The Spiritual Realm is Real and Active - Basics of Spiritual Beings

 

 There is apparently an appetite for information regarding the spiritual realm that is active all around us judging by the amount of traffic that my last article has received. As I mentioned in that article, I am somewhat hesitant to delve into the topic of the spiritual realm because it will be very easy for me to write something in such a way as to unintentionally mislead someone if I am not exceedingly clear about what I am saying, and I do not want anyone to stray into a pursuit of the unseen as a result of my words. In general, I would say that even though we are surrounded by a spiritual realm, we are not to seek to engage with it other than to seek the council and the leading of the Holy Spirit, but if you are not familiar with the Holy Spirit, there is a possibility that you may open yourself up to being mislead by a fraudulent spirit. Because of this danger, I will probably take things very slowly in my articles, covering only one or two topics at a time instead of cramming a lot of information into the article.

Perhaps the best place to start is to prove from Scripture that there is, in fact, a spiritual realm in the first place. It is interesting how many people may believe in God, but do not believe in angels; or they may believe in God and angels but not the devil. The Bible is very clear on the existence of God, angels, the devil and demons. Anyone who takes the Bible seriously cannot deny the existence of the spiritual realm and still hold that the Bible is true.

We can start in Genesis 1:1-2 where we read, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters." First we read of the existence of God; "In the beginning God". If someone is reading the Bible, they are likely doing so in search of God or searching to refute the evidence of God, so they already have some knowledge about the notion of God, but as we see in verse two, we are not only introduced to God in these two verses, but also to His Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Spirit; "and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters."

For the sake of time and space, I am going to skim over proofs of God and the Holy Spirit under the assumption that if you are reading this, you either have already accepted the truth of their existence or that you will trust me enough to accept this as truth for the sake of continuing. 

It does not take long for us to be introduced to the antagonist of the Scriptures, that being the devil or Satan. He is introduced as "the serpent" in Genesis 3:1. We read of the serpent deceiving Eve who then influences Adam to act against God's specific command regarding the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; this is the first sinful act of mankind. Revelation 12:9a gives us the evidence that ties the serpent in the garden to Satan the deceiver where we read, "And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world;". Now Satan is not even the proper name for the devil, it is actually a Hebrew word which means to attack or accuse; to be an adversary (H7853). Revelation 12:10b shows us that it is the serpent, Satan, that accuses us before God, arguing for our destruction, "for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night." The word satan has also come to be used as the name of the one who opposes God as we see it used in certain contexts (H7854). However, what has come to be considered the proper name for the one who used to minister before the very throne of God before his fall after the rebellion, and who is currently accusing us before God, is Lucifer, which is a Latin word for "light-bringing" and is derived as the name of the accuser in reference to Isaiah 14:12 which is widely accepted as referring to the fall of Satan from Heaven's glory, using the Hebrew word "hêlēl", (H1966) which translates to Lucifer in the King James Bible.

Ezekiel 28:12-17 is noted as being a "lamentation over the king of Tyre", but the nature of the language seems to indicate that it has a dual fulfillment, and it is believed that these words are also a reference to Lucifer's original beauty and office in Heaven prior to his rebellion and downfall. He is said to have been decorated with precious stones and gold and had been given the job of a guardian cherub. It lays out how his heart was corrupted by his pride in his own beauty and how God was forced to cast him out of His presence.

Satan did not fall from Heaven alone though. Revelation 12:7b tells us that "The dragon and his angels waged war" in Heaven against Michael the Archangel and his angels, and Satan lost. We look at Revelation 12:4a and presume that this indicates the portion of the angels that rebelled against God along with Satan, presuming that one third of the angels of God rebelled against Him; "And his [the red dragon's] tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth."

So, thus far we have glanced at God and His Holy Spirit, we have been introduced to Satan and the idea that he has fallen angels with him, and we have seen that there are guardian angels and archangels and other angels, but these things are believed by most Christians because the Bible is specific about their existence. But what does all of this have to do with us as we go about our lives on earth?

