[Note:  This note was originally written on September 8, 2010, and sets the stage for a project on writing about the evidence of Satan’s divided kingdom that can be found within the pages of scripture.]

In Luke 11:14-26, we read the story of Jesus Christ casting out a demon. The response of some people was amazement. Others wished to test him by prompting further acts, and some people accused Jesus of casting out demons by Satan (or, more precisely, by Beelzebub, the Philistine “Lord of the Flies”). These critics were silenced by Jesus asking them upon what authority their sons cast out demons if he cast them out by the ruler of demons, and stated that a house divided cannot stand. He then proclaimed His power over the demonic realm and further stated that when demons leave the comfortable housing of a host, that they find life on the outside less enjoyable and then take other demons more wicked than themselves and go back home to make themselves more comfortable. Today I would like to examine the possibility of Satan’s house being divided against itself, as well as the possible implications of the differing degrees of wickedness within the demonic realm. As I plan on being mostly indirect, I hope you will be patient with me.

We know that Satan’s kingdom will fall, from scripture. For example, we are told that the gates of the grave (the city of Satan) will not be able to withstand the victorious armies of God (see Matthew 16:18) and that the unrepentant wicked will be denied access into the city of God (see Revelation 22:14-15.

We also know the eternal fate of Satan. Revelation 20:10 states clearly that Satan will be cast into the Lake of Fire to receive the second death appointed to those who are hardened in rebellion against God. What happens to the rest of the demonic horde is more equivocal, however. James 2:19 states that the demons believe in God (knowing His existence to be a fact) and that they tremble in the expectation of eternal judgment. However, 1 Corinthians 6:3, in the context of describing the competency of ordinary members to judge the disputes within the Church, states that we will judge angels. This does not appear to be a mere rubber-stamping of the judgment of condemnation, but part of the Great White Throne Judgment spoken of in Revelation 20:11-15 where those who have been deceived by Satan will have the chance to be forgiven of their unwitting rebellion against God. Knowing that Satan is the father of lies and has been a liar and a murderer from the beginning (see John 8:42-47), may we not ask if some of the demons themselves may not have been deceived into rebellion against God, giving Satan practice in how to deceive to use against human beings, who are probably (on account of our more limited knowledge and our more easily distracted nature) easier to deceive than the angels? If at least some demons were not deceived, and did not willfully rebel, is it not therefore at least possible that there might be the possibility of repentance among some demons, requiring Satan to deceive his own demons by ruling over them with fear by tormenting them with reminders of God’s future judgment to keep them in line?

Let us also ask how Satan’s realm is organized. Ephesians 6:12, in the context of describing the armor of God that Christians must wear to war against Satan’s realm, describes the demonic realm as being made up of principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual hosts of wickedness. These appear to be the Satanic equivalents of the various offices discussed by Paul in Ephesians 4:11-12, suggesting that the demonic realm is a corruption of God’s realm. Likewise, from Luke 11, we see that some demons are more wicked than others. Daniel 10:10-21 states, in an odd passage, that there are some very powerful demons who are in charge of nations and empires (like Persia), which require powerful angels to overcome (like the Archangel Michael). Furthermore, Matthew 20:25-28 contrasts the hierarchial and tyrannical governments of the Gentile kingdoms with the self-sacrificial servant leadership that is to govern God’s church as well as the individual families within it (see, for example, Ephesians 5:25-29), which would indicate that the Satanic realm is governed tyrannically by Satan just as God and Jesus Christ rule over the universe with a self-sacrificial love.

It is helpful at this point to examine briefly what it is that led Satan to rebel. We are told in Ezekiel 28:11-19 several times that Satan was defiled by the iniquity of his trading. Presumably this trading involved his conspiratorial planning. Hebrews 1 and 2 give the biggest clue about the reason for Satan’s rebellion against God. These two chapters repeatedly mention that God is raising up sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10), but that angels were created to be servants of God’s children (Hebrews 1:14) and not His children (Hebrews 1:5). Since Satan was the pinnacle of beauty and wisdom among the angelic realm, we can imagine that he viewed the loss of his preeminence to human beings, who were given the possibility of entering into God’s family (a possibility denied to angels), and who the angels would serve for eternity (rather than rule over), with less than enthusiasm. It is also not difficult to see that he was able to stir up a third of the angels to discontent by feeding the worries and fears and pride of those angels concerning the puny human beings whose creation God was lovingly planning.

Before we get into the subject of how Satan led his angels into rebellion, though, let us first examine the ways in which two truths about demons may be shown. First, not all demons appear to be rebellious against God. 1 Kings 22:19-23 gives an account, by the word of Michiah the prophet, of an assembly of the hosts of heaven. One spirit (presumably a demon) volunteers to be a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab’s false prophets. There are two possible implications from this story (and both may be true). First, the spirit may have been a demon, in which case the demon is willing to volunteer to serve the will of God, not by compulsion, but by free will. This opens the possibility that not all demons have rebelled against God’s authority, but may have been deceived unwittingly into rebellion, and still occasionally wish to show their loyalty to God despite their current estrangement. A second possibility, of course, is that the spirit may have been an angel, in which case the deception conducted against the enemies of God is not sinful (of course, this may also be true even if the spirit had been a demon acting according to God’s will).

