My Name is Legion -- Part 3

Some day, I may share with you the events which led to my belief in the potential for spirit-possession of the lower animals; but now is not that time. This much I can tell you, and I make no apology for it: during the 1,000 year reign of Jesus and His brethren, it is my great desire that I be given a position of trust over the fate of the angels that sinned so very long ago.

Note: From the previous week you may remember that Jesus had commanded the spirits possessing the man of Gadara to “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit(s)”:

“And they begged Jesus that he would not command them to go out into the deep.”

From the parallel biblical accounts, we find that the spirits begged Jesus:

(a) That he would not send them away out of the country.

(b) That he would not command them to go out into the deep.

What at first appear to be two somewhat different requests are in fact almost exactly the same. When the spirits begged Jesus not to send them away out of the country, the words used in the original text are “away” 649 = “apostello” i.e. to set apart; and “country” 5561 = “chora” i.e. empty expanse. Therefore the original text could have been translated to read: “The spirits begged Jesus that he would not set them apart into the empty expanse.”

The similar account, as it is recorded in Luke says: “They begged Jesus that he would not command them to go into the deep.” The word “deep” 12 = “abussos” depthless, is also translated in other parts of the Bible as “abyss”; or the “bottomless pit.” Ask any professing Christian about the fate of Satan and his demons and they will almost certainly tell you about the “lake of fire.” If you’re interested, you will find the lake of fire referred to in the book of Revelation chapters 19 & 20.

Having read what transpired between Jesus and the spirits to this point, you may find it as interesting as I do that these unclean spirits never even mention the lake of fire. What does seem to concern them is being sent off into emptiness, or into an abyss, or into a bottomless pit. There is an Old Testament reference which bears directly on this discussion; you will find it in the book of Leviticus 16:2-34.

Once a year, every year, on a specific day called the Day of Atonement, the high priest carried out a ceremony which involved two goats. One goat was to be killed, sacrificed as an offering for the sins of Israel. And then in Leviticus 16:21-22: “[The high priest] shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all of the sins of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the [live] goat, and he shall send it away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon it all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let the goat go in the wilderness.”

As mentioned before, this ceremony was carried out each year by the high priest, on the Day of Atonement. The sacrifice of the first goat was prophetic of the coming of a Messiah; the blood of whose sacrifice would cover the sins of mankind -- once for all! That prophecy was fulfilled with the sacrifice of Jesus.

You should understand that only once a year, on the annual holy day called the Day of Atonement, could the high priest of the temple go behind the veil and enter the Holy of Holies where the mercy seat was located. This mercy seat was the earthly symbol of God’s heavenly throne; so that to enter behind the veil was to symbolically approach the very throne of Almighty God. Only the High Priest could pass behind the veil to enter this most holy place; and even then, only after an abundance of ritual-cleansing and blood-sacrifice.

The need for these rituals and sacrifices ceased with the death of Jesus. At the moment of his death, when the veil of the temple was torn in two, Jesus became our High Priest forever “after the order of Melchisedec.” From this we know that Jesus would for evermore have unlimited and unrestricted access to the actual throne of Almighty God.

Now we need to consider what happened to the second goat; the live goat that was “taken away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness.” Notice Revelation 20:1-3: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit [the abyss].” The unclean spirits inhabiting the man from the tombs must know that at the appropriate time, at the end of this present age, it is the destiny of Satan that he be cast into the abyss where he will be kept in restraint for a thousand years.

I believe these spirits were concerned they may eventually have to share Satan’s fate. They were reasonably sure it was not yet time for this to happen; but they were still concerned that Jesus was actually going to cast them out into the deep. If you are still wondering when the lake of fire comes into play, you will find the chronology listed in Revelation 20:1-10.

“There was a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain.”

More than thirty years have passed since I first took a great deal of interest in this verse. At that time I asked myself: “In a land inhabited by, and surrounded by a population who had as an important part of their religion an abhorrence of pig meat, why on earth would there be a herd of about two-thousand swine?” I was fascinated by the answer I came up with; and to this day I continue to believe the reasoning behind that answer is sound. For those of you who are interested, I discuss these thoughts in a short essay, published as part of “Bits and Pieces -- 2” which you will find in the Archives of the blogsite.