Well, we see numerous times in Scripture where we are told that angels interact with people to comfort, guide and inform them of things of God. It is my belief that in some of these instances, specifically those in which the angel is referred to as the "Angel of God", among other titles, it is actually Jesus Himself that is intervening with and for people in a Christophany, which you can read more about in my article about Christophanies. We also see the angel Gabriel who deliver messages to Zacharias and Mary (Luke 1), and this is after he appears to Daniel several times to interpret what Daniel has been seeing. We see angels awaken Peter and lead him out of prison (Acts 12), lead other apostles from prison (Acts 5), first warn and then escort Lot and his family out of Sodom (Genesis 19), and of course we can't forget about the appearances of the angels at the birth and the resurrection of Jesus (Luke 2, Luke 24).

But what of the influences of Satan and his angels? Surely if God's angels are working for His will then Satan's angels are working for his will. There are plenty of instances where demons and their activities are mentioned in Scripture, in fact, a quick word search for "demon" delivers approximately 65-70 instances of that word and words that include it such as "demoniacs" and "demon-possessed", and a search for "unclean spirits" delivers 10 results. As far as stories that demonstrate in some ways how demons operate, one story that stands out is of the demon possessed man in the area of the Gerasenes that we find in Mark 5. This is a man who was living among the tombs of the dead, who repeatedly injured himself under the influence of the demons and who had demonstrated super-human strength when men tried to bind him with chains, breaking them apart to free himself. When Jesus demanded to know the name(s) of the demon(s) in the possessed man, the answer he got was “My name is Legion; for we are many.”(v.5) It is possible to assume that by stating this, we are to understand that this man was possessed by as many as 6000 demons, since a legion of Roman soldiers numbered anywhere from 1000 to 6000 depending on the era, but this can also potentially simply be an expression of many without a specific number being referred to, as I suspect is the case here. We are told that there was a herd of about 2000 pigs that the demons possessed (v.13) after having been exorcised by Jesus, so we can probably presume that there were at least 2000 demons in this one man.

There is also the story of the seven sons of Sceva who were exorcising demons in the name of "Jesus whom Paul proclaims" (Acts 19:13), who were (either all or 'both') beat up and stripped naked by the demon possessed man, since they were trying to claim an authority that was not theirs to claim. Then we have the account in Mark 9:14-29 where Jesus' disciples were unable to exorcise a demon who frequently took control of a man's son and caused him bodily harm.

Finally, I want to point out that the demons of the Bible know that they are the minor spiritual players in the story of mankind. They recognize that they have chosen to act against the Almighty God and that their future is already determined. They know that they are being granted a time in which to scheme and act, but that time will come to a close. In James 2:19 we read that the demons recognize God as the Supreme Being and they shudder in that knowledge, yet we know that they are still condemned to eternal destruction at the end of the age. So if a knowledge and even acknowledgement of God is not enough to save one from Hell, what is the future of those people who not only choose to ignore the reality of God but who acknowledge Him and still refuse to honour Him? Surely, as the Scriptures point out, their future is for them to be forever punished in Hell along with the demons.

I will close this article at this point. I have not said anything in it that is not easily searched out in the Scriptures, so those of you who may be familiar with the Bible may have found this article somewhat boring, but for those who are unfamiliar with the Bible, I hope that I have shown you that the spiritual realm is often referenced in Scripture and that this is actually a significant part of the Christian doctrine.

I will say again that if I continue down this path, I will do so slowly and carefully. I also ask that any of you that are reading these articles would please continue to pray for me so that I will step carefully with the words that I choose and the topics that I will discuss. If you have anything that you would like to add or ask, please feel free to contact me using the comments section below. Alternatively, I have now made my email address visible in my profile if you prefer to contact me in a more private manner; it is godcentereddad@gmail.com.

Also visit my home page to see if there are any other articles that might interest you.

You can find the next article in this series by clicking here.