Can A Born-Again Christian Have A Demon In Their Soul Or Body But Not In Their Spirit??

During the late 1960’s there began a teaching within the church that is now known as ‘Deliverance Ministry (DM).’ It is believed by a majority of DM proponents that when a person becomes Born-Again, light comes into their spirit, and they become brand new, but their body will not be made new until Jesus returns and they receive their glorified body. It is also believed that the ‘soul’ (thinking, emotions, will, etc.) is not regenerated as well.

The teaching of DM states that any ’infirmity’ (cancer, epilepsy, arthritis, and any disease for that matter) could be caused by a demonic spirit that has entered their body and soul through an open door of personal sin, as well as from their ancestral bloodline of curses caused by their fathers’ sin being passed down to them, which will control, influence, vex, or oppress those areas with mental illness, fear, self-hatred, anger, unforgiveness, trauma, abandonment, rejection, suicide, witchcraft, pornography, drug addiction, sickness, and disease, and therefore, they must be regularly cast out. Within DM, there are lists and lists of thousands of names of evil spirits.

They also believe that sanctification is setting a person apart from sin and works of darkness. Therefore, DM is part of the sanctification process because most demons come generationally and from sin patterns before a person becoming a Christian.

The numerous cartoonish ramblings of 'deliverance ministers' are used as a validation to deny or write off those who are/have been the legitimate victims of occultic abuse, or that it even exists. However, just because there are many wolves in sheep's clothing within the church, does not negate the very real reality that some of them sincerely believe they are doing the work of satan at his direct request.

I was raised in the occult and am acutely aware of the abuse associated with it and the darkness that envelopes it. Legitimate victims who are radically set free from its grasp by becoming Born-Again, are terrified to speak up, not from the fear of reprisal by those they escaped from, or the demons that tortured and harassed them, but by fellow Born-Again Christians who mock and ridicule them if they ever speak out, and then accuse them of being a liar, or having some sort of mental illness, or that they are just vying for attention by perpetuating "satanic panic."

The facts reveal that there are active occult crime investigators in all areas of Law Enforcement because the ritualistic crimes committed are often so heinous that it is too hard to believe, understand, or comprehend, especially when children are involved.

Even today, there are those who deny the Holocaust that took the lives of over 10 million people, including 6 million+ Jews, because they do not believe it could have been conceived by those who had deep and active roots in the occult, and specifically satanism (For more info, see Julian Strube’s book, “Vril: Eine okkulte Urkraft in Theosophie und esoterischem Neonazismus” or Goodrick Clarke's, “The Occult Roots of Nazism”).

A person may not believe in the 'devil' but he believes in them and wants them dead, or at the very least, impotent, ineffective, and ignorant of his ways as a denier of his power and grasp upon those who are lost.

The 'deliverance' industry is filled with people who bring undue fear to the body of Christ as they vomit out lies and untruths about the security of the Born-Again Christian by either just making 'stuff' up that has no support in the Bible, or twisting it into a pretzel to perpetuate 'satanic panic' so they can make a living and a name for themselves fleecing the flock by doing so.

The bottom line is that DM teaching cuts at the heart of God’s sovereign authority.

'He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son' (Col 1:13 ESV).

The historical facts are that there has been no mention of anything remotely like modern ‘Deliverance Ministry’ over the last 2,000 years. Nor is there any historical writing by a Church leader that states directly, or indirectly, that a Born-Again Christian can have a demon.

The Bible gives no instructions or commands to cast a demon out of a Born-Again Christian. Instead, it instructs them, to:

1. “Be self-controlled and alert”

2. “Stand firm in the faith”

3. “Submit” themselves “to God”

4. “RESIST the devil and he will FLEE from” them

(James 4:7; 1 Pet 5:8-9 – emphasis mine).

Explicit Vs. Implicit

Even though there are zero accounts in Scripture of a Born-Again Christian having demons cast out of them the primary proof DM ministers offer is their personal sensory experience, and adamantly state that “a person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an opinion” (aka - biblical theology) because there are no explicit Scriptures verses that say specifically, word for word, that a demon cannot possess a Born-Again Christian. They believe that it is experience that primarily shapes the interpretation of God’s Word rather than the Bible shaping their experiential theology.