There is a lot of talk about demons: where they came from, whether they are fallen angels or the ghosts of ancient giants, and what they can do to a person. Scripture says less than the speculation does, but what it says is clear, and it ends in good news.
Satan: a created angel who fell
Satan is not God’s opposite or equal. He is a created being who fell through pride: a new believer must not be lifted up “with pride” and fall “into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Timothy 3:6). Jesus said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18). His names describe his work: Satan means adversary; devil means slanderer; he is “the accuser of our brethren” (Revelation 12:10), “a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). Ezekiel 28 is addressed to the king of Tyre, but it says something no king of Tyre could claim: “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God… thou art the anointed cherub” (28:13-14). The one who was in Eden was the serpent, “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan” (Revelation 12:9). So the prophet looks past the king to the one behind him. Many read Isaiah 14 the same way, behind the king of Babylon (see The Book of Life on “Lucifer”).
Everything was made by God, but not everything does God’s will. “All things were created by him” (Colossians 1:16), and when He finished, it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). God made Satan; He did not make him evil. “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee” (Ezekiel 28:15). Angels, like people, were made able to choose, and some chose against their Maker (see Angels: free will and the angels that fell). Evil is not something God created; it is what a free creature does when it turns from Him.
But doesn’t God say, “I make peace, and create evil” (Isaiah 45:7)? There the pairs explain the word: light against darkness, peace against evil. The opposite of peace is calamity, not sin, and the Hebrew ra covers both; the KJV uses “evil” for disaster elsewhere too (“God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them,” Jonah 3:10). God sends judgment and calamity; He does not create sin: “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13).
Fallen angels
He did not fall alone. The dragon’s tail “drew the third part of the stars of heaven” (Revelation 12:4), and he was cast out “and his angels were cast out with him” (12:9). The fire was “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). Some are already held in chains “unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6; 2 Peter 2:4). Others are still active: “principalities… powers… spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).
Demons, or evil spirits
The Gospels call them “devils” and “unclean spirits.” They know who Jesus is (Mark 1:24); they “believe, and tremble” (James 2:19); they can be many in one person, “My name is Legion: for we are many” (Mark 5:9); and they seek a body to live in: the unclean spirit “walketh through dry places, seeking rest” and returns to the house it left (Matthew 12:43-45). How a spirit can use a body is explained on What Is a Spirit?
Where did demons come from? Three answers
The Nephilim question
“The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives… There were giants in the earth in those days” (Genesis 6:2, 4). Who were the “sons of God”?
- Angels. The same phrase means angels in Job 1:6 and 38:7. Jude speaks of angels who “kept not their first estate” and, “in like manner,” Sodom “going after strange flesh” (Jude 6-7). Many early Christian writers held this view.
- The godly line of Seth, marrying the ungodly line of Cain. Augustine and most Reformers held this view, noting that angels “neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30).
The idea that demons are the giants’ spirits comes from the Book of Enoch, not the Bible: “the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth” (1 Enoch 15:8, R. H. Charles). Jude quotes Enoch once (Jude 14-15), but the book was never received as Scripture; Bishop Nathaniel J. Wilson calls it “the apocryphal book, the book of Enoch.”1 So the Nephilim theory may be interesting, but it is not a doctrine you can build on. (The giants the spies saw after the flood, Numbers 13:33, came in what Scripture calls “an evil report.”)
Angels and evil spirits: the difference
More on the holy ones: Angels.
What they cannot do
Satan had to ask permission to touch Job, and was told how far he could go (Job 1:12). “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able” (1 Corinthians 10:13). “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Bishop Wilson sees in Jesus’ casting out of demons “the universal hierarchy of order that places humans above evil spirits over which believers are explicitly given power”2 (Luke 10:19).
Can a Christian be possessed? Apostolics generally answer no: a body filled with the Holy Ghost is His temple, and “what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?” (2 Corinthians 6:16). A believer can still be tempted, pressured and oppressed, which is why Scripture says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Some Christians hold that believers can be demonized; the debate is real, but no Scripture shows a Spirit-filled believer possessed.
The Name they cannot stand against
“In my name shall they cast out devils” (Mark 16:17). Paul did exactly that: “I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour” (Acts 16:18). But the name is not a magic word. The seven sons of Sceva tried it without knowing the Lord, and the spirit answered, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” and overpowered them (Acts 19:13-16). The power is in the name because it is God’s own name, revealed in Jesus (see The Name of God), and it works for those who belong to Him.
What the Bible does not tell us
Some of the most-asked questions have no clear answer in Scripture:
- Exactly where demons came from, and whether “demons” and “fallen angels” are the same beings.
- When Satan fell: before Adam, or after creation was finished.
- How many there are, beyond “the third part of the stars” (Revelation 12:4).
- Their ranks and territories. Daniel glimpses a “prince of the kingdom of Persia” (Daniel 10:13), but no map is given.
- Who the Nephilim were, for certain.
- Which troubles are demonic. Scripture separates the two: they brought Jesus those “possessed with devils” and those “that had the palsy” (Matthew 4:24). Not every sickness or sin is a demon.
“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us” (Deuteronomy 29:29). What is revealed is enough: who they are, what they cannot do, and who has beaten them.
How it ends
Their defeat is already won: at the cross Christ “spoiled principalities and powers… triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15). Their end is fixed: “the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:10). That fire was made for them, not for you (Hell Was Not Made for You). “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20). The way to be on the winning side is the way Peter preached: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ… and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38).
1 Nathaniel J. Wilson, Apostolic Pentecostal Theology, 2nd ed. (2025), p. 493 n. 1061. ↑
2 Ibid., p. 422. ↑