Since the 1973 movie, The Exorcist, there has been one exorcist movie after the next. There are six installments in the Exorcist franchise. The latest is The Exorcist: Believer in 2023. One exorcist movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, produced by a Biola University graduate is based on the true exorcist tragedy of 24-year-old Anneliese Michel. Two Catholic priests performed 67 exorcism sessions, one or two each week, lasting up to four hours, over ten months in 1975–1976. Anneliese Michel died the next year and her parents and the two priests were found guilty of negligent homicide.
I don't believe the exorcisms worked on Anneliese Michel because what this young girl needed was not exorcism but salvation. There is a similar case in Acts 16, where Paul is also confronted with a demon-possessed girl.
Luke gives examples of persons God saved through the gospel on Paul's second missionary journey
The first was a young man, Timothy, who was raised in a religious, Jewish home and was converted to Christ on Paul's first missionary journey in Acts 14. Timothy grows spiritually and joins the missionary team on the second missionary journey in Acts 16:1-5.
Their first recorded convert in Europe was a wealthy businesswoman named Lydia. She immediately opens her home to the missionary team to start the new church (16:14-15).
One day Paul and his coworkers in the gospel were walking to the church in Lydia's house when they were confronted with a fortune-telling demon-possessed young woman. We read about this encounter in 16:16-18. Paul cast out the demon. It is not explicitly stated that she was converted but we assume she is another example of the powerful gospel Paul used to win people to Christ.
The last example of the saving gospel is the Philippian jailor who cried out to Paul, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul's quick reply was, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved" (16:30-31).
The so-called gift of exorcism like the gift of healing was a temporary sign gift of the early church exercised by the apostles. Paul reminded the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 12:12 who were rejecting Paul's apostolic ministry that he had performed the sign gifts of an apostle when he was ministering to them. Since the gift of exorcism is never mentioned in Scripture it was associated with the gift of healing which is mentioned three times by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12.
In Luke 6:17-19, Jesus and His newly appointed apostles healed the sick and Luke added, "they that were vexed with unclean spirits (demons) were healed." Alex Konya defended exorcism as part of the gift of healing: "The use of this word (healing) is logical to describe deliverance from demon possession since the most obvious and serious result of the demonized state in the Gospels was physical malady" (Demons: A Biblical Perspective. 80). Healing and casting out of demons are also seen in Luke 9:42.
Sign gifts were performed because the Jews as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:22 required "a sign." Because the nation of Israel refused to believe God's appointed messengers, God gave sign gifts to convince them. This lack of faith goes back to the beginning of Israel's history in Exodus 4. God called Moses to deliver Israel out of Egypt and Moses knew Israel would not follow him. So God empowered Moses to demonstrate sign miracles (transform Moses' rod into a snake, heal Moses' leprous hand, and turn the Nile River into blood).
Exorcisms in the Gospels
When Jesus came and presented himself as Israel's messiah knowing their weakness of faith, Jesus also performed exorcism in Luke 4:31-37 as well as healings as in 4:38-41 and power over nature in 5:1-11. All three of these miracles were supernatural events that will take place in the kingdom. Jesus and John the Baptist have just announced, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Now Matthew and Luke recorded signs to prove Jesus was the King who would reign if Israel repented.
Exorcisms in the Book of Acts
When the apostles were founding the early church they also healed severe cases of sickness and exorcised demons to authenticate the message for unbelieving Jews (Acts 5:12-16). Exorcisms are found in the Gospels that Jesus performed and in the book of Acts that the Apostles performed.
No Exorcisms in the Epistles
Significantly no examples of exorcisms are found in the Epistles nor are there any instructions given in the Epistles on exorcisms.
Why is this noticeable absence of information on exorcisms in the Epistles important? Because in the Epistles God has given the last word on any doctrine.
The final word on any truth is not in the Gospels nor Acts but in the Epistles. Religious groups make a major mistake by building doctrine from the Gospels and the Book of Acts. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is an example. Jesus said when the Holy Spirit is come He will guide the apostles into all truth (Jo 16:13). In other words, more truth is coming in the Epistles written by the Apostles.
· In the book of Acts believers received the Holy Spirit after their conversion because Luke is recording the transition of the people of God from the OT when believers did not permanently possess the Holy Spirit to the NT when believers did permanently possess the Holy Spirit.
· According to Romans 8:9, believers today receive the Holy Spirit at salvation not afterward like Charismatic groups teach today based on the book of Acts: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."
While the Epistles do not teach exorcism for today, the Epistles do teach that demons exist and are powerful weapons of Satan. Read with me Paul's instruction to believers in Ephesians 6:10-18. Ephesians is Paul's most advanced theology. Paul wrote Ephesians after he wrote Romans. In Romans, Paul teaches his most comprehensive truth on salvation by grace through faith. Paul penned Romans in Acts 20 when he was in Corinth around A.D. 59. After writing Romans Paul went to prison for two years in Caesarea (Acts 24:27) where he had time to think about the doctrine of the church for this age which he elaborates on when he was released from prison. Paul writes Ephesians while in his first Roman imprisonment in Acts 28.
In Ephesians 6:10, Paul warns believers in this age of the church about the powerful warfare they face with demonic forces and Paul also gives us instructions on how to fight this spiritual warfare.
