Question-- Demon Possession

[MB]

Hello,

I have been taught that demon possession can only occur in unbelievers. Is this consistent with Baptist Theology?

Thanks in advance....

Since believers should have the Holy Spirit with in after being born again I don't see the Spirit giving demons any room.
MB

 

[Marcia]

"Marcia, Marcia, Marcia," [courtesy of the Brady Bunch] :smilewinkgrin:

Excommunication is a beating, not a guilt trip.

To be "delivered" to someone is to be put into captivity to them. Saddam Hussein was "delivered" to the Iraqi's (at least to the sect that is in power now). In exactly the same sense, disobedient Christians are delivered to Satan.

They are not delivered to the world, they are delivered to Satan.

The purpose of this temporary captivity is stated in just as straightforward a manner: for the "destruction" of the lusts of the flesh, to ruin them as an invading army ruins a city. Where God's child will not yield to texts of Scripture, the ills and troubles inflicted by Satan will drive the foolishness out of him.

Well, I think we are saying somewhat the same thing. Being given over to the world is being given over to Satan. The world is under the influence of Satan (willingly though it does not see it as Satan).

Some Christians in Ephesus--Paul singles out two leaders, Hymenaeus and Alexander (v. 20)--made this mistake (and Paul's language, rejected and blaspheme, suggests that it was a conscious one), with devastating results to their relationship with God. Shipwrecked raises images in the mind of "destruction," not "setback." Furthermore, the disciplinary measures taken are severe. Handed over to Satan refers to excommunication from the church back into Satan's realm. We should not misunderstand the nature of this process. It was not simply intended to "cut out a cancer" in order to preserve the rest of the body, as some churches view it today. Neither is it a practice that the church today can afford to ignore, as if it were an aberration belonging to the Inquisition. Taken together, Matthew 18:15-17, 1 Corinthians 5:5, 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 and 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 reflect the development of a carefully measured process. Each step was designed to bring the erring individual to the point of admission and true change of mind and behavior. Even if the individual persisted in a stubborn refusal to change (like the two mentioned here), the final step of expulsion from the fellowship back into the hostile world was ultimately intended as a means (desperate and last-ditch though it be) of reclamation. To be handed over to Satan (compare 1 Cor 5:5) is to be exposed, without the protection God promises to his people, to the dangers of sin. For some it takes being cast off into the sea to realize the advantages on board ship.

Source
Commentary on 1 Tim at Bible Gateway


Commentary by John MacArthur on this:

Being turned over to Satan in both of these references that I have mentioned to you has the idea of being put out of the church, of being disfellowshipped, or in the old terminology, excommunicated. It has the idea of being cut off from any further association with the saints of God and the Lord's table. It would be in the terms of Matthew 18 to take one who has by continual sin been put out of the church and treat them like an unbeliever. It is to say then that to turn someone over to Satan means that prior to that they were not fully in his power else there could be no turning over, there could be no committing and no abandoning to Satan if they were already in his power.
Now 1 John 5:19 says the whole world lies in the lap of the wicked one. The world is already in his hands. The world has already been delivered to him by sin.

Source
http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/54-9.htm

 

[Aaron]

Since you put it that way, it looks like we are saying basically the same thing. As the world is under Satan's power, there was no real difference between Carl Sagan and Anneliese Michel, or between Caiaphas and Mary Magdalene (prior to her exorcism and conversion). Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

That's one reason I wouldn't rule out demon possession as a scourge. I'm not dogmatic of course.