“And [the spirits] begged Jesus that he would allow them to enter into the swine.”

We are aware of examples where the human host was harmed in some physical way by possession, but such was not always the case. Consider the account of the damsel Paul and Silas encountered in the land of Macedonia:

Acts 16:16-18 “Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, ‘These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.’ And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And [it] came out that very hour.”

What we do not know is exactly why Paul finally became agitated; but I would draw your attention to the verse where it says: “And this she did many days…” If Paul knew this was a case of spirit possession why did he wait “many days” before casting out the offending spirit? Was it of little or no importance to Paul that the girl was possessed? Did it only become important to Paul when the possession began to disturb him?

Since Paul saw no pressing need to exorcise the spirit, is it reasonable to assume that he did not consider this possession to be a malignancy? Then again, if the spirit did not possess the girl “with evil intent,” why did it take possession of the girl?

If we admit to the inherent weakness of man, and agree to the power and immortality of angels, why would any angel ever want to inhabit a human body? The answer (if what I have come to believe is true) can be quite fascinating; I hope you will bear with me as I try to share my thoughts on why some of the spirit-world not only prefer, but seem to have a great need for possession of a life other than their own.

I mentioned earlier that at one time the angels may have believed that since possession had been condoned by God, it may also be justifiable by them should justification ever be necessary. The dictionary definition of the word “CONDONE” is “to overlook an offence or a shortcoming -or- to allow to be continued what ought to be stopped.”

The angels that were bound to the Earth following Satan’s rebellion had to wait an incredible length of time from the destruction of the Earth to the re-creation. What they did during this extended period is one of the many things I wait with great anticipation to discover. But if during all that time, the whole of the Earth existed only in a state of “chaos and confusion” (see Genesis 1:1-2), then where did the angels spend those millennia -- or does the condition of their habitation mean little or nothing to the spirit-world?

There is a little known legend which tells of a portion of the Earth where life could exist without regard to surface destruction. Interesting perhaps, but not relevant to our present discussion except in one possible respect. What if, long before the creation of man, even before the rebellion of Lucifer, some of the angels used possession of the lower animals as a form of existence and as a source of knowledge and understanding? We must always remember that although their first estate was to keep the Earth, their ultimate destiny was “...to serve those that [one day] shall inherit salvation.”

In order to carry out their ultimate destiny, I must believe that the more intimate their knowledge on every subject the better -- and there is much truth in the saying that you cannot properly understand another until you have, “spent a day in that other persons shoes.” By taking possession of a lower life-form, and living out the complete lifespan of that creature, the possessing-spirit would not only experience every facet of that creature’s life, but would in some vicarious way offset what had become the numbing boredom of its own existence.

Whatever the reason for the very first instance of spirit-possession, it seems this became a preferred form of existence for many of these angels. It would not surprise me to learn that such a vicarious form of existence made life more bearable for them while they waited throughout the eons for their destiny to unfold.

How long did it take from the creation of man for the first human possession to take place? Why did it take place? Whatever the reason for the first human possession, I believe the spirit(s) involved learned much from the experience; I can even accept that what they learned made it possible for them to claim justification of possession as a potential future benefit to mankind?

The threat of “the deep” hangs like the Sword of Damocles over all of the angels that sinned. They know that unless they are somehow pardoned for past wrongs their fate may be to follow Satan into the abyss. They know there will be a Day of Judgment for them and I believe they have a fair idea as to when that Day of Judgment will begin.

Almost two thousand years have passed since the time Jesus walked the Earth and still that Day of Judgment has not arrived. If Jesus had at that time cast out the spirits “into the deep,” then now, two thousand years later, they would still be there waiting for the thousand years of Satan’s incarceration to begin! Is it any wonder they were in such dread of being cast out “into the deep”?