There is not one word about exorcism in Paul's most detailed account of our spiritual warfare
C. S. Lewis in his Screwtape Letters wrote about two extreme reactions to this truth written by Paul about demonic powers:
There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils (demons). One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They (the demons) themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight (Screwtape Letters, 3).
1. The "Deliverance Ministries" movement is one extreme reaction of excessive and unhealthy interest.
An example of “deliverance ministries” is represented by Frank Hammond’s book Pigs in the Parlor: A Practical Guide to Deliverance. According to Hammond, nearly every problem in life can be attributed to a demon. Hammond wrote: "Personally, I have not found any exceptions." In other words, every person has a demon.
Hammond has a three-page list of three hundred demons that possess people: demons of resentment, stubbornness, bickering, faultfinding, envy, procrastination, pride, self-righteousness, greed, gossip, shyness, daydreaming, discouragement, headache, retardation, forgetfulness, heartache, embarrassment, sexual frigidity, and intellectualism. Robert M. Bowman, Jr. states Hammond’s book is a very influential manual among the deliverance ministry genre (Kenneth D. Boa, Robert M. Bowman, Jr. Sense & Nonsense About & Demons. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007, 130). Paul attributed many of these so-called demons to the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21.
Some extremely bizarre and radical behaviors accompany some of today’s so-called exorcisms
A fifty-one-year-old Chicago woman called the police after she had been severely bruised and beaten by her husband and by a Presbyterian minister. Why had they abused her? They said they were trying to rid the woman of evil spirits.
In the Los Angeles area, an even more horrifying experience occurred, purportedly in the name of Christianity. A group of preachers allegedly stomped a woman to death as they tried to remove demons from her (Robert Lightner, Angels, Satan, and Demons, 148).
This is one extreme reaction to the truth of demonic influence that blames our problems or sins on demons rather than personal responsibility for our actions.
A trend in missions is the attempt to cast out “territorial spirits” — the high-ranking demons that rule over specific geographical regions. According to advocates of this practice, territorial spirits must be cast out before people in a region will be open to the gospel. This is sometimes attempted in showy ceremonies, where Christians will go to the highest mountaintop in a city or country and directly confront the territorial spirits.
Biola University New Testament professor Dr. Clint Arnold said the Bible supports the idea of territorial spirits. The prophet Daniel, for example, was told of spiritual princes of Persia and Greece [Daniel 8:13-21]. The early church fathers also spoke of territorial spirits. But nowhere in the Bible or church history do we have an example of God’s people seeking to cast them out, Arnold said. Instead, our authority seems to be limited to casting out demons from individuals. This practice also misplaces our focus, which is proclaiming the gospel — not directly confronting high-ranking demons, he said. As we do this, we can ask God to deal with any territorial spirits (Biola Magazine, Exorcising Our Demons, Holly Pivec, December 31, 2005).
2. The other extreme would be to disbelieve in the existence of demons.
Let's go back to Paul's powerful statement about demons in Ephesians 6:10-18. We are in a war. Our enemy is not flesh and blood. Don't demonize humans. They are not your greatest opponent. Your most dangerous antagonists are "spiritual." Our demonic enemy is spiritual in contrast to flesh and blood. Paul is in prison in Rome because he was lied about and falsely accused. He is chained to a Roman guard 24 hours a day. Yet, Paul tells us not to focus on retaliating or getting even with flesh and blood.
But rather put on the whole armor of God. Paul has already made it clear in 2 Corinthians 10:4 that our weapons are not physical or material (stomping the demon-possessed, carrying a crucifix, and anointing oil) but "mighty through God to the pulling down of (demonic) strongholds."
What are our weapons that are mighty through God? “Nuclear wars cannot be won with rifles” (Harold W. Hoehner. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, 859). Our enemy is great but our weapons are greater.
Paul lists seven weapons God has supplied for us to use against Satan's attacks
1. Belt of Truth (There is truth and there is error. There are absolutes found in God's Word. Our worldview and philosophy for living are the doctrines of God's Word. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.” First, you must know Christ as Savior). The exclusivity of Christ in the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
2. Breastplate of personal righteousness (This is living with all sins confessed or chinks in your armor that make you vulnerable to attacks)
3. Feet wearing the peace the Gospel brings (There is peace with God at salvation and there is the peace of God in all circumstances where life takes place and the battle rages. Do you have the peace of God? Are you content with God's will? Paul also writes while in prison in Rome "I have learned in whatever state or circumstance I am in there to be content" in Philippians 4:11. Satan and his demons can use discontent to defeat us.
4. The shield of faith (This piece of equipment was the large door shield that protected all the other pieces. It is confidence in God. The skeptic does not have this protection. He is bitter with God rather than rejoicing in the Lord)
5. Helmet of salvation (This piece protects your mind where the entire battle is won or lost. Paul wrote, "Be not conformed to this world but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind" in Romans 12:1-3)
6. The sword of the Spirit (This is the offensive weapon Jesus used when He was attacked by Satan. Three times Jesus fired back, "It is written." Jesus had studied, memorized, and meditated on Scripture)
7. Prayer (This is our time alone praising God for his many blessings, confessing our sins, and pouring out our petitions to Him)
Notice not one word about exorcism in wrestling against demonic principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness, spiritual wickedness in high places." The way to defeat demons is by putting on these mighty weapons God has provided. As James taught, it is drawing nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. It is resisting the devil so that he will flee from you.