You may not have heard it and hopefully you will not have to endure the sideshow but blaming every variation from our creature comforts on spirits.  Children behaving badly is because of a spirit.  Financial,  interpersonal, and interracial problems are the result of spirit activity.  If humans were something more than flesh (and  blood!) the analysis might hold water.  The decisive battles of human existence  and destiny are not being fought against evil spirits; demons.  Christ has so destroyed the devil’s works, there is no need to create the impression that Christ’s followers are enrolled in an “arrest and jail” operation against demons.

Angels and people

Demons are not flesh and blood creatures, and humans are not spirit beings.   Demons are angels, beings in essence more like God than humans.   They exist in three environments: heaven, earth, and tartarus (a kind of house arrest action for rebel angels, mentioned by Peter 2:24 ),  The idea that humans can send demons to a hell is not merely without foundation, it is lunacy. 

Demons, the engine for bogus discipleship

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…

1 Timothy 4:1

If you read what follows the first verse from 1st Timothy 4 you would have discovered that there is hypocrisy in the demonic influence and that the hypocrisy is the behavior of the departing believers.  They are the ones “speaking lies” (a once-used term, oral falsifying, ψευδολογος, pseudologos) in playacting.

A demon-influenced person can be expected to have a primary interest in the following:

• forbidding marriage (total ban, interracial, international)
• advocating for abstinence from foods (seasonal and  categories such as clean, unclean, vegan, animal)
• denying God’s creation of all good things
• showing their ingratitude for all things (and people)
• opposing the sanctifying power of God’s word and prayer (1 Timothy 4:3-5, NASB)

There is no question that Catholicism is a hotbed of playacting doctrines.  Catholicism recommends seasonal food restrictions, celibacy regimes and perpetual virginity.  There are rules about who one can marry, there are prayers to saints, there is making Mary a mediator, and the veneration of objects.  This departure from the faith is seen in one or more particulars all over Christianity.

A notch below angels

A popular mantra, which does not deserve the label “doctrine” is  “man is a spiritual being”, because it stands opposite the facts.  God formed man “dust of the ground”, and refers to him as follows.

• flesh and blood
• flesh
• all flesh

What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?  Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!  You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,  All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field…

Psalms 8:4-7

Good and bad service providers

Humans are at their best in this age as servants and have a date with angelic likeness. The great among us are those who serve.  Of the angels we read, “Are they not all ministering [[on-duty]] spirits, sent out to render service [[= doing “deacon” service]] for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14, NASB). 

In the likeness of angels

The Lord himself gives a picture of what the future eternal existence is like when he says, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons [[the products]] of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:34-36, NASB). 

Now we know that angels are not the way they are through resurrection, so let’s not take this saying out of its field.  It is a bogus Christian who claims to have no service commission.  It is equally bogus for citizens of any country to think that they have only the pursuit of liberty and happiness and no duty to serve their families and communities.

The possible and the inevitable

There is another narrative that talks about the eternal – unending – punishment of those who have not measured up to God’s call and standard. This narrative runs parallel to the one about how separate God is from sin without acknowledging God’s personal investment in paying the price for sin.  In a rush to make God a hardline law and order operative they have created a case in which the world would never be rid of rebellion and resistance as long as there are demons and people burning forever in torment.   At some point the universe will be rid of all such annoyances and Scripture is graphic about that as well. The lunatic fringe is on display everywhere dishonouring the name of Christ with political convictions, neo-Israel and mighty warrior delusions.