The current understanding of the Watchtower is that demons are the fallen angels that rebelled along with Satan back in the days of Noah. So for a few minutes let's consider this teaching as it is presented in the pages of jw.org.
Under this title :" Who are the demons?" (I will include the link below) the Watchtower has this to say:
"The Bible teaches that the Creator himself is a Spirit and that his first creations were spirits. And they quote John 4:24 where it says:"God is a Spirit,and those worshipping him must worship with spirit and truth.”They also quote Hebrews 1:13,14 where we read:" But about which of the angels has he ever said: “Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet”? 14 Are they not all spirits for holy service, sent out to minister for those who are going to inherit salvation?" The article continues:" Further, the Bible mentions wicked spirits, sometimes referring to them as demons." For that thry quote 1 Cor.10:20,21 where we read:"
"No; but I say that what the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers with the demons. You cannot be drinking the cup of Jehovah and the cup of demons; you cannot be partaking of “the table of Jehovah” and the table of demons." They also make reference to James 2:19 where it says:"You believe that there is one God, do you? You are doing quite well. And yet the demons believe and shudder."
So there is a logic coherent argument behind this Watchtower teaching which is this: God is a Spirit, God created other angels as spirits and in time some of these became bad spirits. It makes sense its plain and logical.
Now let's see what they say about the origin of demons.On the same article under the subtitle "Angels that Sinned" the Watchtower has this to say about their origin, the origin of demons:
"When God created spirit creatures, he made them free moral agents, able to choose for themselves whether to do good or bad. Sadly, after the creation of humankind, an undisclosed number of angels chose to do bad by rebelling against God.
The first and most infamous spirit to rebel became Satan. “He did not stand fast in the truth,” said Jesus Christ. (John 8:44) ...Centuries later, prior to the Flood of Noah’s day, other angels joined Satan, forsaking their heavenly position to materialize in human form and dwell on earth. (Genesis 6:1-4; James 1:13-15) When the Flood occurred, the materialized “angels that sinned” apparently returned to the spirit realm. (2 Peter 2:4; Genesis 7:17-24) In time, they came to be called demons.—Deuteronomy 32:17; Mark 1:34.
The disobedient angels now found themselves in a very different situation from the one they had enjoyed before rebelling. Jude 6 reads: “The angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place [God] has reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.” Yes, God did not allow the demons to enjoy their former privileges in heaven but consigned them to figurative “pits of dense darkness,” cut off from all spiritual enlightenment."
So according to the Watchtower demons are the fallen angels that came here on earth during Noah's days ,they materialised and had a form I order to marry human women and bear offspring BUT when the Flood came they became spirits again abandoned their human families and attempted to rejoin the heavenly realm but they were denied access and were instead imprisoned in chains of dense darkness and became demons. (In fact I did a video last time on exactly this subject whether this prison called Tartarus is literal or symbolic in fact you can go back and watch it, the video is called:" Prison of the fallen angels" under my New Light" playlist.)
Is this understanding correct? Are demons the fallen angels of Noah’s days?
For that we're going to have to reverse engineer a couple of verses in the New Testament and consider the belief of the 1st century Jews, because the verses we are going to consider come from the New Testament that was written in 1st century A.D. and it doesn't matter what WE think are demons today ,what it matters is what Jews thought of who demons are.
One key concept to understand is that the Bible is using the word "House" to describe our bodies. I'll give you an example , in 2 Corinthians 5:1 describes our body as a "house", there we read:"
For we know that if our earthly house(=meaning our body), this tent, should be torn down, we are to have a building from God, a house not made with hands, everlasting in the heavens.(=that is a spiritual glorified body)"
SO keep this concept in mind that a body is called a house in the Bible and let's go and read the following verse which is about demons in Matthew 12:43-45:"When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through waterless places in search of a resting-place and finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will go back to my house(=you see the concept again? Our body is a house) from which I moved,’ and on arriving, it finds the house unoccupied but swept clean and adorned. 45 Then it goes and takes along with it seven different spirits more wicked than itself, and after getting inside, they dwell there; and the final circumstances of that man become worse than the first. That is how it will be also with this wicked generation.”
