In Mark 5, Jesus casts demons out of a man, and the neighbors ask Jesus to leave. The man who had lived among the tombs is now sitting clothed and in his right mind, but a herd of pigs has drowned in the sea (Mark 5:1–17). His restoration has disrupted the neighborhood, and its people are afraid.
Hear our conversation on the Watchers and the divine council.
What do the Nephilim have to do with a scene like this, much less the church down the street? The connection runs through an ancient explanation of where demons came from and the Christian proclamation that Jesus has defeated them. Following that connection brings us to a neglected part of the neighborhood church’s calling: through Christ, it confronts powers that enslave people and corrupt their shared life.
How the Nephilim became connected with demons
Genesis introduces the Nephilim alongside the sons of God taking human women as wives (Gen. 6:1–4). Within a few verses, the earth is corrupt and filled with violence (Gen. 6:11–13). The ancient interpretation that identifies these sons of God as heavenly beings places their rebellion within that larger account of the world’s corruption, as discussed in Who Were the Nephilim, and What Did Genesis Say?.
The ancient Jewish Book of the Watchers develops this reading of Genesis. It distinguishes the rebellious heavenly beings from the evil spirits that afflict humanity. It explains their connection in 1 Enoch 15:8–10.
And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling.
In this account, the giants die, but their violence continues through their spirits. Those spirits oppress human beings until the final judgment (1 Enoch 15:11–16:1). Their continued violence explains the connection between the Nephilim and demons.
Jesus confronts the powers that possess people
When Jesus encounters demons, he treats their expulsion as evidence that God’s kingdom has arrived. He says, “But if I by the finger of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you” (Luke 11:20). He then describes a stronger man overcoming an armed man, taking away his armor, and dividing his possessions (Luke 11:21–22).
The point is that someone stronger has come to take away what the enemy has held. In an exorcism, that possession is a human being whom Jesus releases from oppression. Deliverance is therefore an act of royal authority: Christ exercises his rule by freeing someone who has been held under another power.
Mark 5 shows what that freedom restores. The man has been living among tombs, crying out and cutting himself, beyond the community’s ability to restrain him (Mark 5:2–5). Jesus drives out the spirits, and the man becomes capable of returning to his own people with news of God’s mercy (Mark 5:15–20).
His deliverance therefore has a neighborhood consequence. A person who had been isolated among the dead can participate in human life again, and the people who knew him must respond to what Jesus has done. As explored in What Does the Bible Teach About Demons and the Kingdom of God?, Christ’s authority over demons belongs within his announcement and demonstration of God’s reign.
The apostles carried deliverance into the life of cities
Acts carries this connection between deliverance and public life into the church’s mission. Philip proclaims Christ in Samaria, unclean spirits come out of people, and those who are paralyzed or lame are healed (Acts 8:5–7). Luke then describes the result in a sentence that reaches beyond any one household: “And there was much joy in that city” (Acts 8:8).
In Ephesus, the sons of Sceva try to use the name of the Jesus Paul preaches, only to leave the encounter wounded and naked (Acts 19:13–16). The news spreads, and Jesus’ name is honored throughout the city (Acts 19:17). Believers confess their deeds, and practitioners of magic burn their books (Acts 19:18–20). Later, Demetrius complains that Paul’s teaching threatens both the craftsmen’s trade in silver shrines and the honor of Artemis (Acts 19:23–27).
The gospel has reached people’s religious commitments and their livelihoods. The silversmiths can see that people who cease to worship Artemis will also cease to buy her shrines. A city’s spiritual allegiance has economic consequences, and conversion can disturb arrangements from which other people benefit.
This gives us a concrete way to understand the church’s confrontation with demonic powers in an area. Paul identifies participation in idolatrous sacrifices as fellowship with demons (1 Cor. 10:19–21). As people turn from such worship to Christ, the powers lose worshippers, and the practices that sustained their influence lose participants.
Justin Martyr connected demonic origins with Christian exorcism
By the second century, Justin Martyr joined the account of angelic rebellion to Christian exorcism. His Second Apology 5 describes demonic offspring and the corruption of human communities. In chapter 6, he points to Christians driving demons out.
For He was made man also, as we before said, having been conceived according to the will of God the Father, for the sake of believing men, and for the destruction of the demons. And now you can learn this from what is under your own observation. For numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world, and in your city, many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and driving the possessing devils out of the men, though they could not be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who used incantations and drugs.
