Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Find the answers to all those questions you were too embarrassed to ask in Sunday School. Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. Hosted by Luke Taylor.
Dive deeper! Sign up for the newsletter (and catch up on past newsletters) at this link: https://weirdstuffinthebible.beehiiv.com/
Demons are NOT Fallen Angels
Enoch 15
Introduction
Virtually all the theology books out there tell us: demons are fallen angels. This is the prevailing theory offered by most scholars, pastors and theologians today.
In GotQuestions.org's article titled “What Does the Bible Say about Demons?” The first four words are these: “Demons are fallen angels…”
And I love that website, but this is an area where I would disagree with them. But I bring that article up because that represents the conventional wisdom in modern times in the Western world. And it’s also what I believed most of my life. That when Satan rebelled against God, he took a third of the angels with him, and that these angels are the demons who make up his kingdom today- the same demons that Jesus was constantly casting out of people when He walked the earth 2,000 years ago.
The only problem is: the bible never says that. And that’s not what the ancient peoples believed. Don’t get me wrong: there is a Satan. There were indeed fallen angels. However, the ancient people- including the writers of the Bible- believed demons came from somewhere else.
In fact, by the end of today’s episode, you’ll see that Jesus Himself used an expression that tells us exactly where the demons came from- and we can prove from His own words that they are NOT fallen angels.
So why do people in modern times see things differently?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why this contemporary theory is NOT in the Bible.
Turn to Genesis 6, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]
The Genesis of the Giants
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about how demons are NOT fallen angels—and don’t worry, I’ll also tell you what demons actually are.
If you’re new, we are in a series this year looking at places where the Book of Enoch intersects with the Bible. If you are a longtime listener to this podcast, you may have heard me teach on this before. The reason I’m revisiting this issue today is because this is a major plot point, you might say, of the Book of Enoch, and I simply can’t ignore it.
Also if you’ve been listening for a while, you might also be thinking: we sure have been in the book of Enoch for a while. And I hope you’ve gotten as much out of it as I have; this is the longest series I’ve ever done, and probably ever will do. However, we’re just about done with it. In a few weeks, I’ll be starting a new series.
It does not mean I’ll never pick up the Book of Enoch again. I have more planned to explore in Enoch, and some of it will come later this year. But I have a couple more series I’d like to share with you, to get into some more things I’ve been learning over the past several months. A series on the Underworld realm, also known as Sheol in the Old Testament. A series on the Tower of Babel. And a short series on curses as well. So stick with the podcast, and we’ll have some interesting things ahead.
Last week, I revisited this idea of how the Watchers transgressed a lot of boundaries and mixed things that God didn’t want mixed. They broke a boundary between heaven and earth. Two, they violated a boundary between spirit and flesh. They transgressed a boundary between angel and human. And this created the giants of the pre-flood world.
Genesis 6:1-4 - some verses you’re extremely familiar with by this point, but I’ll read them in the NKJV this time
Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
The Bible speaks of this as the genesis of the giants- no pun intended. The Book of Enoch goes into more detail or expands on these ideas, and we have spent a lot of the year studying all the implications of this- but most of it has been on the Sons of God (or Watcher) side. Today and next week, I want to take a look at what the Watchers created.
The Watchers created these beings known as the giants, or Nephilim. Some translations of the Bible render the word Nephilim as “giants,” which I prefer over the word Nephilim. There’s a little bit of confusion over what the word “Nephilim” means. (If you don’t like etymology lessons, you might want to skip ahead about one minute). Most translators will tell you that “Nephilim” means “the fallen ones.” However, Michael Heiser- who I once had the blessing of interviewing, I shared a couple months back on the podcast- is an Old Testament scholar who says that this is probably not what the word Nephilim means. He says that the word for fallen ones shows up elsewhere in the Bible- such as Ezekiel 32- and it’s spelled slightly different as “nophelim.” And also, calling the giants “the fallen ones” doesn’t make a lot of sense; it would seem to make more sense to call their fathers, the Watchers, the fallen ones.
However, the Aramaic word “naphilya” means literally “giant,” and so Nephilim is probably a word borrowed from the Aramaic language. There are actually a lot of Aramaic words in the Old Testament, as it’s a very similar language to Hebrew, so this wouldn’t be strange at all to find a random Aramaic word in a verse. So the word “Nephilim” probably simply means “giants.” And we can basically prove that when you look at the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. The Septuagint is a Greek translation from the Second Temple period- which is the time of Jesus. The Septuagint of Genesis 6 simply renders the Nephilim as the Greek word “gigantes,” which of course means giants.