Our body is a container it contains our spirit, our soul. Demons are in need of a house they always want to possess because they lost their house, their body ,their container. That's why you always see them in the Bible wanting to possess humans, animals, pigs etc. Unlike the demons the fallen angels are not in need of possessing a body , they have an angelic body that is also able to transform, they can materialize and demarerialize at will but this is still their body.That is why you never see angels in need to possess.When they came down to earth they didn't possess people they just transformed themselves into humans.
For that reason fallen angels and demons are two different entities. So who are the demons? You probably heard the answer. The demons are the disembodied spirits of dead Nephilim. If you are a jw you know already who the Nephilim are because this is a major teaching of the Watchtower, they are the offspring of human women and fallen angels.We read in Genesis 6:1-4: "Now when men started to grow in number on the surface of the ground and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of the true God began to notice that the daughters of men were beautiful. So they began taking as wives all whom they chose. 3 Then Jehovah said: “My spirit will not tolerate man indefinitely, because he is only flesh. Accordingly, his days will amount to 120 years.” 4 The Nephʹi·lim were on the earth in those days and afterward. During that time the sons of the true God continued to have relations with the daughters of men, and these bore sons to them. They were the mighty ones of old times, the men of fame."
So the Nephilim were hybrids, half human half angel and unlike their fathers that dematerialised and left the planet during the Flood but their offspring perished, their Nephilim bodies expired but their spirits remained here on earth. That is why you never read of demons flying in midheaven like fallen angels they're confined here on earth always in need to reclaim a body since they've lost theirs.
Now is there any evidence for this explanation. Yes there is!
For a start the Jewish word of demon in Jesus days was "TAMUNEFAL" which is a composite word from TAMU=meaning,dead and Nefal= from Nephilim.So Tamunefal would mean dead Nephilim whichvis exactly what demons are. Also there are some accounts in extra Biblical accounts that clearly show their origin and history and she'd more light in the Biblical account.
The first one comes from the book of Enoch chapter 15 verses 1-12. Now before I read from this extra Biblical book a small parenthesis: Is it alright to use extra biblical texts when discussing the Bible.The Watchtower does it all the time.Remember how many times they used the book Antiquities of the Jews written by Josephus in many Watchtower articles to provide additional information around the 70 A.D. destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.How about the book itself? I don't consider it as inspired but take it on the same face value as the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus. It is classed as a historic book that expands on many of the stories of the Bible and when it doesn't contradict the Bible I'm happy to take it into consideration.Also Jude and Peter quote from it in their letters, a plethora of the First Fathers of the Church endorsed it and it is part of the Canon of some translations.So with that in mind let's read chapter 15, verses 1-12:
1. Then addressing me, He spoke and said, Hear, neither be afraid, O righteous Enoch, thou scribe of righteousness: approach hither, and hear my voice. Go, say to the Watchers of heaven, who have sent thee to pray for them, You ought to pray for men, and not men for you.
2. Wherefore have you forsaken the lofty and holy heaven, which endures for ever, and have lain with women; have defiled yourselves with the daughters of men; have taken to yourselves wives; have acted like the sons of the earth, and have begotten an impious offspring?
3. You being spiritual, holy, and possessing a life which is eternal, have polluted yourselves with women; have begotten in carnal blood; have lusted in the blood of men; and have done as those who are flesh and blood do.
4. These however die and perish.
5. Therefore have I given to them wives, that they might cohabit with them; that sons might be born of them; and that this might be transacted upon earth.
6. But you from the beginning were made spiritual, possessing a life which is eternal, and not subject to death for ever.
7. Therefore I made not wives for you, because, being spiritual, your dwelling is in heaven.
8. Now the giants, who lave been born of spirit and of flesh, shall be called upon earth evil spirits, and on earth shall be their habitation. Evil spirits shall proceed from their flesh, because they were created from above; from the holy Watchers was their beginning and primary foundation. Evil spirits shall they be upon earth, and the spirits of the wicked shall they be called. The habitation of the spirits of heaven shall be in heaven; but upon earth shall be the habitation of terrestrial spirits, who are born on earth.
9. The spirits of the giants shall be like clouds, which shall oppress, corrupt, fall, contend, and bruise upon earth.
10. They shall cause lamentation. No food shall they eat; and they shall be thirsty; they shall be concealed, and shall not 1 rise up against the sons of men, and against women; for they come forth during the days of slaughter and destruction.
