Beware of Demons - Part 2

A Life of Their Own: Addictions

In this article, we are going to look a little more closely at one type of demon Jesus worked to caste out: addiction, specifically alcoholism. Jesus used the term “demon” to describe deluded or destructive patterns of thought that have a life of their own. We need ideas to motivate us and drive us to action. Many of these ideas, such as jealousy, drive us to "crazy" extremes. Jesus's whole teaching can be summarized by saying the right ideas lift us up, while the wrong ideas drive us down. We can listen to angels or demons.

Addiction starts from a simple idea: that you can satisfy yourself with physical pleasure. That idea leads to physical dependence, drug addiction. At that point, the idea is no longer just an idea, it has both physical and psychological components, the demon stealing them from its “host,” giving it both the physical dimension and the mind of its own. If you have dealt with people in the grips of alcoholism, you know from personal experience that the demon will use all the intellectual power of its host to continue its existence. These demons can move from person to person, as one addict promotes his addiction to others.

There is an advantage to thinking about these demons as entities separate from ourselves. When we define them as personal weaknesses, we set ourselves up for failure in fighting against them. A person cannot fight against themselves. Jesus explained this clearly in Matthew 12:25: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” We must separate the opponent from ourselves, making it an external adversary, in Jesus’s Greek, a satanas. This importance of this idea is lost in mythology (see this article on “Satan”), but the concept is that there must always be an outside opponent.

A Detailed Description of Demon Behavior

If we read Jesus’s words as they were written, the practical psychology he was teaching is clear. The clearest example of this is the description of a cast-out “demon” starting in Matthew 12:43 and ending in Matthew12:45. We don’t hear these verses in the church these days. As translated, they seem to describe a demon wandering some on cosmic plane before returning to its human host. However, a different, simpler reading describes an alcoholic returning to his former lifestyle because he has no place else to go.

Let me explain, starting with a literal translation of Matthrew 12:43: “When, however, that unclean spirit exits out from this man, he passes through dry places, seeking, rest and doesn't discover it.” The word "this man" proceeds the verb "he passes." English translations disguise this fact by translating it as "a man" (KJV) or "a person" (NIV) making the story about the demon, not the man.

This verse makes perfect sense if it describes this man giving up drinking alcohol, casting out the spirit, or trying to. This story is about both, the man active in the world and the demon driving him. We can tell when Jesus refers to the “man” because he does worldly things and the masculine gender is used. We can tell when he refers to the spirit because the Greek word “spirit” has the neuter gender.

What happens to a person giving up alcohol? He passes to “dry” places. A term having no meaning for spirits, but one with a well-established meaning in our world: a place without alcohol. The Greek word is a rare one for Jesus, only used here and in the similar verse in Luke. But what and who is “seeking?” The word is neuter, so the spirit is still in the story. What does it want? "Rest," the Greek word means both “relaxation” and “recreation.” Again, isn’t this what the spirit tells a man who has stopped drinking to seek? But the man cannot find it in a dry place.

The next verse is where this story gets really interesting. Its literal translation is: “Then he says, "Into that house of mine, I am going to return from where I came out." And, it coming, it discovers it unoccupied, having been wiped out and well-ordered.” The first part is the man thinking. We know this because “of mine” is masculine. What is “the house?” This simple, real-world interpretation is a drinking establishment, but metaphorically it is the man returning to his old life and the spirit returning into the man. The “coming” is neuter, referring to the spirit coming back into the man.

The final verse is about the man with the spirit within him, seeking out worse spirits. Here , Jesus purposefully uses a reflexive pronoun that can be either masculine or neuter, indicating the blend of the two. The man is in a worse state at the end. Why? Because he had nothing else to replace the emptiness that alcohol filled. Which is the whole point of Jesus’s message: a new place, the realm of the skies is near.

Conclusion

To fight an internal opponent, we must identify it and separate it from ourselves. Much of modern psychology does a poor job of this. Defining demons like alcoholism as a “disease” makes an alcoholic a helpless victim. Alcoholics may be victims, but they are never helpless. People are always given a choice. By calling alcoholism a “demon,” Jesus is identifying the enemy for us, giving us an opponent to battle. However, in the previous article on the meaning of the Greek word, daimonion, the word implies spiritual beings, more powerful than humans, opponents we need additional spiritual resources to battle. Jesus had more to say on this topic, something I will cover in my next article.

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