End of etymology lesson. But the Book of Enoch, which was also written in Greek, also speaks about these gigantes.
Enoch 15
So for today’s episode, we’re going to finish up Enoch 15. For a reminder of the context: Enoch has been passing messages back and forth between the chained-up Watchers in the Underworld and God up in heaven. Enoch keeps getting on the elevator and going back and forth, and right now he’s being told what to go back and tell the Watchers down in the Underworld. But this isn’t so much about the Watchers today; again, we’re looking at their children.
Enoch 10:9 had addressed them briefly before and told us, “…to Gabriel [God] said, “Go, Gabriel, to the bastards, to the half-breeds, to the sons of miscegenation, and destroy the sons of the Watchers from among the sons of men; then them against one another in a war of destruction. And length of days they will not have…”
By the way, sorry to throw a b-word in there. It’s not a bad word; it simply means the children of a questionable conception. Which is a major theme today. And when the Watchers appealed their sentencing under the earth, they petitioned God that their giant children might not be slaughtered. Here is what God says:
It reads: 8. And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. 9. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, ⌈⌈and⌉⌉ from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; ⌈they shall be evil spirits on earth, and⌉ evil spirits shall they be called. [10. As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling.] 11. And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, ⌈but nevertheless hunger⌉ and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded ⌈from them⌉.
Here is what Enoch 15 teaches us: that when a giant dies- and we know these will all die in the flood- their spirit is consigned to the earth. They are not being consigned to hell for all eternity; they cannot repent and go to heaven; for the time being, their assignment is on earth. We will learn more about this in a few weeks, but there are heavenly realm spirits, there are earthly realm spirits, and there are underworld realm spirits, and these spirits are classified by God as earthly spirits.
The Genesis of Demons
There are three theories I’ve heard about where demons come from. The first is pretty well articulated by GotQuestions.org. Now, I love the GotQuestions.org website. I’ve used it more times than I can count. And it’s very reliable. Even this article—which is titled: What does the Bible say about demons?—is about 90 or 95% true. But the claim it makes in its opening paragraph is wrong. (I’ll link to it in the show notes if you want to read it for yourself).
It begins in this way: “Demons are fallen angels, as Revelation 12:9 indicates: “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” Satan’s fall from heaven is symbolically described in Isaiah 14:12–15 and Ezekiel 28:12–15. When he fell, Satan took some of the angels with him—one third of them, according to Revelation 12:4. Jude 1:6 also mentions angels who sinned. So, biblically, demons are fallen angels who, along with Satan, chose to rebel against God.”
Now, notice that it simply made the claim that demons are fallen angels two times, and it cited some verses; however, none of those verse references actually claim that demons and fallen angels are the same thing.
Now don’t get me wrong. I believe in fallen angels. I believe in demons. I even believe that 1/3 of the angels rebelled against God with Satan. I would say that it happened progressively over a long period of time; like, Satan fell first, and there were 200 Watchers who fell later on, and I believe there were other angelic rebellions that came later after the Tower of Babel—but a lot of the things this article says, I agree with. But tucked away there in that opening paragraph was the claim that this means demons are fallen angels, and it doesn’t.
There’s a second theory of where demons come from, and this is related to the gap theory. The gap theory states that between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, there was a gap of time that lasted thousands or millions of years where other races of beings were born and died, and that demons are the lingering spirits of those beings. Pre-Adamic races, essentially. And this theory says that there were entire civilizations that existed prior Adam and Eve, and that God- at least once, or maybe multiple times- had to wipe out their existence and start again with a clean slate.
And so, when it says in Genesis 1:2 that
2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
This theory basically says that this is after God had just wiped everything away again and was about to start again, this time with Adam and Eve, on a planet that was already polluted with the spirits of ancient civilizations.
Personally, I have not been convinced of the theories out there that there were pre-Adamic civilizations or species. I think the theories are interesting. I know there are some verses that suggest this to be the case. I have books on my shelf that teach this, so I don’t think it’s anything heretical or dangerous. I just haven’t been convinced, personally.
The third theory of where demons come from is what I will call the Enochian view today. It’s this idea put forward in Enoch 15 that the spirits of the giants were cursed to wander the earth and torment humanity, and that this will continue up until judgment day.
And, we’ve already covered the Enoch verses that lay this idea out. The word Enoch used was “evil spirits.” This is a very common phrase throughout the Bible- and notice how often these evil spirits are linked with physical health issues:
Luke 7:21
And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight.