Now this is were most commentaries on demons come to an end, but I want to take you a little deeper.You see, by just reading the Genesis account you get the impression that immediately after the Flood Noah walked out of the Ark in the safety of a barren earth ready to repopulate the planet along with his family.That couldn't be further away from the truth. In this new world many new dangers appeared that God had to put blocks of safety around mankind. Actually one of them is described here in Genesis 9:1,2 there we read:"God went on to bless Noah and his sons and to say to them: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth. 2 A fear of you and a terror of you will continue upon every living creature of the earth and upon every flying creature of the heavens, upon everything that moves on the ground and upon all the fish of the sea. They are now given into your hand"
Wild animals were not the only threat for mankind immediately after the Flood, a far more sinister force was at work attacking and destroying the sons of Noah. For that we need to turn to another extra Biblical text,the book of Jubilees.Again this book was widely used amongst the first century Jews and frequently quoted by the First Fathers of the Church.It is also called the small Genesis since it provides additional information to the many accounts of the book of Genesis. We read in the book of Jubillees chapter 10 and verses 1 to 4:
And in the third week of this jubilee the unclean demons began to lead astray the children of the sons of Noah, and to make to err and destroy them. 2)And the sons of Noah came to Noah their father, and they told him concerning the demons which were leading astray and blinding and slaying his sons' sons. 3)And he prayed before the Lord his God, and said:'God of the spirits of all flesh, who hast shown mercy unto me.And hast saved me and my sons from the waters of the flood,And hast not caused me to perish as Thou didst the sons of perdition;For Thy grace has been great towards me,And great has been Thy mercy to my soul;Let Thy grace be lift up upon my sons, And let not wicked spirits rule over them Lest they should destroy them from the earth.4)But do Thou bless me and my sons, that we may increase and Multiply and replenish the earth.
So Immediately after the Flood Noah and his family was experiencing a relentless attack by the demons ,the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim to the point that Noah had to plead to God for relief. God then placed a safety guard and limited the action of demons over mankind like he did with the wild animals. In other words what we experience today as demonic attack or possession is nothing less but the restrained version of what a demonic attack can feel like.
To that safely guard also the book of Enoch alludes to in the account we read earlier ,in 1 Enoch 15:9,10:"The spirits of the giants shall be like clouds, which shall oppress, corrupt, fall, contend, and bruise upon earth.(=This is what Noah and his sons experienced immediately after the Flood) 10. They shall cause lamentation. No food shall they eat; and they shall be thirsty; they shall be concealed, and shall not rise up against the sons of men, and against women; for they come forth during the days of slaughter and destruction.(=This concealment that is mentioned here is the safety block God placed over the demons according to the book of Jubilees that they no longer rise against the sons and women of mankind in a unrestrained manner.)
I hope these few passages shed some useful light on the actual identity of demons. Demons are not the fallen angels like the Watchtower will have you believe but rather the disembodied spirits of Noah's days.
Why knowing what the demons real identity is important?
Because we will soon enter a time in human history that God will remove all these safety boundaries that He placed immediately after the Flood. Why know that because the Bible tells us so. Do you remember the first barrier we saw earlier ? It was the fear God placed over the animals so they don't attack mankind. See how this barrier is removed during the Great Tribulation as we read in the book of Revelation 6:8 :"And I saw, and look! a pale horse, and the one seated on it had the name Death. And the Grave was closely following him. And authority was given them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with a long sword and with food shortage and with deadly plague and by the wild beasts of the earth." So the wild beasts are let loose to devour and attack unbelieving mankind. In the same way God will also remove the barrier over the demons.We also read in the book how God is allowing demonic locusts to attack and torment for 150 days the inhabitants of the earth, we read in Revelation 9:5,6:" And it was granted the locusts, not to kill them, but to torment them five months, and their torment was like torment by a scorpion when it strikes a person. 6 In those days people will seek death but will by no means find it, and they will long to die, but death will flee from them."
In fact if you want to see what a uncontrolled demonic attack on a mass scale will look like watch the Netflix film " Bird Box."
So with that I'm coming to the end of this episode of the series "New Light" .I would strongly recommend watching the previous episodes on Tartarus and the 144,000.
Now next week there will be 2 new videos ,one on Wednsday, the latest news that affect the exjw community and the other next Sunday on "Jehovah's Witnesses & the Rapture".
You can find the link to this article on DEMONS below
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Bye for now.
LINKS:
https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g201008/Who-Are-the-Demons/
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