Demons, The Saint's relationship to

<p>Possibly the Scriptures establish a relationship between the saint and demons as one in which the saints ignore them.  Note the following points:</p>

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<li>A "Saint" (Gk hagios, someone called out/chosen by God for His exclusive ownership and use) is a person who, having received and responded to God's gracious regeneration of his (or her) dead spirit into a live spirit, and God's gracious justification wherein God has removed from him all the guilt of his sin (having placed that guilt on Jesus and fully punished that sin in Jesus' substitutionary death) and in its place has imputed to the saint all the righteousness of Jesus, and God's gracious adoption of this regenerated and justified person into God's personal family, and having been permanently indwelt by God's own Spirit, is under neither the authority or power of any demonic spirit, including Satan himself.  References supporting this paragraph are many, but the following will suffice:  Rom 8.28-30, 2 Cor 5.21, Eph 1.4-5, 13-14, 6.10-17; Jas 4.7.</li>

<li>Demons "inhabit" or sponsor idols to represent them in the physical realm.  Dt 32.16-17.</li>

<li>In 1 Cor 8.10 Paul, instructing about better informed saints avoiding by the exercise of their spiritual liberties inadvertently inducing a lesser informed saint to violate his conscience, mentions a scenario of a saint dining at an idol temple.  Notice that this inspired Scripture treats this idol temple as just a secular place, like any other on earth, and pays no attention whatever to the fact that it was probably also the abode or operating location for one or more demons.</li>

<li>Therefore the conclusion that due to the saint's divine ownership, divine membership (adoption), and divine presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God Himself, demons can, and probably should, be ignored.</li>

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