Samaria: Signs, Spirits, Simony, and Salvation. Acts 8:9-18
There is an interesting thing that we should note here going back to Acts chapter six. There is a tendency, because of the way the choice of the seven has been presented in a lot of churches, to think that this is the original choice of deacons because of the verb for deacon when they were serving the widows was used in that chapter. They are a prototype of what later developed but they are not deacons. They are extensions of the apostles; they are their assistants. They are not even like Timothy or Titus later on as protégés of the apostle Paul, they have a much closer, tighter connection to the apostles. So they are seen as being extensions of the apostolic mission and authority at this point.
We are looking at the impact of the gospel in Samaria. Acts 8:5 NASB "Philip went down to the city of Samaria and {began} proclaiming Christ to them.
One of the things that happens here is what is described in v.7 and down into v. 13 talking about Simon who believes and is baptized, and is amazed because he sees the miracles and the signs that were performed. That causes him to want to pay off the apostles for their power and that becomes known as simony.
We have in verse 7 reference to such an important doctrine related to demon possession and demon influence. There is so much confusion over this because there is a complete failure on the part of not only certain experience-based theologies like the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements but also of many good Dallas Seminary graduates and church pastors who ought to know better who get sucked into this. We should be warned that there are experiential deceptions that Satan puts out in the world and it looks on the surface to us as if it has to be demon possession, what else can it be? We are just so convinced by our experience that that is what this must be that we immediately block out the fact that there could be other explanations, and rather than relying on our experience to define these things we need to rely upon the Word of God to define them. When we get away from the Word of God and start letting experience define things then we start down an extremely slippery slope.
Acts 8:7 NASB "For {in the case of} many who had unclean spirits, they were coming out {of them} shouting with a loud voice; and many who had been paralyzed and lame were healed." We have three groups of people here: demon possessed, paralysed, and the lame. There are those who want to say that the paralysis and the fact that they were lame was related to demon possession. That may or may not be true but it is not inherent in the meaning of this verse. It is clearly speaking of three separate groups of people. Those who are demon possessed have the demons cast out and those who are paralysed and lame are healed. The word there for "healed" is a word that we should all be familiar with. In Greek it is the word sozo [swzw] which is the same word we have for salvation. The word can mean to be healed, to be delivered, to be rescued from some kind of problem, and ultimately the biggest problem that we face is the problem of sin and spiritual death, and to be rescued from sin and death is spoken of by this verb. But it can also mean something much less than salvation. It can mean simply to be healed of a disease, or it can refer to someone who is cured of paralysis, or something like that. In other passages it is even used to describe those who have been delivered from demon possession. So it doesn't necessarily means salvation, it can simply mean being healed. So this is just a general statement and there are about five or six general statements like this in the Gospels related to Jesus' ministry where it simply says that many who were lame or blind or crippled or demon possessed were brought to Him and they were healed. It is just a generic term and we really can't use these kinds of statements for any sort of specificity.
There are three terms that need to be identified in this verse because they are very important. And of we don't understand them we will commit exegetical errors, and some of them are of the most basic kind. It is really sad to watch men who ought to know better make these sorts of error because it makes one wonder if they ever should have been in the ministry to begin with—and this is talking about some very well-known seminary professors and educators because they do well to a point and then they throw out the Bible in favour of experience.
The first word is "unclean spirits." This is pneumata [pneumata] from the basic Greek word pneuma, the word for spirit. It can refer to the Holy Spirit, the human spirit, an attitude, wind, a way of thinking. It also refers to immaterial beings that we call demons, and because contact with them would render a person ceremonially unclean they are called unclean spirits. There are other terms for them, as we will see. These unclean "came out of them," verse 7. This is an extremely important word. In fact, if we don't take this as a technical term to define this whole situation of demon possession and we throw this word out as a technical word, then we don't have any understanding of what demon possession is or what demon influence is. Everything hangs on this word and two other words.
They "came out." That means it has to be where? In! It can either be out or in, and that tells us what demon possession is. The Greek word is exerchomai [e)cerxomai]. That ex at the beginning is from the Greek preposition ek [e)k] which means to go out of or to leave. That's where we get our word "exit." erchomai is just the basic Greek word meaning to come, to go, and exerchomai means to come out of something or to go out of something. Then we have this other word, "many who were possessed." It doesn't say "possessed" in the Greek, and what we will hear when we have people trying to make a non-biblical case of this is they will say: see, all we have is these ambiguous phrases to describe demon possession. But what it really says literally is, they had a demon or they had demons. Now I can say: I have a dog, but that doesn't say the dog is inside of me. Having a demon can be a mascot, any number of things, but that is an ambiguous term. It is not a technical term; it is a very generic term.
