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.

There are two main ways of doing exorcism: a declaration where you exert some kind of authority to evict the demon, and a sanctification process where you use some kind of cleansing ritual to cause it to leave on its own accord. Declaration overpowers the demon, while sanctification removes the grounds it has to stay.

Exorcism by Declaration

A declaration from God is a prophecy. Prophecies are always 100% accurate and effective (Deut 18:22)

²²when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

and direct people to follow God (Deut 13:1–3).

¹“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, ²and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ ³you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

A declaration from a spirit other than God is a false prophecy. It can be accurate and effective (Exod 7:11),

¹¹Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts.

but is often motivated by greed (Acts 16:16–18),

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. ¹⁷She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” ¹⁸And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

which is a form of idolatry (Col 3:5).

⁵Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

A declaration that comes from self-will is presumption, and is either lying in the name of God (Jer 14:14),

¹⁴And the LORD said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.

or self-deception into thinking the word was from God (Matt 7:22–23).

²²On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Presumptuous declarations are ineffective as they rely on the power of self-will rather than the Holy Spirit to drive out the demon. If a deliverance minister commands a demon to leave and it does not, then you know the minister has spoken presumptuously, or at the very least, a mixture of God’s words and their own. Unfortunately, this describes a lot of deliverance ministries, even back to apostolic times (Acts 19:13–16).

¹³Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” ¹⁴Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. ¹⁵But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” ¹⁶And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

Discernment (1 Cor 12:10)

¹⁰to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

is necessary to test a prophecy (1 Thess 5:20–22)

²⁰Do not despise prophecies, ²¹but test everything; hold fast what is good. ²²Abstain from every form of evil.

to see what parts of it are from God.

A declaration involving a prescribed act is a ritual. A ritual prescribed by God is worship, while a ritual prescribed by any other source is idolatry, whether it be from demons or self. Because God and demons can both do supernatural miracles, the result of the ritual does not determine whether a prophecy is from God or a demon; you have to ask whether the steps of that ritual are divinely prescribed.

For example, multiple religions have prescribed anointing rituals to drive out a demon; they work sometimes, but by whose power? If God prescribed that ritual through divine revelation, then it is by God’s power that the person is saved. But if a witchdoctor prescribed that ritual, then it is by the power of the witchdoctor’s demon that the person is delivered from the demon, but at the cost of being enslaved by a stronger one.

However, even if God prescribed a way of deliverance the first time (Exod 17:6),

⁶Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.

it does not mean that He will prescribe those same steps te next time (Num 20:8

⁸“Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.”

; Num 20:11–12).

¹¹And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. ¹²And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”

If you turn yesterday’s deliverance into a tradition that assumes God will contractually act in the same way in the future, then you are acting presumptuously. Anointing in the New Testament is more associated with physical healing than exorcism (John 9:6

⁶Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud

; Jas 5:14

¹⁴Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

; Rev 3:18),

¹⁸I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.

although it often coincides with exorcism in ministry (Mark 6:13).

¹³And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.

There is no universal anointing ritual for exorcism in the Bible, though it may work in specific cases if God instructs you to do so. But don’t do it as a “just in case” ritual to help with exorcism.

Similarly, a ritual of spoken words is a recitation. You can passionately speak many phrases as the Gentiles do, but that’s not God’s prescribed way of praying (Matt 6:7).

⁷“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Neither is exorcism through chanting, nor yelling out the demon from a person while claiming God gave you all authority to do things your way. The reason why so many declarative forms of exorcism are ineffective is because they are not God’s prescription for exorcism; they rely on the person’s self-will instead. Invoking God’s name and power using forms he did not prescribe is closer to blasphemy than prayer (Lev 10:1–2)!

¹Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them. ²And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.

For example, the Word of Faith movement believes the power comes from faith, and that faith comes from recitation. As long as you recite the prescribed words until you believe in them, then God will exorcise the demonic impediments to your health and wealth. This is an unbiblical heresy in two ways: first, the prayers are prescribed by a man, not by God, and second, faith comes by hearing, not by reciting (Rom 10:17).

¹⁷So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

However, if you perform Scripture recitation in response to demonic temptation, then you are using God’s prescribed way of fighting demons (Luke 4:12–13

¹²And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” ¹³And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

; Eph 6:17).

¹⁷and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God

That’s not to say demonic prescriptions for exorcism are ineffective. A sacrifice of shed blood is powerful because the life is in the blood (Lev 17:11).

¹¹For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

It’s even more powerful when it is a human sacrifice, because humans are made in the image of God (Gen 1:27).

²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

A pagan king even exorcised Israel from his land through the sacrifice of his heir (2 Kgs 3:27).

²⁷Then he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel. And they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.

Religious rituals to entreat a stronger demon to drive out a weaker one (Matt 12:29)

²⁹Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.

through a blood sacrifice exist in several religions (Lev 20:2

²“Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones.

