our daily walk. Are we to speak to the demons like Jesus and His disciples? Or do we simply ask the Lord to rebuke the enemy on our behalf? Are we not to speak to demons? Does it even matter? Grudem presents the former as truth, and even states a few personal experiences in his systematic audio lecture. I thought I had settled this one.
Apparently not.
4 comments:
Our good friend Jude settles this issue for us once and for all. However, it does not hurt to look at every epistle written in the New Testament by which we explicitly derive our doctrine and practice...we are never commanded, even one time, to speak, bind, loose, or dance with the demonic.
What we are told to do is apply objective truth to our lives. We are to apply the righteousness of Christ in our lives by living righteously, having the power of the gospel ever before us, placing our trust and adherence in the object of Jesus Christ alone, holding firm to the salvation that has been provided by Christ's atonement, renewing our mind through the Word of God, applying Scripture to every arena of our lives, and praying with an understanding that God is ever-present especially for boldness in the furtherance of the gospel through us.
Finally, we are commanded to submit to God and resist the devil. When we do this, he has to flee. The key to that text is our submission to God. When we do the things that are explicitly written down in Scripture, we do not have to reside in the third heaven, dealing with demonic and angelic activity that is God's domain. Our spiritual warfare is hard enough without having to do God's job too. In fact, we'll be more effective doing what He has commanded us to do.
So then was Jesus's 72 disciples given "God's job to do" while we are not?
You're going to have to point out the verse in Jude that is helpful in this way. I see demonic or angelic activity, but nothing in regard to having a demon.
The issue in Jude was the false teachers who dream "revelations", defile the flesh, reject authority, and revile angelic majesties (8). Play the next few verses out and you will see the correlation of men thinking they can cast out demons. vs. 10 says: "these men revile the things which they do not understand" i.e. angels/demons. Fascinating how these puffed-up arrogant false teachers assume an authority that the archangel Michael did not have (9).
Once again look at the EPISTLES by which the church (the Body of Christ) explicitly derive doctrine and PRACTICE and see if the casting out of demons is a part of church life. NOPE! Not even once. But wait, what about the immoral Corinthian that was handed over to Satan, surely the church would need to cast a demon out of him...did not happen.
For the record, the disciples did a lot of things that we can not and should not do...if it was expected of us we would see those commands in the letters to the churches. I do see quite a few things that we are commanded to do, maybe we should focus on those things...just sayin.
I appreciate your care, Brent. Thank you.
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