So what does it mean to have a demon? The way language works is that there are ambiguous and generic phrases that are clarified by other terms in context. What would be the term in the context here that would tell us what having a demon meant? It is the verb, "coming out of." That is why it is so important. So we will look at the doctrine of demon possession, and the debate is over whether or not the Bible really teaches demon possession. Part of the problem here is that even the English word "possess" is ambiguous. What does it mean to possess something? If we look the word up in the Oxford English Dictionary it basically says that it indicates ownership. And when we read some books on dealing with what the Bible teaches about demons and they will say demon possession means ownership in the sense that a person is not owned by Satan—even an unbeliever is not owned by Satan—and this really isn't a good word. Possession may not be a good word but there is a meaning to possession that does fit. To be possessed by something did at one point have that idea of being controlled or indwelt by a demon. So it will only be one of several meanings: ownership, having an ability or quality, he possesses great talent, he possesses a beautiful voice, great intellect—indicating some sort of ability, quality or characteristic of someone. Or it can mean to have power over someone, as in the idea of demon possession, that something has control over someone. Then there is also the idea of dominating the mind of someone. That comes very close to the biblical idea of demon possession. So yes, that fits within the semantic range of the word "possess."
Webster's says that possess means to be influenced or controlled by something. But influence is different from being controlled by something; they are two different ideas. Then Webster's says "as in an evil spirit, a passion or an idea." Well if I am controlled by an idea or a passion that is very different from being controlled by a demon. This is why the English word is ambiguous and why we find shifty theologians and pastors who try to drive a truck through the ambiguity of the English word. So we have to be careful because the English word is imprecise.
But there are imprecise Greek words as well. The words for demon: There is the basic word daimonion [daimonion] which refers to a demon, a fallen angel. This is a class of angelic beings that followed Lucifer in his rebellion against God. The problem is that today, due to the influence of "scholarship," there are a lot of Old Testament scholars who have gone to European universities, or American universities influenced by European universities, and they have come under the influence of a form of teaching that says neither of these passages (Isaiah 14; Ezekiel 28) is talking about Lucifer. What they say is that Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are just borrowing from Canaanite myths and that they are not talking about some primordial fall of the angels. If we look at just about any study Bible—except for the LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible, The Ryrie Study Bible, The Scofield Study Bible—the editors take this non-Satanic interpretation of these two passages. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 clearly are talking about a primordial being who was at the highest level of God's creation and who entered into sin, and there is nothing in the description of this individual in either passage that fits a human being. So this is Lucifer, and he enticed one third of the angels to follow him in his rebellion and these are the demons, the fallen angels, the unclean spirits or the evil spirits.
Then there is the whole vocabulary fro demon possession. The two key words that describe demon possession are somewhat ambiguous. The first is the phrase echon daimonion [e)xon diamonion] – the verb echo means to have or to hold something; daimonion = demon. It simply means to have a demon. This is seen in Luke 8:26ff, the story of the demon possessed man. In parallel to that in 8:36, referring back to the individual who had a demon, Luke writes: "Those who had seen it reported to them how the man who was demon-possessed had been made well." Here we have the word daimonizomai [daimonizomai], a passive participle. Passive means that it is receiving the action; participle indicates some sort of ongoing action, so it is to be acted upon by a demon.
Three different verbs are used: cast out, go out, and go in. Words like "cast out, come out, go in" are words that talk about in and out. A person who has a demon, a person who is demonised, is a person who has a demon come of them and go into something else. Or they are a person who has had a demon go into to them. That is what is meant by possession. It is very different from influence, which is the influence through thought, through ideas from an external position; whereas demon possession is when a demon takes up residence inside of a person's body and controls them because that person has allowed that to take place. That doesn't mean that that person's volition and personality is completely obliterated, because that person is still there. They are still somewhat conscious and can still exercise a positive volition toward God, and the only way they can be delivered from this demonic possession or control is through faith in Jesus Christ.