Justin places deliverance within Christ’s purpose in becoming human. He identifies the crucified Jesus as the source of Christian authority. His appeal includes people in his readers’ own city.
Tertullian made a similar public claim in his Apology 23, written near the end of the second century. He challenged Roman authorities to bring a possessed person before their tribunals, declaring that a spirit commanded by a Christian would confess itself a demon. He grounded the Christian’s authority in “naming the name of Christ” and recalling Christ’s coming judgment, placing the encounter under the authority of the same Lord whom the church proclaimed.
These accounts help explain why exorcism belonged within the early church’s public witness. Christians proclaimed a Lord whose authority extended over the powers that people feared and worshipped. Deliverance gave that proclamation a direct consequence for the person seeking freedom, while also challenging the religious claims surrounding that person.
Athanasius described Christ overcoming powers associated with places
Athanasius carried the argument into the places people feared. Writing in the fourth century, he described Christ’s victory over local religious powers. He gives a particularly concrete account in On the Incarnation 47.1–2.
And whereas formerly every place was full of the deceit of the oracles, and the oracles at Delphi and Dodona, and in Bœotia and Lycia and Libya and Egypt and those of the Cabiri, and the Pythoness, were held in repute by men’s imagination, now, since Christ has begun to be preached everywhere, their madness also has ceased and there is none among them to divine any more. And whereas formerly demons used to deceive men’s fancy, occupying springs or rivers, trees or stones, and thus imposed upon the simple by their juggleries; now, after the divine visitation of the Word, their deception has ceased. For by the Sign of the Cross, though a man but use it, he drives out their deceits.
His account connects the preaching of Christ with the defeat of deception attached to particular places. Springs, trees, and stones lose their power to hold people in religious fear. The victory belongs to the incarnate Word.
For a neighborhood church, this directs attention to what people worship and fear in the place where they live. Paul’s warning about fellowship with demons concerns acts of worship that people actually perform together (1 Cor. 10:20–21). The church confronts that allegiance by proclaiming Christ, receiving those who turn to him, and teaching them to live under his authority.
The wider biblical account of rebellious powers also connects worship with justice. Psalm 82 charges the gods with failing to defend the weak and deliver the needy, then calls upon God to judge the earth (Ps. 82:2–8). That connection, developed in The Serpent, the Watchers, and the Divine Council Explained, helps explain why resistance to evil includes the protection of people whom evil powers exploit.
How a neighborhood church participates in Christ’s victory
The church begins with the victory Christ has already accomplished. Paul describes the cross as the disarming of the rulers and authorities, whom Christ exposes in his triumph (Col. 2:15). A congregation therefore confronts evil through dependence on its victorious Lord, calling upon him in prayer and proclaiming the gospel through which people come under his rule.
That dependence gives a church reason to pray for people seeking deliverance and to surround them with patient pastoral care. A congregation that prays for someone’s freedom also undertakes the work of helping that person belong. Shared worship, friendship, and practical care give the restored person a community in which to live as a disciple, extending the concern for restored relationships seen in Mark 5.
Paul’s instructions for spiritual warfare explain how the whole congregation participates. In Ephesians 6:10–20, he joins resistance to the devil with truth, righteousness, faith, the gospel of peace, God’s word, and persevering prayer. These instructions address a church learning to stand together, so its resistance continues through the ordinary commitments by which its members remain faithful to Christ.
Those commitments take public form when Christians cease to practice what they once defended. People who have lied learn to speak truth, and people who have stolen learn to work so that they can share with someone in need (Eph. 4:25–28). As that obedience reaches homes and relationships, the neighborhood encounters a community in which Christ’s rule changes how people treat one another.
The Nephilim tradition describes a world in which rebellion against God produces violence against human beings. The church proclaims Christ’s authority to deliver people from the powers that oppress them, and it gathers those people into a life governed by his commands. Exorcism and discipleship belong within that same work of bringing people under the lordship of Jesus.
The man from the tombs wanted to leave with Jesus, but Jesus gave him a task among his own people (Mark 5:18–20). He was to tell them how much the Lord had done for him and how he had shown him mercy. A neighborhood church carries that witness into the place where it lives, so that people once held under evil powers can know Christ and make his mercy known to their neighbors.
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