The surprising truth of the demonic realm I would like to bring to attention is the fact that Jesus Christ, in his earthly ministry, showed mercy to certain members of the demonic realm. Luke 8:26-39 tells the story of an unfortunate man who was cursed with a host of demons. When Christ exorcised these demons from the man (called “Legion” because of how many demons were inside of him), the demons asked Jesus Christ for mercy in not casting them into the abyss, the place set aside for flagrantly wicked demons (see Jude :6). Surprisingly, Jesus granted their request and allowed them the mercy of entering into a flock of swine which then ran to their deaths into the Sea of Galilee. Nonetheless, the fact that Jesus Christ would show mercy to demons is striking, and suggestive of the possibility that at least some demons themselves may find greater mercy to come (if the judgment of the rebellious angels spoken of in 1 Corinthians 6:3 is more than merely formal punishment but allows for the possibility of repentance and subsequent restoration to their positions of service).

Let us now conduct a thought experiment, to better understand how Satan’s rebellion may have worked given our understanding of the dynamics of human rebellion. Satan mobilized 1/3 of the angels into hostility against their rightful authority–namely God. Nonetheless, it is possible (indeed, highly likely) that not all of these demons were consciously rebellious, even if all were discontented, presumably about the creation of mankind to enter into God’s family.

Let us divide the demons into the categories of rebels we find among human beings. Some rebels are the masterminds (like Satan, and presumably his top lieutenants). These demons consciously and flagrantly rebelled against God. Presumably they rallied the troops, organized the conspiracy against God, were promised the positions of high authority in Satan’s government, wrote the petitions of discontent against the actions of God, and disciplined the demons, keeping them in line through fear and terror, and deception. For these demons, who sinned presumptuously, there is presumably no hope of repentance, as they have been hardened in wickedness, and given great power by Satan accordingly. Some of these demons may be those spoken of as being reserved for condemnation in utter darkness for leaving their proper abode (see Jude :6, referenced above).

A second group of demons may have been led into rebellion by mistaken loyalty to those higher up in the hierarchy. Perhaps these demons have no hostility towards God, but felt that they had to take orders from the next one up on the chain of command, and felt unable to stand on their own against the corrupted authority figures of the demonic realm in high places who had cast their lot with Satan. For these angels, their lack of self-confidence in God’s providential care, and their too-high regard for hierarchy may have led them into rebellion with uneasy consciences. As they were not themselves flagrant in rebellion, Satan must presumably keep them in line by a rigid and harsh hierarchy, always showing who is boss in order to demonstrate his fitness to rule over them.

A third group of demons may have been even less conscious rebels, and may have been entirely deceived and never even intended at all in their hearts to act against God. Perhaps they were told by Satan (or one of his henchmen) that they were only expressing legitimate disagreement with God’s plans, and signed their name on the dotted line of the petitions of discontent, only to find that they had joined a rebellious host without planning to do so. It is in this realm of the demonic host that has the greatest possibility of repentance, since those who have not hardened their hearts in rebellion against God may still find restoration upon repentance.

If some angels rebelled without ever having intended to do so, but were deceived, then Satan’s house is truly divided against itself in profound ways. For example, demons without hostility towards God but with a high degree of obedience to hierarchy must be kept constantly in line, because slackening control would lead to their defection from Satan. Likewise, those demons who rebelled because they were deceived about the nature of Satan’s conspiracy (having confused a legitimate expression of disagreement with rebellion against God’s authority and hostility to His plan to create beings in His image to be a part of His family, and to rule over the universe and all things in it) must be kept in the dark, because they never truly agreed to rebel in the first place. Therefore Satan’s entire realm would, in this case, be based upon rule by fear as well as deception about Satan’s motives as well as God’s plan, which means that Satan’s realm is divided against itself as a result of the very means by which Satan caused a third of the angels to fall.

On the one hand, this means that Satan’s gift at inspiring rebellion has been honed and practiced well, but also that we cannot lump all rebellious demons in the same category. Part of judgment and discernment consists in understanding the differing motivations present among the demons. For those who rebel presumptuously, with eyes open, there is only the possibility of judgment, as they have hardened themselves against repentance and committed the unpardonable sin. For those demons who rebelled on account of their misguided loyalty to superiors, there needs to be a strengthening of their faith in God’s providential care of those who will stand up for Him, as well as a certain political re-education about the true nature of authority. And for those who were deceived into rebelling unwittingly against God, the knowledge of God’s mercy and the opportunity for restoration upon repentance must be made clear so that they do not despair of their errors and fall into greater sin.

Obviously, an understanding of how rebellion worked in the demonic realm has implications for the physical realm as well in those situations of rebellion we witness in life and read about in history.