What Does the Bible Say About Demons and Ghosts?
Insights on What God Says About Spirits - the Stuff of Halloween
According to History.com, the ancient Celts celebrated their New Year on November 1 and celebrated their harvest festival Samhain on October 31, when they believed the ghosts of the dead returned to the earth. To trick and scare these evil spirits away from re-entering the bodies of the living for a chance at the afterlife, the Celts dressed up in ghoulish costumes and as evil entities.
Years later, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints Day (or All-hallows), a day to honor saints and martyrs. The night before it was called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Later, the Church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, another day to honor the dead, during which people dressed up as saints, angels and devils.
The Bible shares a lot of information about such spiritual beings, making the highly commercialized and entertaining Halloween holiday associated with these entities a time also to reflect on the reality of these spirits, according to the Bible.
What Does the Bible Say About the Devil?
The Bible in Isaiah 14:12-15 describes the career of the devil called Satan, whose original role was that of an angel in heaven named Lucifer. Lucifer eventually aimed to “exalt my throne above the stars of God” and “be like the Most High,” which led God to kick him out of heaven and doom him to hell. In Genesis 3:1-24, Satan then introduced sin into the world when he appeared in the form of a serpent.
Satan tempted the first woman, Eve, to take a bite of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil that God had instructed her and the first man, Adam, not to eat of while in the Garden of Eden. The devil accomplished this by boldly denying God’s instructions, explaining that God’s warning to the husband and wife pair that eating the fruit would lead to death was false and that God had an ulterior motive.
When the naïve pair believed the lie and ate the fruit, God punished them by kicking them out of Paradise. From then on, Satan had a negative influence over the earth and on the behaviors and thoughts of mankind, hence his names “father of lies,” “prince of the power of the air” and “ruler of darkness” (John 8:44, Ephesians 2:2, Ephesians 6:12). Christianity holds that this explains why so much evil, fear and other problems plague today’s society – a world God intended to be Paradise.
What Does the Bible Say About Demons?
Demons, fallen angels who rallied around Satan, also have a huge place in man’s problems, according to the Bible. In Mark 5:1-20, one man containing an “unclean spirit” was dwelling among the tombs and cutting himself with stones, and no one could bind him. When Jesus Christ arrived to cure the man, the evil spirit – called Legion, meaning there were several spirits inside him – worshiped Jesus and begged Jesus not to torment them. (Dozens of passages describe demon possession that causes physical and mental illness.)
The spirits then asked Jesus to drive them into a herd of swine, which ran into the sea and drowned. Evil spirits indeed were real and active in the lives of mankind. The fact that no one could bind the possessed man shows their power. Their asking to be sent into the swine also shows that demons like to dwell in beings and influence them to be violent. For example, the devil entered the disciple Judas and encouraged him to betray his friend, Jesus (Luke 22:3-6).
However, the fact that these unclean spirits worshiped and begged Jesus not to bother them also shows they acknowledged that Jesus was superior to them, according to scripture. In fact, the Bible says even though demons are Christ’s rebellious adversaries, even they believe God is all-powerful and sovereign (James 2:19). Not only that, but Revelation 20:7-10 emphasizes that Christ has already defeated the devil and his demons, who are slated to be tormented forever in the lake of fire.
What Does the Bible Say About Ghosts?
First Samuel 28:3-20 tells the story of King Saul and his decision to consult a medium – one who presumed to communicate with the dead – to find out if he would die at the hand of the Philistine army. Previously loyal to God, he impatiently turned to the medium because he hadn’t yet heard from God about his future – something God discouraged and punished.
Saul disguised himself and visited the Witch of Endor one night, asking her to conduct a séance for him to bring back God’s prophet Samuel, who had recently died. The séance seemed to work, and the medium saw Samuel, who ascended out of the earth and warned Saul that God would destroy him in battle with the Philistines the next day and that “tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.”
Some scholars believe God, in his omnipotence, sent Samuel from heaven to give Saul the message, thus using something forbidden like a seance for his spiritual purpose. But other scholars believe it was actually a deceptive demon who impersonated Samuel and appeared to Saul as his ghost, warning him about his impending doom (Samuel was really dead and in heaven with God).
Halloween Spirits
According to the Bible, the Samuel event confirms the reality of the spiritual realm and the reality of life after death away from the earth. This only solidifies God’s encouragement for humans to trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior and receive eternal life (Romans 6:23). Based on scripture and a variety of scholarly research, although the ghoulish beings and evil demons/devils regularly associated with Halloween today are seen as entertaining, these entities are very real and very serious.
Source:
- Scripture quotations are from The Nelson Study Bible: New King James Version (NKJV) © 1997 by Thomas Nelson Inc.
The Bible Has Much to Say About Evil spirits
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