09/05/2026
"Can a Christian have a demon? In the Gospels, Jesus cast out demons out of multitudes and commanded His disciples to do the same (Mark 16:17, Matt 10:8). Through out the book of Acts, they did. In fact, at the start of the church, multitudes came and they were all delivered from demons and healed. (Acts 5:16). The bible shows clearly that demons are to be driven out in the name of Jesus and that exorcism was a common practice during the early church.
Church history shows that it was common practice to cast out demons out of someone, especially during baptism. Today, the church neglects this ministry and assume that when one believes they are automatically delivered. If that were the case why did the Disciples and church fathers cast out demons at all? It would have been completely unnecessary.
Now a very important question to ask, “Is there any historical evidence that believers could be demonized?”
Did you know the belief that Christians could have demons was actually a belief held by many of the early Church fathers.
Tertullian in 200 AD, was a warning Christians not to attend pagan spectacles, that they can open a door to be demonized. Then he goes on sharing a testimony about a woman who was a believer that came back possessed.
“We have the case of the woman—the Lord Himself is witness—who went to the theatre, and came back possessed. In the outcasting, accordingly, when the unclean creature was upbraided with having dared to attack a believer, he firmly replied, ‘And in truth I did it most righteously, for I found her in my domain.’”
Then he gives another example,
“Another woman, after going to hear a tragedian, the same night had a linen cloth—the actor’s name being mentioned at the same time—shown her in a dream, and had a reproof administered to her, and lived not more than five days after that.”
Tertullian - De Spectacles 26 C. - AD 200
Firmilian of Caesura to Cyprian also argued that faith can deliver someone from the devil, but adds the qualification of not returning to sin.
“But that the devil is cast out by faith, and that according to the faith of the believer, if he has faith, so he either hates or inhabits him, is manifest from what we see; because some of those who are baptized in health, if subsequently they begin to sin, are shaken by the return of the unclean spirit, so that it is apparent that the devil is driven out in baptism by the faith of the believer, and returns if the faith afterwards shall fail.”
Firmilian of Caesarea to Cyprian — Epistle 75, c. AD 256
During the Council of Carthage in 398 AD. They were taking about protocols of deliverance and wrote,
“When an exorcist is ordained, he shall receive at the hand of the bishop a book in which the forms of exorcism are written, the bishop saying, ‘Receive thou these, and commit them to memory, and have thou power to lay hands upon the Energumens, whether they be baptized or only Catechumens.’”
Energumens (energoumenoi) was an early Christian designation for people regarded as being under the operation/influence of an evil spirit.
“whether they be baptized or only Catechumens.”
This shows that exorcists were to cast out demons out of the baptized, or “Catechumens” means unbaptized.
The early church fathers believed that believers could be demonized, and that demons could return if they were to return to sin or participate in pagan practices. "
- Joshua Shaw
