What Is the Difference Between Demonic Possession and Demonic Oppression?

If you look up the word possessed in the Greek, only 2 instances in the New Testament seem to indicate that a demon “had” someone, and even then, that meaning is a problem with the translation of Greek into English, leaving no actual passage where what people think of as “possession” was indicated.

Acts 16:16 says that a girl was “possessed” with a spirit of divination (literally a spirit of Python), and the Greek word translated possessed is echo, which means had.  So it would appear at first that she was “had” by a spirit, but the word with is not found in the Greek.  So the correct reading is that she had a spirit of Python, NOT that the spirit of Python “had” or “possessed” her.

In Acts 8:7, unclean spirits came out of many who were “possessed” (echo again, “had”) with them.  However, there is no word “with” in the Greek here either.  The Greek basic reading is that they came out “(of) many had.”  In other words, spirits came out of many who had them, not of out of many who were “had” by spirits.

By the way, many translations of these verses other than the King James Version simply state what I contend is the correct reading – that the people HAD spirits (rather than being “possessed” or “had” by them).

If you believe that there is a level of possession where a demon just takes over someone completely, YOU are the one who has been “had” – by Hollywood silliness!  No such case exists in Scripture.  Even the demoniac with the LEGION of demons ran to Jesus and worshiped Him – something that the demons would certainly not have been good with, as it led to their expulsion.  Demons don’t have the power that Hollywood wants you to think that they have.  No one on earth ever gives up his free will, which is why even the most extreme demon cases can be resolved.  I have seen services where a demonized person suddenly shouted out, “I can’t stand living this way anymore!  Help me!”  In one case, the person was taken to a back room where the demon knocked over a row of chairs on his way out, but even a demon like that can’t stop someone who wants to be set free from getting set free in the name of Jesus.

In the many other passages, including the worst case (the Gadarene demoniac), the Greek does not actually say that the people were “possessed” – it merely says that there were “demonized” (the actual word in all these other cases is daimonizomai and it refers to the entire phrase “possessed of devils” or something similar).

So the bottom line is that biblically speaking, there is NO biblical distinction between “levels” of possession or oppression.  Either you’re demonized or you aren’t, and if you are, deliverance is available to you in the name of Jesus!

No one ever loses free will.  When I was a baby Christian, I prayed, “Holy Spirit, just POSSESS me so that I only do what you want!”  But of course, the Holy Spirit could not answer that prayer.  Neither God nor the devil will ever “possess” you in the sense that you lose your free will – even if you ask!

But what about those rock stars who supposedly sold their souls to the devil?  Those were meaningless transactions!  They weren’t Christians, so the devil already HAD their souls!  They retained their free will and could get saved the way anyone else could if they called on Jesus.

Of course, anyone who is sick is oppressed by the devil in one regard, as Acts 10:38 shows, but that would be an example where someone could have an illness but not have a demon at all, which still is not a “lesser” case of having a demon.