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Sunday, November 16, 2014

Pastoral Ponderings ~ Demons: I have a Big Brother. His Name is Jesus.

          Question: if someone who has professed faith in Jesus Christ is harassed and troubled by strange things that qualify as some form of demonic activity in their lives, what would it look like for Jesus to help them? I ask this of you who know you are the children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. You are the “us” and “we” of this Pondering.[1]
          Remember that the New Testament gives us four gospel accounts that reveal the glories of Jesus Christ as “Immanuel,”[2] “God with us,”[3] “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,”[4] the Word become flesh,[5] followed by a wonderful collection of letters to the churches expressing the way Jesus continues to do his ministry through the church as his body.[6]
          With that in mind, do we get enough examples in the gospels of how Jesus handled demon-troubled people while in his fleshly body to know how he continues to handle demon-troubled people through his spiritual body, the church?
          I hope we can see the sobering seriousness of each of us answering this question since we who are the body of Christ will be called to action in whatever way Jesus responds to such situations. Whatever we believe about these things will determine how we behave when such situations arise.
          One of the most important parts of this answer lies in our personal experience of desire to be like Jesus. Paul described our growth as believers like this, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”[7]
          Each of us is to see our lives as “being transformed into the same image” as Jesus Christ our Lord, “from one degree of glory to another.” This would show in our lives by Christlike character, but it would also include Christlike behavior. In other words, we would not only develop characteristics that are like Christ, as expressed in the fruit of the Spirit,[8] but we would also do things the way Jesus does things, seeking to be like him in our activities as well as our attitudes.[9]
          When we face the scenario of believers in Jesus Christ seeking to come to Jesus for help with demon-troubles, we must know what Jesus thinks about such things so that we are free to move as members of his body to do what he desires to do for these brothers and sisters. Paul said that “we have the mind of Christ.”[10] He expressed his desire for the church that, “you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.”[11]
          We are to picture this as the one body of Christ having one mind, the mind of Christ, since Jesus Christ is our head.[12] However, since the body of Christ is made up of people, all with our own minds, emotions, and wills, who are at all levels of maturity, all in various stages of our incomplete conformity to the image of Jesus Christ, the apostles had to urge the church to agree, to believe, and behave “in one spirit,” and to think and act “with one mind.”
          In other words, while the church does have one mind, the mind of Christ, the work that Jesus can do through his body requires getting the parts of his body to willingly submit to his thoughts, and willingly band together to do his will.[13] And a very important part of this is getting us to think hard on how Jesus himself would relate to anything we are facing.
          Knowing what Jesus would do about anything at all, and especially how he would minister to demon-troubled Christians, requires fellowship between two things, the word of God, and the Spirit of God. We cannot understand the word of God without the Spirit of God teaching us all things, and reminding us of what we have been taught from God’s word.[14] And, we cannot understand the Spirit of God, and how to keep in step with him,[15] and follow his lead,[16] without understanding the word of God that has already been given to us.[17]
          When we look into the word of God, relying on the Holy Spirit to give us understanding of God’s word, our starting place to understanding Jesus is the gospels. They are the foremost picture of what Jesus did in relation to people, giving us the most personal, front-row-seat kind of exposure to how our Savior thinks, how he feels, and what he does.
          If we want to know how Jesus would relate to a demon-troubled Christian, the starting place is to look at all the ways he ministered to demon-troubled people during the few years of his earthly ministry. In the same way as parents and churches gain great comfort from the revelation of Jesus welcoming children to himself,[18] helping us appreciate his thoughts, feelings, and actions towards the little ones in our lives, the church must find the same great comfort from the revelation of Jesus in his ministry to demon-troubled people.
          While it would take wonderful hours of study to consider all the ways Jesus related to the demonized, let it suffice to lay this groundwork for our faith, that we can know the mind of Christ for people facing such things in our day by considering the way Jesus ministered to such people in his day. The only difference between then and now is that then Jesus just had to mobilize his fleshly body to speak what he was thinking, and to do what he was planning, while now he has to get all of us who are his body to act in that “one spirit” with that “one mind” that ought to be a lot less work than we make it![19]
          The summary of how Jesus related to demon-troubled people while in his earthly ministry was that he related to every one of them no matter how we would describe their experience with demons.[20] If we sincerely want to know the mind of Christ for demon-troubled children of God today, we must begin with this verifiable mind of Christ from his ministry to demon-troubled people in his day. Every demonized, demon-harassed, demon-oppressed person who was brought to Jesus experienced the same ministry from him. They were all delivered.
