John H. Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College (at the time of publication), teams with his son J. Harvey Walton to address the contested area in contemporary biblical interpretation regarding the nature and activity of demons and spirits in Scripture. Their central thesis challenges dominant spiritual warfare paradigms by arguing that the biblical authors were less concerned with ontological realities of the spirit world than with communicating theological truths through the cognitive environment of the ancient Near East. This approach, consistent with Walton’s broader hermeneutical project evident in works like The Lost World of Genesis One, prioritizes understanding Scripture within its original cultural and literary contexts rather than imposing modern systematic categories onto the text.

The Waltons organize their study around three primary sections: Old Testament perspectives, New Testament developments, and theological synthesis. Throughout, they maintain that biblical demonology must be understood functionally rather than ontologically—that is, Scripture’s purpose is not to provide information about the nature of demons but to communicate theological truths about God’s sovereignty and humanity’s relationship to the divine.

Turning to the New Testament, the Waltons acknowledge a more developed demonology but maintain their functional hermeneutic. They argue that Jesus’ exorcisms and confrontations with unclean spirits address the fundamental problem of human alienation from God rather than engaging in cosmic territorial warfare. Demon possession, in their reading, serves as “living metaphor” for humanity’s captivity to sin and the powers of disorder. When Jesus casts out demons, he demonstrates divine authority over chaos and previews the restoration of creation rather than engaging in strategic spiritual combat. The Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5:1-20), for example, illustrates Israel’s uncleanness and alienation, with the exorcism symbolizing restoration to community and covenant relationship.

The Waltons make several valuable contributions to biblical theology. Their insistence on reading Scripture within its ancient cognitive environment prevents anachronistic interpretations that force modern categories onto ancient texts. Their functional approach helpfully refocuses attention from speculation about demonic ontology toward the theological purposes of biblical authors. Additionally, their critique of simplistic spiritual warfare models that lack clear biblical warrant serves as a necessary corrective to some excesses in popular-level demonology.

Furthermore, the book’s dismissal of territorial spirits and strategic spiritual warfare may overreach. While excesses certainly exist in much spiritual warfare literature, passages like Daniel 10:13-21, which describe “princes” associated with kingdoms, suggest some idea of a territorial dimension to spiritual conflict, even if not in the manner popular spiritual warfare models propose. The Waltons’ eagerness to avoid contemporary excess may lead to underreading the biblical data.

Demons and Spirits in Biblical Theology offers a provocative and carefully argued challenge to dominant evangelical demonology. The Waltons succeed in demonstrating that much contemporary spiritual warfare theology lacks a clear biblical foundation and that Scripture’s primary concern is theological rather than providing information about the spirit world. Their work serves as an important corrective and will benefit readers by fostering more careful biblical interpretation. Pentecostals and Charismatics would do well to read carefully this contribution to the ongoing conversation. It would serve far better than nearly everything that gets published in the popular marketplace (in articles, books, YouTube, etc.) by Pentecostals and Charismatics on the subject.

Nevertheless, the book’s strengths may be undermined by an overly reductive functional hermeneutic that seems to throw out ontological reality with its methodological bathwater. A more nuanced approach would affirm both the theological purposes of demonic narratives and the personal reality of spiritual beings, recognizing that ancient authors could simultaneously pursue rhetorical goals and describe genuine encounters. For Pentecostal and charismatic readers especially, the Waltons provide valuable cautions but may not adequately account for biblical precedent and experiential dimensions of deliverance ministry that have characterized these movements. The book makes an important contribution to the conversation but should be read as one voice in an ongoing discussion rather than as a definitive resolution to complex questions of biblical demonology.

As a further note, this book offers specific counterpoints throughout to the works of a number of influential scholars on the topic, including the late Michael Heiser. Heiser is well known for his proposed biblical theology of demons, angels, and “the gods” and what has been widely disseminated in his numerous popular publications, most notably his best-selling 2015 book The Unseen Realm (just updated and expanded posthumously in 2025).  The Waltons have taken great care to address many of the issues which Heiser has popularized (having written extensively in academic forms as well) for his theology of the gods (e.g., divine council, sons of God, etc). It is with this in mind that it would be recommended that those who have read Heiser should also read this work by the Waltons, as offering the most cogent counterpoints to date.

