50 Things You Need to Know About Satan and Demons by Mark H. Muska

Author:Mark H. Muska
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Spiritual Warfare, Devil, Angelology & Demonology, Miscellanea, Christian Life, Christianity, Religion, Biblical Studies, Demonology, Christian Theology
ISBN: 9781441264848
Publisher: Baker Books
Published: 2014-10-27T22:00:00+00:00

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Are some demons more powerful than others?

Author C. S. Lewis may be more popular today than when he lived over fifty years ago. His fiction captures the imaginations of readers as he grapples with important themes. One of his lesser-known fictional books is The Screwtape Letters. As the story goes, Lewis intercepts a series of letters between two demons, Screwtape and Wormwood. Screwtape offers instruction to help Wormwood keep his “patient”—his human subject—from belief in God. Lewis’s insight into human nature, sin, and temptation from a demonic perspective gives us much to think about.

One feature of The Screwtape Letters is the apparent rank of demons in Satan’s service. It becomes clear that Screwtape is higher ranking than Wormwood, but other demons are authorities over Screwtape. It raises several questions. Do the dark powers work together against humans? Are some demons more powerful than others? Is there a ranking of evil spirits?

Several Bible passages indicate that some demons hold high rank. Of course, Satan is the highest over all evil spirits. Jesus tells us that hell itself was not created for humans but for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41).

Some evil spirits are more powerful than the rest, because they take more effort to cast out, according to Jesus in Mark’s gospel: “This [spirit] can come out only by prayer” (Mark 9:29).

There also appear to be high-ranking demons who oversee evil in entire nations. For example, when the angel Gabriel meets the prophet Daniel, Gabriel explains why he was delayed in coming:

Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.

Daniel 10:12–13

Gabriel lets us see into a conflict that is usually hidden from us. He and the angel Michael fight against the high demonic power over the nation of Persia. A few verses later, Gabriel continues to explain things to Daniel:

Do you know why I have come to you? Soon I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I go, the prince of Greece will come; but first I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth. (No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince.)

Daniel 10:20–21

The spiritual battle extends to include the evil spirit over Greece as well. These demons appear to have greater power than most other demons.

The apostle Paul supports a higher ranking for some demons in a few of his letters. For example, Paul warns those who followed Christ in Ephesus against these powers:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:12

Paul uses four expressions to describe these evil spirits.

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