What we know of the Spirit Realm cannot be stated in literal terms. Jesus taught in parables because all truly spiritual teaching is of necessity parabolic. The logic and the language is symbolic, not analytical and descriptive.
I have no interest in harassing Pentecostals and Charismatics, but I need to point out that there are differences between me and them. The common evangelical teaching about demons and such is mostly derived from the Neo-Pentecostal movement. Because their unspoken and unexamined assumptions about reality are a mixture of Greco-Roman rationalism and Anglo-Saxon mythology — the definition of the Enlightenment — they frequently miss completely what the Scripture says about such things. Further, they tend to ignore the wider intellectual assumptions of the Hebrew people. Frankly, Charismatics tend to use the same analytical tools as the Pharisees and modern Judaism, both of which share a lot with Kabbalism.
Instead of denouncing all that is nasty and evil, I’m just pointing out where they are coming from, and wishing they would be honest about it. I fully confess my biases and assumptions come from a long struggle to understand the ancient Hebrew people and their way of thinking, which means a lot of overlapping with ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, and broadly a part of the Ancient Near East (ANE). I will tell you Charismatics tend to call my ideas “evil” when they understand them.
I’ve often tried to explain that demons are servants of God. They can’t do what He doesn’t permit. Their role in the Spirit Realm is more or less divine lictors. Satan is God’s Jailer. The best basis for understanding the Kingdom of Heaven is ANE feudalism. God is the divine Sheikh of Heaven and all things bend to His will as Creator and Owner. Every ANE sheikh had his lictors; larger domains would require a noble lord to take up the job. That noble retainer of the sheikh made his income from slavery of the folks rendered to his control as prisoners. Jail and enslavement are essentially the same thing.
Slavery isn’t necessarily punitive if you were born there, but to lose freedom and become a slave is shameful. In the Fall, we were all turned over the Satan’s dominion, born there. Those who are spiritually alive are in a position to discover they have a writ of emancipation — the Blood of the Cross. On a lower level, the Law Covenants were granted as a half-measure of emancipation. Even those spiritually dead can still realize the Laws will set them free morally. This is why we proclaim the gospel message in terms of moral duty. God’s Laws — divine moral justice — is the wrapper for the gospel. Divine moral justice is our freedom from Satan’s dominion.
Breaking free isn’t a matter of words, but of commitment and choice. If you live by the moral justice of God, a moral justice reflected in the Law Covenants but not restricted to the Laws, then Satan loses his dominion over you here on this plane of existence. How easily we forget that Satan was cast down to the earth, and his actions are restricted to this plane of existence. Yelling at the Devil “in the name of Jesus” doesn’t do a damned thing if you don’t back it up with moral living as reflected in the Law Covenants. Pedantic legalism does not fulfill the purpose of the Laws.
It’s a sliding scale; there are no absolutes of that sort. The more just, the more free you are. Further, there is an amplification effect from God’s mercy. If you desire righteousness, He meets you half-way as it were. Performance is not the whole issue because none of us can ever perform half so well as we would like. The boundaries are fuzzy.
In my life, I am relatively free and have been granted a broad measure of mercy and power to overcome my own limitations. Some people very close to me are less free. For whatever reason, they don’t walk with me all the way. They bring into my world their demonic oppressions and some of it stinks up the place. It grates on my nerves, literally and figuratively. There’s only so much you can say before you simply must start erecting barriers to keep that stuff at a distance.
Some of the people near me are spiritually alive but foolish. For some, it is painfully obvious they are spiritually dead. That is, using the definitions in the New Testament, I am forced to regard them so. The degree and amount of closeness is not entirely in my hands, so there are times when life really sucks because these people bring their moral filth with them and I can sense the weight or moral oppression. That’s nerve-wracking.
I will assure you, dear reader, that when I get that dream job for which I have long been praying, and which I feel certain is near me in time and space, that will also relieve my current discomfort with the situation I describe above. It will also put me up against a new set of moral challenges, but it’s entirely different when you don’t have to live with it as family.