Reviewed by Rick Wadholm Jr

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781625648259/demons-and-spirits-in-biblical-theology/

Preview this book: https://books.google.com/books?id=WvGaDwAAQBAJ

Most people associate teaching on the authority of the believer from a charismatic source, usually Kenneth Hagin or Kenneth Copeland. Some evangelicals, such as Hank Hanegraaff and John MacArthur tend to regard exercise of the believer’s authority, especially binding and loosing, as an excessive teaching of the charismatic movement.¹ However, the original source of teaching on this vital doctrine comes not from the charismatic or Pentecostal movements, but from John A. MacMillan, a former Presbyterian layman who became a missionary, writer, editor, and professor, and from and his classic holiness roots in the Higher Life and Keswick movements. My doctoral dissertation presented a case study of the life, ministry, and impact of John MacMillan, particularly as it relates to the authority of the believer and spiritual warfare.² This paper is a distillation of that dissertation.

Introducing John A. MacMillan

John MacMillan (1873-1956) was a Canadian Presbyterian businessman who became actively involved with ministry to Chinese and Jewish people in Toronto.³ At the age of 41 he married Isabel Robson, who had been a missionary to China with China Inland Mission from 1895 to1906 and a personal nurse to J. Hudson Taylor. Ordained in 1923 at the age of 49, MacMillan and his wife went to China as missionaries with The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). He then became field director of the floundering C&MA mission work in the Philippines. Following the death of his first wife in 1928, he returned to North America to do pastoral and itinerant ministry. Subsequently, he became Associate Editor of The Alliance Weekly magazine, a member of the Board of Managers of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, and a professor at Missionary Training Institute in Nyack, New York, now known as Nyack College. In 1932 after nine years of many dramatic experiences with spiritual warfare, he wrote a series of articles in The Alliance Weekly, the periodical of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, entitled “The Authority of the Believer.”⁴ Eventually they were published in book form, distributed widely and also republished in other periodicals. MacMillan had a remarkable and extensive ministry in the exercise of the authority of the believer and spiritual warfare spanning more than thirty years.

MacMillan’s Exercise of the Authority of the Believer

John MacMillan’s practice of the authority of the believer began when as a businessman, he was informed that the house next to his house caught on fire. Calmly, “he committed the crisis to God in prayer, claiming divine protection according to Psalm 91:10 that ‘no destruction would befall the house.'” He drove home to find out that the fire had miraculously stopped at a wooden fence that separated the two houses.⁵

MacMillan turned his business over to another man when he left for the mission field, designating a portion of the profits to go to his missionary support, but the man reneged on his contract, failing to forward the funds. Speaking with the believer’s authority, MacMillan prophesied, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” Eventually the business went bankrupt. So through MacMillan’s application of the believer’s authority, he was vindicated and the dishonest contract-breakers suffered the judgment of God.⁶

On the mission field in China an Asiatic cholera epidemic threatened the mission. MacMillan again confessed Psalm 91:3, “Surely he will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence.” He prayed, “May we be enabled to keep the Home ‘in the secret place of the Most High and under the shadow of the Almighty.'” They emerged victorious and received divine protection from the plague. ⁷

MacMillan told of how Christian and Missionary Alliance missionaries would claim land from demonic control in China and bind the powers of darkness. On a certain occasion, the missionaries took possession of a piece of land and began moving logs. Evil spirits resisted the takeover by projecting a supernatural voice from a log. The voice in the log threatened, “Don’t you dare move it!” The missionaries were not taken aback, but rebuked the voice. They then removed the log without any further incident and gained the victory over the dark powers.⁸ MacMillan’s most dramatic illustration of exercising the authority of binding and loosing occurred in 1924 when several missionaries were kidnapped. As MacMillan and the remaining missionaries exercised the believer’s authority of binding and loosing, the missionaries were released without harm.⁹

John MacMillan’s exercise of the authority of the believer and engagement with the powers of darkness increased during his ministry in the Philippines. He exercised authority over nature, binding the Enemy as a tree fell toward him and the mission buildings. As a result, the tree fell between the buildings, causing no harm to the buildings or himself. MacMillan perceived in this startling occurrence of divine protection a spiritual message from the Lord, “The way out is blocked—is it not a gracious call to prayer, lest the great adversary block our efforts and shut us up in a small place? We have prayed for the binding of the strongman—we must watch and pray that the strong man does not bind us.”¹⁰ As he took authority over tobacco addictions, many people were set free and in one district in the Philippines, all the believers stopped growing tobacco.¹¹

Another remarkable and dramatic demonstration of MacMillan’s authority as a believer resulted in miraculous healing of his broken leg. Retired pastor Otto Bublat recalls that MacMillan described the incident years later in a class at the Missionary Training Institute: “Once on an emergency mission trip where he was alone on the rainy slippery trail, he slipped and broke his ankle. … His only recourse was the Lord since he was alone and about twenty miles from even a first aid station. In simple faith, he stepped out and began walking those many miles. He got home safely, and shortly thereafter had the ankle X-rayed. There had been a clean break, but it was perfectly healed.”¹²