          While there may be all kinds of questions regarding what this would look like through the church, and there may be variations in ministry due to the condition of the church in any locale,[21] when we begin with this revelation of Jesus Christ our Savior in the gospels, we discover that he ministered to everyone who came to him, however their life-experience required his help. No matter who came, or what they were dealing with, he gave good news to the poor, bound up the wounds of the brokenhearted, proclaimed liberty to the captives, opened the prison to those who were bound, proclaimed the year of the Lord's favor, comforted all who mourned, gave them “a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.”[22]
          Bottom line: Jesus, as head of his church, seeks to do the same for people now as he did for people then. If we can look at the way he welcomed little children to himself, and seek to be the body of Christ that welcomes little children to Jesus in the same way, then we must look at the way Jesus welcomed demon-troubled people to himself, and seek to offer them the same ministry of liberty and deliverance as we witness in our Savior. And this should be true even if (or should I say, ‘especially if’) these demon-troubled people are already members of our family through their faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.
          Now, one of the objections to this encouragement that the church minister to demon-troubled Christians the same way that Jesus ministered to the demon-troubled people who came to him in his day, is that some people claim it is impossible for Christians to experience the same demonic things as we see in the gospels. They claim that the New Testament declares this, that those Christians cannot have the demon-troubles they testify is their experience.
          Now, put this into a question for a moment: do we have any example of Jesus responding to someone’s life-experience by telling them that there is somewhere in the scripture that says they couldn’t possibly have the experience they are experiencing?
          In fact, do the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry show us that Jesus only ministered to people if their life-experience was pre-described in his scriptures (what we now call the Old Testament)? Or, do we see Jesus relating to every life-experience of the people who came to him without needing a scripture reference to authorize their life-experience as valid?[23]
          A second question to answer is this: does the New Testament explicitly say that Christians cannot have demonic troubles, or is that a “beyond what is written” interpretation?[24] To try to keep this within the bounds of what I affectionately call a Pondering, I will give a short answer now, and ask you to stay tuned for further blogposts as I seek to explain this more clearly.
          The answer is this: there is nowhere in the New Testament that explicitly says that Christians cannot have the demonic troubles they describe. There is nowhere in the New Testament that tells us to what degree Christians can be harassed or troubled by demons, just like there was nowhere in the Old Testament that told Jesus how much the people of God in his day could be harassed and troubled by demons.
          We are left with the wonderful encouragement of our Savior who received every demonic problem as valid, and gave everyone who came to him verifiable deliverance. We can stand with our Savior with a willingness of heart, soul, and mind, to accept any believer in Jesus Christ who comes to our churches with a longing for someone to show them how to know Jesus as the deliverer the way people in the gospels came to know Jesus as the deliverer. We can humbly present ourselves to Jesus as head of his church, asking that he would move by his Spirit to fill us to the full,[25] so that we have complete freedom to utilize our place in the body of Christ to welcome and minister to every demon-troubled believer we ever meet.
          So, instead of using hope-filled scriptures to tell demon-troubled Christians that they are not demon-troubled, let us use those hope-filled scriptures to show demon-troubled Christians what Jesus will do to deliver them now as he delivered people then. Instead of saying to a demon-troubled Christian that, “because ‘he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world’”[26]you couldn’t possibly have demons in you,” we can tell them that, “because Jesus who is operating within his brothers through the power of the Holy Spirit is greater than the one who is coming at us from the world, we have every assurance that Jesus will deliver you from whatever demonic troubles are going on within you.”
          In fact, when you meet such a Christian as this, likely someone who is on the verge of losing all hope because of experiences with people telling them they don’t have their demonic troubles, or they aren’t really a Christian, tell that person that you have something to say, and then say something like this, “Demons, we have a Big Brother. His name is Jesus.”
          When we know that our Big Brother is greater in us, in his church, than any demons who have come against anyone in Jesus’ family, the Spirit will then lead us in how to pray, and how to join Jesus in the work he is doing through his spiritual body. He will give our hurting brothers and sisters the same deliverance today that Jesus gave people before. Except now, he has chosen to do it through us.
          The bottom line for me is this: if I have to choose between giving ministry to demon-troubled Christians, and rejecting ministry to demon-troubled Christians because someone says that Christians don’t have demonic problems, I will choose the side that looks the most like Jesus.[27] I hope you will join me on this side.

© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, Canada, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)



[1] This applies to any other synonymous pronouns as well. In other words, I’m writing to the church so we can consider how Jesus would work through the church.
[2] Isaiah 7:14
[3] Matthew 1:23
[4] Colossians 2:9
[5] John 1:14
[6] Colossians 1:24; I Corinthians 12:1-31; Philippians 2:12-13; Acts 1:1, Luke writes that his gospel account addressed “all that Jesus began to do and teach,” with the book of Acts continuing to show what Jesus did and taught through his body, the church.
[7] II Corinthians 3:18
[8] Galatians 5:22-23
[9] John 14:12-14
[10] I Corinthians 2:16
[11] Philippians 1:27
[12] Ephesians 4:15
[13] Philippians 2:12-13
[14] John 14:26
[15] Galatians 5:25
[16] Galatians 5:16, 18
[17] Romans 8:1-13 is an example of the word of God telling us about the ministry of the Spirit of God.  
[18] Matthew 19:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:16
[19] Oftentimes our perceived right to disagree with one another, and to harbor personal “convictions” and “perceptions” and “doctrinal distinctives” explain why things don’t get done as quickly in the church as it did when Jesus only had to work through his body of flesh. It is sad to think of what it would have looked like if Jesus’ fleshly body acted with the same disunity, disharmony, and dysfunction as his spiritual body does in our present day.
[20] Here are the references to demons in the gospels. It should be clear how Jesus responded to these life-experiences. https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?search=demon&version=ESV&searchtype=all&bookset=4&resultspp=500
[21] Remember how the letters to the churches in the New Testament as a whole, and the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, show a whole range of conditions which would clearly affect how well those people were able to keep in step with the Spirit in doing any kind of ministry at all.
[22] Isaiah 61:1-3
[23] Yes, it was a rather exhilarating discovery to realize how many things Jesus dealt with in his ministry that were not “in the scriptures” of his day. Jesus’ own example shows that we do not need to find someone’s life-experience in scripture to know his mind about helping people with their life-experience. Jesus always responded in the way that Scripture declared that the Messiah would do, fulfilling scriptures in ways that people had never thought of in advance, but he did not need to find anyone’s life experience “in scripture” before he would open his heart to their need.
[24] In I Corinthians 4:6, Paul explains that his teaching and example is presented to the church so that they will “not to go beyond what is written.” He does not want believers being “be puffed up in favor of one against another.” When people go beyond what is written, claiming that their interpretation of scripture is scripture, people must now choose between opinions. As the church is lured into this snare, various speakers and teachers become puffed up as authorities against other speakers and teachers who are puffed up as authorities. The church becomes divided over who they “favor,” rather than uniting in humble dependence on the word of God, accepting that it sometimes doesn’t say as much as we wish it said. However, no matter how little scripture does say on a subject, we never need to go beyond what is written to make up an answer. Especially when people then treat the answer they have made up as though it is scripture.
[25] Ephesians 5:18
[26] I John 4:4
[27] I say this, not only as seeking to follow Jesus’ example in the gospels, but that I believe this is the way to do ministry in the context of the whole rest of the New Testament. 

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