It is unfortunately typical for me to be unable to follow through on promises I made. I didn’t write 1,000 words yesterday because I spent the whole day, morning to night, with my daughter’s family. Family trumps blogging.
So, the demons!
The popular myth is that demons are fallen messengers (angels), 1/3 of whom fell with Satan before humans were created. The myth comes from Revelation 12:4, where “the dragon” draws 1/3 of the stars with his tail and throws them to the earth. In verse 9, the dragon is identified as Satan, and he and his messengers are thrown down to earth.
*Note: I hate, hate, hate that we continue to mistranslate the Greek word angelos into “angel.” It does not mean angel, it means “messenger.” It sounds like angel, but it does not mean angel.
I invite you to read Revelation 12. I don’t think you will interpret it to mean something that happened before humans were made. I think you will interpret it to mean something that happened when Jesus was born. This interpretation is strengthened by Luke 10:18, where Jesus said that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven while the 70 were out preaching the Gospel of the kingdom.
But if this was not the origin of the demons, where did they come from?
1 Enoch, the Nephilim, and the Spirits of the Dead
In 1990, I began reading the early church fathers in order to learn just what the faith once for all delivered to the saints was. The language of the 1890s translators was difficult, but I had no problems reading this bombshell:
… let these persuade you that even after death souls are in a state of sensation; and those who are seized and cast about by the spirits of the dead, whom all call dæmoniacs or madmen … (Justin, c. AD 150-160, “First Apology,” ch. 18)
I was shocked! Demoniacs are seized by the spirits of the dead!?
I’m pretty sure, based on my 1990 reading plan, that I read that in 1990. I would guess it was only a couple weeks later when I read, in Justin’s “Second Apology,” this explanation:
God, when He had made the whole world, and subjected things earthly to man, … committed the care of men and of all things under heaven to angels [messengers] whom He appointed over them. But the messengers transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by love of women, and begat children who are those that are called demons. (“Second Apology,” ch. 5)
This seemed an obvious reference to Genesis 6:4. My memory is failing me here, but I have to assume that I asked David Bercot about this in 1992 while we were trying to start a church that would honor the teachings of the united early churches. He told me about 1 Enoch, mentioned in Wednesday’s blog. I soon bought and read it.
Remember, 1 Enoch is quoted in Jude (unless there was some tradition about Enoch that both 1 Enoch and Jude quoted, which is possible). The early Christians were obviously familiar with it, at least the first section of it, which may have been written earlier than the rest. The story goes like this.
There were “Watchers” who came down to earth, saw the daughters of men, married them, and fathered children who were giants. The Watchers are not explained, but they were obviously heavenly beings who knew a lot of things humans did not. According to 1 Enoch, at least the version I read, their children were 300 cubits, which is 450 feet tall! The book has a lot of crazy things in it; no one today thinks Enoch wrote it, and outrageous exaggeration was typical of some of these recreations of supposedly older books.
Note: The “Book of Jasher” is mentioned in the Bible (Josh. 10:13 & 2 Sam. 1:18). You can buy “The Book of Jasher” today, but it is a 15th- or 16th-century re-creation. In it the sons of Jacob can yell so loud that one shout could take out a whole group of enemy soldiers. As said, extreme exaggeration is typical of these restorations, and Enoch is no exception. Nonetheless, Enoch preserves ideas that are represented in the New Testament.
Anyway, Enoch goes on to say that God commanded Gabriel to “excite them [the Nephilim] against one another” so that they “perish by mutual slaughter.” He sent another messenger, Raphael, to bind up Azazel, their leader, open “the desert which is in Dudael,” and cast him in there and, finally, Michael was to bind the rest “for seventy generations, even to the day of judgment.” See my post on Azazel for his role in the Day of Atonement.
The souls of the giants were not allowed rest, but were cursed to roam the earth until judgment day. For Justin, the offspring of the Watchers were the demons. In 1 Enoch, their disembodied spirits continued to afflict humanity. (ChatGPT wrote those 2 sentences to correct an overstatement I made. I didn’t feel like editing it, so … my first AI insertion into my blog.)
I found this interesting. Notice that “Legion,” the many demons that were in the demoniac of Mark 5, begged Jesus not to send them out of the country (Mark 5:10). That made me wonder if they were Nephilim that had lived in one specific place. Genesis 6:4 says that the Nephilim were “were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”
Note: Before we go on, I want to help you keep these things accurate in your mind. The Watchers are heavenly beings, possibly angels/messengers. “Angel” in the Bible means “messenger,” not angel, in both Hebrew and Greek, so I use “messenger” even in Bible quotes. The Watchers, who might be messengers or might be some other form of heavenly being, married women. The Watchers were condemned by God to imprisonment in chains. Their children, the Nephilim, killed one another, and their souls were condemned to roam the earth. This is one possible origin of the demons.
The Watchers in the New Testament
Whether the pleas of Legion apply or not, there are a couple direct statements about these things in Peter’s 2 letters:
Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who before were disobedient when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ship was being built. (1 Pet. 3:18-20, WEB modified slightly)
For if God didn’t spare messengers when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved for judgment; and didn’t spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly … then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment. (2 Pet. 2:4-5, 9)
Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who didn’t believe. Messengers who didn’t keep their first domain, but deserted their own dwelling place, he has kept in everlasting bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. (Jude 1:5-6)
Clearly, both Peter and Jude knew about spirits/messengers–messengers are spirits, Heb. 1:14–imprisoned from the time of Noah until the time of Jesus, who preached to them either in Hades or after he was resurrected. In addition, Peter says they will remain imprisoned until the Day of Judgment. Oddly, I think, he says they are imprisoned in Tartarus. In Greek mythology, Tartarus is the deepest, darkest pit of the underworld. This certainly jibes with the idea of God imprisoning the Watchers until the last day.
And the mention of Tartarus and Hades can be my next post, hopefully tomorrow. My readers are smart people. I’ll leave this post just as it is and let you take it further. I think I’ve given sufficient warning that 1 Enoch was not written by Enoch the seventh from Adam.
