Can Christians have a demon? Perhaps… It depends on what you mean by “have”. If you mean “can a demon can inhabit a Christian?”, the Bible teaches that demons can inhabit places (Matt 12:43

⁴³“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.

; Rev 18:2),

²And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.

animals (Matt 8:31–32),

³¹And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” ³²And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters.

and non-Christians (Mark 5:15

¹⁵And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

; Luke 8:2

²and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out

; Acts 16:16),

¹⁶As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling.

but is silent on whether they can inhabit Christians except possibly for the story of Ananias (Acts 5:3).

³But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?

On the other hand, there is no Bible verse that teaches that Christians cannot be demonized, so a theological case has to be built one way or another rather than relying on a clear Scriptural teaching.

The two sides of the debate

The debate centers whether the Holy Spirit and a demon can co-exist in the same person. The Holy Spirit came upon king Saul (1 Sam 11:6),

⁶And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled.

but then left due to rebellion (1 Sam 16:14)

¹⁴Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the LORD tormented him.

and a demon tormented him (1 Sam 16:15).

¹⁵And Saul’s servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you.

King David pleaded for God to not take the Holy Spirit from him (Ps 51:11),

¹¹Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

but losing the Holy Spirit is not possible for a believer (Rom 8:9)

⁹You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

and so that biblical case does not apply to the theory that the Holy Spirit cannot be co-located with a demon within a Christian. However, there is a story of Old Testament prophets who were at least influenced by an evil spirit to lie, while presumably still having the Holy Spirit (1 Kgs 22:22).

²²And the LORD said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’

Dispensational Christians find Old Testament evidence for demonization unconvincing, especially if they have not personally witnessed demonic manifestations in Christians.

The other side of the debate appeals to the common experience in non-Western contexts of Christians being demonized, such as the case study of a Nepali woman’s experience of demonization. The secular Western worldview attributes such disordered behavior to mental illness and denies any spiritual root for it. The Bible identifies the root cause of all disorders, including mental illness, as sin (Deut 28:15–28

¹⁵“But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. ¹⁶Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. ¹⁷Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. ¹⁸Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. ¹⁹Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. ²⁰“The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. ²¹The LORD will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. ²²The LORD will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. ²³And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. ²⁴The LORD will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed. ²⁵“The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶And your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away. ²⁷The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. ²⁸The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind

; Rom 1:28–32),

²⁸And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³²Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

which then gives demons grounds to harass the person, whether they are inside the Christian or not.

Exorcism then is not a matter of justification, where demon possession implies the loss of the Holy Spirit for a Christian, which is impossible (John 14:16

¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever

; Eph 1:13–14),

¹³In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

but of sanctification, where the repentance and forgiveness of sin cleanses the sin grounds for a demon to harass a Christian, regardless of its ultimate location.

Exorcism as spiritual warfare

Any influence demons have on a Christian is to be resisted (Jas 4:7)

⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

and cast out of the range of influence to deliver the Christian. Even Jesus had to do this by casting Satan out of his presence with the word of God (Matt 4:10–11);

¹⁰Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” ¹¹Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

the goal of exorcism is not so concerned with the demon’s initial location in regards to the person, but whether it can no longer harass them after exorcism.

Jesus said, “You will have trouble in this world, but take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

³³I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

A lot of that trouble comes from demons, and so Christians are to be salt (Matt 5:13)

¹³“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

and light (Matt 5:16)

¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

in the world to deny Satan the access and freedom to spoil and darken it. Exorcism is spiritual warfare against demons. Demons do not have a body to kill, so the type of warfare which is waged against them is an area denial strategy where you cast them out of where they are, and then keep them and their influence permanently out of that battlefield.

Conclusion

So can a Christian have a demon? Yes, if you mean “have” as having a demon problem (demon oppression), for the whole world is under the domain of Satan (1 John 5:19).

¹⁹We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

Whether a particular demon is inside or outside the Christian is beside the point as the exorcism process is the same regardless of the demon’s initial location: get rid of the sin, and you get rid of the demon. But if you mean “have” as whether the demon has ownership over the Christian (demon possession), then the answer is “no” because Christians belong to God, not Satan. A Christian can have a demon, but a demon cannot have a Christian.

Take-aways

Further Reading

Full Healing in Seven Minutes Flat is a case study of a Christian being harassed by a demon, while Hurting Too Much to Hear God tells the story of a demonized Christian who had severe mental health issues. Exorcism Methods Overview covers the various approaches to exorcism, while What Is Deliverance? explains the difference between exorcism and deliverance.