Luke 8:2
and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons
Acts 19:11-12
11 Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.
What do spirits have to do with physical health? Well let’s remind ourselves of what Enoch 15 said: And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble
And spirits of affliction is a perfect example of what they do. They can cause physical maladies on people. Remember this story from
Luke 13:11-13
11 And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. 12 But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” 13 And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.
Enoch also told us that these evil spirits oppress humans. Notice what Scripture also says:
Acts 10:38
…God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
One more thing I want to mention is that Nephilim spirits, according to Enoch 15, “cause trouble.” We see an evil spirit stirring up Saul against David in I Samuel 16. We see evil spirits causing dissension between Abimelech and his men in Judges 9. James 3 warns us that demons can cause us to become bitter, jealous and selfish will our fellow man. So please keep that in mind as well—that that fight you had with your spouse, or that conflict you might be having at work, or that friend you can’t get along with anymore, could actually be from the influence of demons doing exactly what Enoch 15 said they would do: cause trouble.
The meaning of ‘Unclean Spirits’
One more thing I want to look at today is this phrase for evil spirits found in
Acts 5:16
Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed.
In the New Testament, these spirits are also called sometimes “impure spirits” and “unclean spirits.” This is actually the most common description of demons in the New Testament. Matthew 10 makes it clear that these are the same thing as demons.
Why are they called unclean? Well if you’ve spent some time reading the book of Leviticus- first of all, I feel sorry for you. Second of all, the word “unclean” is very common in Leviticus for the types of things the Israelites should avoid.
For example, the food laws seem to be centered around this idea of avoiding animals that have “mixed” characteristics. Sea animals that have skin instead of scales are quote-unquote “mixed” and should be avoided. Winged insects that crawl instead of fly. These mixed animals were declared unclean.
Actions that violated the separation between life and death- like touching a carcass- would make you ceremonially unclean. It didn’t necessarily mean you sinned, but you simply had to be clean before you could participate in tabernacle worship. Why? Because you had violated a boundary or category distinction. Lots of laws in the Mosaic Law revolved around category distinctions. And even though not all these laws might apply anymore, they do teach us valuable spiritual principles around how seriously God takes categorical purity.
And so the phrase “unclean” often implied an impure mixture. I recently found out that when we’re running out of one bag of coffee and don’t have enough coffee grounds in the bag for another pot, my wife will mix it with another bag of coffee. Like, even if it’s a completely different brand. And I told her, ‘no, that is an impure mixture. You do not mix the Black Rifle with the Dunkin Donuts. This is unclean. This is blasphemy.’ I’m like, we’re going back to Old Testament food restrictions in my house until we figure this coffee thing out.
When I’m drinking coffee, I want it to be pure. “Pure” means it’s 100% one thing. I want it to be 100% Dunkin Donuts, or 100% Black Rifle. Or maybe 100% something else. Because if it’s 50% one thing and 50% another thing, it’s no longer pure.
God wanted the Watchers to be 100% Watcher, and for humans to be 100% human. But when the Watchers descended and mated with the human women, their children were 50% Watcher and 50% human being, and that was a problem for God. So they are impure mixtures, or unclean.
And so that’s why Enoch 15 says: Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, ⌈⌈and⌉⌉ from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; ⌈they shall be evil spirits on earth, and⌉ evil spirits shall they be called.
Theologian Dr. Joel Muddamalle writes, “…the term unclean suggests an unholy mixture that hints back to the Nephilim of Genesis 6. The Nephilim were the result of an “unholy” or “unclean” union between the sons of God and the daughters of man, so the name unclean spirit is fitting.”
And if you read Second Temple literature—and as I said, this was what Jesus and the other bible writers and the Jewish people of his day studied and believed—then you will see that the phrase “unclean spirit” is a phrase that draws specific attention to the fact that these were spirits of the giants. Calling them an evil spirit is accurate, but it’s somewhat more general. Even a fallen angel is an evil spirit, in the sense that it’s a spirit who is evil. But calling them an unclean spirit is more specifically drawing attention to the origins of those spirits.
In his book “Demons: What the Bible Really Says about the Powers of Darkness,” Michael Heiser writes that the phrase “unclean spirits” was used by the Second Temple writers to (quote) “draw attention to the origin of these evil spirits as the result of an unnatural mixture and the subsequent emergence from (and contact with) the corpses of the dead Nephilim.”
What Does the Bible Say?
So: the Bible does not give us an origin story for demons in the way that the Book of Enoch does. Does that mean the Bible neutral on this question?