The words used here are eiserchomai [e)iserxomai]—and in this case in Luke chapter eight it repeats the preposition eis for double emphasis; it "entered into him." The verb itself would mean entered into but it adds the preposition so that we get the point. This is used in 8:30, 32, 33. The other verb that is used in this section is exerchomai [e)cerxomai] which means to come out of. Then when Jesus calls the demon to leave we have the verb ekballo [e)kballw]—ballo means to throw—which means to cast out of. So all this tells us that the key word is not to have a demon or be acted upon by a demon, but the key word that helps us to understand the dynamic here is the verb: to go into; to come out of.
Luke 8:26 NASB "Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.
He is not coming to Jesus to be delivered, he is still hanging out with the dead people in the graveyard. Jesus is coming to him to cast the demon out. It was the demon who was speaking to Jesus, not the man. The demon knows exactly who Jesus is, and is saying, "Don't send me to torments." Torments is where some demons are bound right now and he doesn't want to go there.
Luke 8:29 NASB "For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had seized him many times; and he was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard, and {yet} he would break his bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.
The point is that what we see here is the biblical usage of the phrases going into, coming out of and casting out of which define what it means to have a demon or be demon possessed. It is not just some generic thing of having some sort of situation where one is acted upon by a demon. It is a very precise kind of situation where the demon has taken up a place of dwelling inside of a person. This can't happen to believers because what happens at salvation is that we are physically set apart to God and our bodies become a temple for the indwelling of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The question is sometimes asked: was Judas Iscariot saved? No, Judas was not saved, for the same reasons articulated here. Because in John chapter 13 which describes the whole upper room situation, first of all Jesus comes in and sits down with His disciples and in verse 2 towards the conclusion of the Passover meal: NASB "During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, {the son} of Simon, to betray Him." The devil is not in the heart of Judas Iscariot, the devil is putting something into the heart of Judas Iscariot. That is demon influence. The devil puts all kinds of things into our hearts by means of the world system, enticing our sin nature, all kinds of things; but that is not demon possession; that is not the internal control or residence of the demon inside the body. It is influence.
But then of we go down to verse 10: "Jesus said to him [Peter], 'He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all {of you.}'" "Bathed" (washed all over) is a picture of being positionally cleansed or saved. Being completely clean = being saved. Jesus addresses the disciples—"you are clean." Then he says, "but not all of you." There was one there who wasn't clean, one who was not saved. Why? [11] "For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, 'Not all of you are clean.' [21] When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.' [22] The disciples {began} looking at one another, at a loss {to know} of which one He was speaking.
John 13:27 NASB "After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, 'What you do, do quickly.'" In the Greek "entered into him" is eiserchomai. If eiserchomai here doesn't mean Satan possessed and entered into him then we can't make the word mean that anywhere else. So if this doesn't mean Judas is possessed by Satan then what it means is we have no doctrine of demon possession anywhere in Scripture and only a fool would teach that. It is insanity; it is exegetical stupidity to say that Judas was a believer and throw out the terminology like this. Judas is clearly an unbeliever, Satan enters into him, and then he betrays Christ.
Demon influence is what we have described in James 3:14, 15 NASB "But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and {so} lie against the truth.
What is more evil, a legalistic Pharisee or a Hindu? They are just different forms of cosmic thinking. A Hindu is a pantheist. The Pharisee may be a monotheist but he is still trying to get to heaven by works. His whole system of thought is just as screwed up, out of whack and unbiblical as the Hindu. So what is the difference between a presidential candidate who follows liberation theology (pure Marxism and operating is operating on pure carnality) and a presidential candidate who is Mormon, and a presidential candidate who is into replacement theology and would hang Israel out to dry in an instant? They are all cosmic thinkers! None of them are operating biblically.
The other thing that happened was "signs and spirits." Signs are important. The casting out of demons was part of the signs and this is why Jesus did it. John 7:31 NASB "But many of the crowd believed in Him; and they were saying, 'When the Christ comes, He will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will He?'" This is why John writes in John 20:30 NASB "Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; [31] but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name." Peter reiterated this is Acts 2:22 NASB "Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know—" What is the purpose of signs and miracles? To attest, to give validation to the message of someone.
So this is what happens; Simon believes. Acts 8:13 NASB "Even Simon himself believed; and after being baptized, he continued on with Philip, and as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly amazed." These signs, 22 Corinthians 12:12 says, are the signs of an apostle. Philip and Stephen are the only non-apostles but they are tightly connected as apostolic representatives.