; Jer 19:5

⁵and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind

; Ps 106:37–38).

³⁷They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; ³⁸they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

The result is the person becoming infested with a stronger demon, or if the demon agrees to cohabit with the weaker one, then the person now has two (Matt 12:26)!

²⁶And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?

However, Christians can take heart that the blood of Jesus is most powerful sacrifice of all because he is both God (John 1:1)

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

and Man (John 1:14).

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

His royal blood is both divine and human, able to cleanse us from all sin (1 John 1:7).

⁷But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

Jesus died once and for all (Heb 10:10);

¹⁰And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

we only need to prophetically declare his finished work through communion (1 Cor 11:26).

²⁶For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Taking communion is a common practice for cleansing a place. If you have trouble exorcising a demon because it has grounds established by a blood covenant, try breaking that covenant with the new covenant made in Jesus’ blood (Luke 22:20).

²⁰And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

A person can belong to either Jesus or a demon, but Jesus’ covenant is stronger.

Exorcism by Sanctification

There is another way in which you can cleanse the grounds through which a demon has established itself in a person. Clear the sin, and you clear the effects of sin, including sickness and demonization. Theologians call this process sanctification.

Sanctification in the New Testament is both a Christ-led, and a Holy-Spirit led process. Jesus cleanses his Church through the water of the Word (Eph 5:26).

²⁶that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word

Simply listening to the Word of God will clean you (John 15:3),

³Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

so listen to preaching! Preaching the Word and casting out demons go hand in hand (Mark 1:39)

³⁹And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

as preaching convicts the hearers of their sins (Acts 2:37).

³⁷Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

However, your sins are the not the same as mine. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement (John 16:8),

⁸And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:

and those that respond in confession have those sins forgiven (1 John 1:9)

⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

and healed (Jas 5:16).

¹⁶Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Confession is not for justification, that is, establishing your right position with God, but for sanctification, bringing the lived experience of your salvation in line with your position in Christ. Healing Methods Overview covers this process of sanctification in more detail. When applied to exorcism, it’s called inner healing: The use of diagnostic tools to identify sins to confess, and healing tools to remove those sins and the demons attached to them.

Exorcism by sanctification is a search and destroy mission for the sins that give demons grounds to harass you rather than a battle to overpower the demon itself. The person can self-report the sins they are aware of using cognitive diagnostic tools such as Emotion Paper, Story Filter, and What Comes to Mind. However, the person may not know all the sins that bind the demon to them. The Holy Spirit knows and gifts that word of knowledge (1 Cor 12:8)

⁸For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit

to a community of believers through words in their mind, called an aural tool, or pictures in their imagination, called a visual tool, such as the Whiteboard method.

Finally, some deliverance ministries interview the demon to identify the sins which give it grounds to harass the person. Compelled testimony approaches must account for uncooperative and lying demons, and face little biblical support for them except perhaps Jesus asking the Gerasene demon its name (Mark 5:9),

⁹And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

but even that passage is not clear on whether Jesus was addressing the person or his demon.

Recommendation: Use Inner Healing Methods for Exorcism

In conclusion, Christianity has five main ways for exorcism: prophetic declaration, church-based rituals, biblical rituals, preaching, and the confession of sins. There is not just one way of doing exorcism as Christians disagree on who has the authority to do it. Some claim apostolic authority to drive out demons with just a word (Luke 9:1),

¹And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases

but it often doesn’t work because their authority is presumptive rather than God-given. Others place their exorcism hopes in the authority of priests to follow church-based exorcism rituals; however, such rituals are not found in Scripture except for anointing with oil and communion, and they don’t always work either. Still others insist on the sufficiency of preaching for exorcism, but have no answer when the demon prevents the person from understanding and accepting the gospel (Matt 13:19).

¹⁹When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.

That leaves the confession of sins, or inner healing methods, as the most accessible way to exorcise a demon. It does not require apostle or priest-level authority to overpower demons, because it deals with their sin grounds rather than the demon itself. Cleansing sins is not the work of a person, but of the Holy Spirit who lives in every Christian (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.

All we have to do is confess those sins to God and ask God to deliver us from demons, a biblical practice which all Christians can do.

Take-aways

Further Reading

The theological reflection section of Who Is Involved in Healing comes to the same conclusion as this article: prefer inner healing methods over authority and performance-based exorcism because God heals you because He loves you, not because you followed the right steps.

Healing Methods Overview summarizes the different healing approaches that could be used for exorcism. The Story Method and Whiteboard Method are examples of inner healing methodologies that can be adapted for exorcism–just ask God to remove any demons as a final step once you’ve followed those methods to remove the demon’s underlying sin grounds that bound it to the person.

Not every problem is caused by a demon and therefore requires exorcism. Unblocking Your Spiritual Senses will help you determine if a problem is caused by a demon, since demons require spiritual senses to perceive them, not physical ones.