When I touched on this issue a couple years ago in episode 25, I said that the Bible was more silent on this topic. However, I’m going to be a bit more concrete in my answer today.
I’m going to say emphatically NO, the Bible is not neutral. The Bible actually does say that demons are the departed spirits of the Nephilim. How? Because that’s what unclean spirit means. That was the cultural understanding behind that term in the time of Jesus, and that’s exactly what Jesus and the writers of the Gospels called them.
Jesus wasn’t picking a random phrase to call these things when He called them unclean spirits. That phrase had a particular meaning in the times in which those people lived. They knew what it meant. He wouldn’t have said it and meant “fallen angels,” because nobody in those days would have thought unclean spirits were fallen angels. If He meant “fallen angels,” He would have said something else.
Just like if I wrote down the phrase “lame duck president.” If you follow politics, you might sometimes hear the phrase “lame duck” thrown around, which is during the last couple months of the year when a politician has been voted out, but he still sits in office for a couple months after that. People in 21st Century American culture have some familiarity with that phrase. Nobody a thousand years from now would know what that means. If I wrote that down on a piece of paper that someone was a lame duck, and then someone discovered that piece of paper 2000 years later, they’d be like, ‘what? A paralyzed mallard? What did Luke mean by this?”
So if someone took the time to understand my culture, they’d understand perfectly what a weird phrase like “lame duck” means. And in the same way, Jesus grew up in a particular culture. Words have meaning. The phrase “unclean spirits” meant a particular thing in Second Temple Judaism. And so the use of that phrase in your Bible means, without any doubt, that demons are spirits of the giants—not pre-Adamic races—and not fallen angels.
Now, you may be wondering: why does God allow evil spirits to roam the earth? What does He have planned for them later? Why not just send them all to hell right now?
That’s what Enoch 16 is all about, and so that’s what we’ll be looking at next time. The whole chapter. It’s only, like, 4 verses, but we’ll cover them all, and then we’ll be done with our Enoch exploration for the time being.
So make sure you’re subscribed so you can get everything to come!
Closing Thoughts
So in closing: does this particular view of demons have any relevance to us today? In one sense, no. We still need to cast them out. We don’t want to leave them in.
In another sense, this brings greater context to our battles with these unseen fiends. These aren’t just fallen angels. Our battles with demons are battles with a race of beings who were created to dominate humans and steal our dominion of planet earth. The Book of Enoch told us their goals: to afflict, to oppress, to destroy, to attack, to do battle, to work destruction on the earth, and to cause trouble.
Here’s something else that might make your next read-through of the Old Testament more interesting: those giants that David and the Israelites would fight in the Old Testament are the same spirits you battle against today. Think about this: the spirit of Goliath is out there somewhere in this world today. The spirit of Og, King of Bashan, is somewhere out there. The Old Testament tells us what these beings are like. And more importantly, it shows us they can be defeated.
I did a recent episode about why we should be merciless with evil spirits. You notice in the Bible that we aren’t called to empathize and sympathize with them. We’re called to drive them out.
Just like the Israelites were told to be with the Canaanites in the conquest stories of ancient Israel. This is a major stumbling block for many people—both Christian and non-Christian—as they read about how Israel was often told to wipe out everybody in a city. Leave no one alive, not even women and children—be absolutely merciless. That sounds so cruel to us—until you study the return of the Nephilim after the flood and how they permeated the land of Canaan after the Tower of Babel incident. And we’ll probably be talking about that as we wind down my Tower of Babel series later this year.
And so why would God tell His people to be so merciless with the Canaanites? These were Nephilim bloodlines. They were irredeemably, unrepentantly evil. Their purpose was to stop the Messiah. But God stopped them first.
But that’s why ancient Israel was merciless with the giants, and why we should be merciless with the giants we face today.
And just as Israel had to be continuously reminded not to fear them, that’s what we need to remember as well. The same God who told us
In Joshua 1:9
Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
Is the same God who told us
In Luke 10:19
Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Be merciless with the spirits of the giants. We throw down, we cast out, we take back what the enemy stole, we take no prisoners, and we don’t give them an inch. Because God has already told you: you will win.
They are just half-human offspring of the Sons of God. But you ARE a Son of God.
If David could do it with a slingshot and a stone, you can do it with the authority of Jesus Christ.
So if you think slaying giants sounds weird, I hope you’re a little more weird today, too. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.
Link to the Got Questions article: https://www.gotquestions.org/demons-Bible.html