These thoughts and questions may or may not have merit; but Jesus is now telling these spirits, with great authority, that possession of humans was wrong and would no longer be tolerated! Realizing they must obey Jesus and leave their human host, the greatest fear of these possessing spirits was not that they would simply be cast out; but that they would be cast out into “emptiness.” “And all the devils begged Jesus, saying: ‘Send us into the swine that we may enter into them.’”

Have we come any closer to answering the question: “Why would any angel make such a request”? The only reasonable answer I can come up with is that inhabiting a living body, even that of a pig was preferable to having no other living habitation! For whatever reason, these angels not only desired the habitation of a living being, they apparently felt a compelling need for it!

“Jesus said, ‘Go’!”... “And Jesus gave them leave.”... “And Jesus [allowed] them.”

I hope for your sake you understand what is happening here. Jesus gave these angels permission to enter into the swine! Jesus was letting them know that the possession of animals other than man was permitted!

I accept this as confirmation that to this day, some, perhaps most, of the angels that sinned are living out their waiting days by sharing the life experience of many of the lower animals. I believe that for the most part this is a benign possession; desiring only a habitation that would offer interest and variety to offset what for untold millennia must have become an existence with little or no purpose.

I believe that not only were they no longer allowed to inhabit man, but it was implicitly understood they must not involve themselves in any way (as spirit beings) with man. I am prepared to believe that some few demon spirits ignored this; but I believe the vast majority of the angels that sinned have remained obedient, and since that time to this have carried on their lives in complete non-interference with mankind.

“Then the devils went out of the man and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and was drowned.”

Did Jesus play a dirty trick on the spirits? Did he somehow deceive them into believing that if they would only leave the man and enter the swine they would be satisfied? I must believe that moving from the man to the swine was the spirits’ idea. Obviously it was not their first choice; their first choice was to inhabit the man; to inhabit the swine was simply a better choice than having no “living habitation” at all.

Please note what it says in Luke 11:24: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, [it] walks through dry places, seeking rest: and finding none, [it] says, I will return unto my [dwelling place] whence I came out.” For these spirits in the land of the Gadarenes, returning to the man from the tombs was not an option! Their only choice was to inhabit the swine or to: “…walk through dry places seeking rest.”

Note: To what does this refer when it tells us they “...walk through dry places”? We know that one of the first things God did at the time of the re-creation was to “separate the waters from the waters.” Can we assume from this that waters covered the Earth from the time of Lucifer’s rebellion to the time of the re-creation? Is it possible that the angels were made to exist in such an environment throughout what must have been countless millennia?

Genesis 1:9-10 “Then God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.”

Did the spirits knowingly cause the swine to run down a steep place and drown? This I cannot believe! Surely the swine died in spite of the needs and desires of the spirits. I can believe that since they did not have time to prepare the swine for something as invasive as possession that the swine, as a collective herd, went completely out of control. For those of you who know anything about the “herd mentally” you know it often takes no more than a few swine, cows, sheep, buffalo, or even men, to upset and stampede the whole herd. In this case we are talking about the immediate and simultaneous possession of about two thousand animals; is it any wonder they acted the way they did?

When the swine died, what happened to the spirits? The answer is that nothing happened to them! Certainly, they must have had to wander for a while “seeking rest”; but at least they had not been sent to the bottomless pit -- not yet anyway! It is my belief, my hope, and my prayer, that the vast majority of those angels who once sinned will never see the inside of that pit. God willing, they will have a full, productive, and important part to play in the days to come during the time of God’s Kingdom here upon the Earth. But possibly, just possibly, even in the short time leading up to the triumphant return of Jesus and the setting up of His Father’s Kingdom.

Note: As much as I enjoy launching my thoughts into cyber-space each week, I find that my own studies have been suffering because of it. I doubt that anyone could properly understand (or believe) the work that goes into each message; or the fear I live with that something I say may cause one of my brethren to doubt or to stumble in their faith. It may be that I must soon place a pause in this blogsite -- at least long enough to catch up on the many subject-studies I’ve been delaying. Next week I hope to offer you a few more of the “snippets” of information I refer to as “Bits and Pieces -- 3.”