A Brief Study of Angels

8/13/2019 A Brief Study of Angels

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A Brief Study of AngelsWhere do demons come from?

Among those who accept the existence of demonsthere are various views with regard to their origin.In ancient times, many thought that such beingswere the spirits of deceased wicked people.According to Merrill Unger, this thinking waspopularized by Greek thought and culture and,among others, the Jewish historian, Josephus, tookthis view ( Demons in the World Today , p. 11). Somestill believe this just as many believe that holyangels are the spirits of good people. Of course we

have already seen from Jesus’ account of the richman and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 that the spirits ofpeople who die have a destination to one of twoplaces. They are not left to wander the world makingmischief.

Another view among some is that demons are the disembodied spirits of apre- Adamic race. That is to say, some believe that God created a race ofmen prior to Adam. But God destroyed this race and their world completelyand started over (which is where Genesis 1:3 picks up). However, theirspirits survived and became what we know today as demons. Those whobelieve this make a sharp distinction between the words “angels” and“spirits” in order to support their view. They assert that “spirits” always referto human spirits while “angels” are beings God created separately. In lightof Hebrews 1:14 this distinction is certainly refutable. It must also be notedthat there is no scripture which supports the concept of a pre- Adamic racewhatsoever. Also, there must be an imagined gap between Genesis 1:1 andv. 2 in which all the rebellion, destruction and the resultant chaos occurred.Proponents of this theory sometimes point to the use of the Greek word fordemons in the New Testament. In classical Greek literature its meaning was“the good spirits of departed men of the golden age” (Unger, Demons in the

World Today , p. 12). However that usage was several hundred years beforethe writing of the New Testament and the meaning of the word had changedbefore it was used by the Apostles and other writers.This view has very little(if anything) to recommend it.Still another view is that demons are the offspring of an unnatural unionbetween the “sons of God” (wicked angels)and the “daughters of men”(human women) recorded in Genesis 6:1-4. The theory is that the childrenof this union were wiped out in the flood which followed and their spirits



became the demons. If we assume, for argument’s sake, that this is thecorrect interpretation (angels cohabiting with women), still we are faced withthe fact that nowhere does the Bible address what became of the offspringafter their deaths. Obviously this view of the origin of demons is highlyspeculative. (More later on the Genesis 6:1-4 passage.)

These are all minority views based on incorrect ideas about the Bible orfilling in where God’s word is silent. Now in the interest of honesty andaccuracy, we must admit that there is no specific passage in the Bible thatspells out in plain, simple terms exactly where demons do come from. Someof the background details related to this matter are definitely sketchy. Butthe Bible does provide information which helps us deduce a much morereasonable explanation than the ones above. The majority view amongfundamental Christians is that demons were originally angels who fell fromtheir holy state by committing sin against God.

When did this happen? We cannot place a precise date on it just as we couldnot say exactly when angels were created. However, we can make somegeneral deductions based on what we know from the Bible. Scripture revealsthat these beings are directly connected to Satan (Matt. 12:24-26; 25:41;Luke 10:17-20; Rev. 12:7). Therefore it seems logical to assume that theseangels (also called “spirits” and “unclean spirits” by Jesus--cf. Matt. 17:18and Mark 9:25) fell at the same time Satan did by joining him in hisrebellion against God (more on this when we focus on Satan). The only otherspecific detail with regard to the timing of their fall that we can nail down isthat it occurred before the fall of Adam and Eve in Eden since Satan was theinstigator there (cf. Gen. 3; Rev. 20:2).

How many angels fell from their state of holiness to become demons? Weare given no exact number but there is a passage that may address thisissue to some degree. Some think that Revelation 12:4a is a reference tothe angels who fell with Satan. You may remember that we talked abouthow there seems to be some sort of connection in the Bible between angelsand the stars (though we dare not make too much of it). Here is a verse thatmay be making that link. If indeed this is the meaning (and many do notbelieve it is) then about one third of all the angels God created fell alongwith Satan. How many is that? Again, we have no exact numbers butpreviously we concluded that based on biblical language ( “hosts, thousandsof thousands, myriads” ) there are millions and perhaps billions or eventrillions of angels. A third of a number like that would be sizeable and wouldbe consistent with the Bible (Matthew 5:8-9) and also what we see in theworld around us.

To sum up, God created all the angels perfect and holy. But just as with manat a later time, some of them decided to disbelieve and disobey God. These



were cast out and became thoroughly wicked. Though we have no way ofknowing exactly how many demons there are, it seems logical that there aremultitudes of them. This is the most likely (and most biblically sound)answer to the question of where demons come from.

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A Brief Study of Angels