We have seen that the doctrine of demons, is in reality a doctrine of a mediation other

than the Mediation of Christ, and that it is in complete harmony with the purpose of the

apostle that in I Tim. 2: he should stress the fact that "there is one God, and one

Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus", because in Chapter four, under

the heading "The doctrine of demons", he was going to warn against the many "gods"

and the many "mediators" who were "spirits" and not "men", whose evil teachings were

to percolate into the doctrine of the church and so start the movement which was to end

with the advent of the Man of Sin.

Just as the conflict of the Bible is a conflict between the Truth and the Lie, between

Light and Darkness, between the Seed of the Woman and the Seed of the Serpent, so the

conflict is headed up in two Mysteries, the Mystery of Godliness, where Christ is all and

in all, and the Mystery of Iniquity, where Satan ascends the throne and the Son of

Perdition sits in the place that none but Christ should occupy. The awful climax however

is not reached by one great step, nor is it reached by immediate blasphemy or evident

iniquity. Indeed it is all the other way. Those who give heed to the opening words of

these seducing spirits will for the time appear to live upon a higher plane than their more

grossly minded fellows. They will not marry, they will abstain from meats, no one can

accuse such of self indulgence.

These prohibitions, like those of the second chapter of Colossians lead to a mere

negative sanctity "touch not, taste not, handle not". Such self imposed self denial while

having the appearance of extreme humility, can be the product of unholy conceit, a false

modesty that conceals an overwhelming pride. It may not immediately appear how

celibacy or a restricted diet can possibly lend themselves to an apostasy from the truth,

but should such practices minister to a false superiority, there we shall have a fruitful

seed-plot for the sowing of heresy. A comparison of the warning of Col. 2: with those

of I Tim. 4:, will illuminate the danger. Let us ponder these things with the aid of

Scripture lest hearing the Serpent say "Ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil", we

too should fall and fail of our high calling.

"Forbidding to marry." The three Synoptic Gospels record the saying of the Lord that

in the resurrection there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, a condition which

makes them "like unto the angels", Luke adding the observation that it is the children of

this world that marry and are given in marriage. Marriage therefore is a relationship that

pertains to this world, and which is foreign both to the resurrection life and to those

spirits called angels. It would be an easy step therefore in the conduct of an argument to

show that the believer in Christ who is reckoned to have died and risen again in Him, and