At the Last Supper before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples that one of them would betray him. In proximity, Peter privately asked Jesus to identify the traitor. Jesus said it was the person to whom he would offer a piece of bread, which he then dipped in broth and handed to Judas Iscariot. The moment was no doubt awkward, but here is the applicable part …
After Judas received the offering, the Bible states, “Satan entered into him.” Reading the text, many might wonder what this event was like, this invasion of a human body by Satan and evil. And the truth is, there wasn’t anything special about it at all. In fact, everyone in the room but Jesus was oblivious.
Satan not physically present, the event is obviously spiritual in nature. So then, supernaturally, satanic evil simply and invisibly entered into a human being—no theatrical production, no observable red glowing eyes, demonic facial expressions, or Exorcist-like voices. This is the misconception with evil, incidentally, that it has these spine-chilling visible markers that identify its presence, like in the movies. Highlighting his “master deceiver” credentials, however, this is the fraud Satan uses so people won’t recognize the cunning, stealthy, casual way he truly operates. Victims expect a fearsome, demonic presence and get a warm, familiar face instead. It’s like, “Oh, that’s just Judas from the block. He’s cool; he’s one of us.”
Then, Judas stabs you in the back.
Anyway, sans a single visible sign, everyone in the room was completely clueless regarding the satanic evil therein. Then, under Satan and evil’s control, Judas went to conspire with Jewish religious leaders. He took their money, later kissed Jesus on cheek, and became the betrayer Jesus had prophesied him to be. After which Judas hung himself for shame and guilt.
Now, I offer this scenario to ask: what is the difference between this Last Supper scenario and, say, a woman, Lindsay Clancy, strangling her children to death, then throwing herself out a second-story window to attempt shame- and guilt-fueled suicide? Or how about this situation: a South Carolina mother, Taylor Gosnell, attacking her 6- and 3-year-old children with a knife, leaving them to die with 50 stab wounds and nearly severed limbs?
One as evil as the next, there is obviously no difference at all. Jesus wasn’t there to offer a piece of bread and open these two women’s bodies and souls to the prince of darkness and evil. But clearly the prince entered, nonetheless.
All these people nowadays believe in God and Jesus and all this Bible stuff, supposedly. Well, why are the events of the biblical era inapplicable to the modern era? The world is the same world today as it was back then. Shouldn’t the standards and clinical rules of the biblical era still apply to the world today? Shouldn’t phenomena like satanic possession still be possible and definable? If Matthew, Mark, Luke or John had written about a woman who, like Judas, had been physically possessed by Satan and subsequently murdered her own children. We would be highlighting and proclaiming that an act of satanic possession and evil in Sunday morning church services, too.
Incidentally, what would it look like were a woman invaded by satanic evil?
Well, it wouldn’t look like anything, either. Hereto, the world would be oblivious, clueless. How everyone would know, the only way the evil invasion could be assessed, is via her manifest behavior and deeds. Good mothers don’t murder their own children. Evil mothers do that, an act everyone would no doubt see as such, too. So then, like Judas, these two murderous mothers must have been physically invaded and possessed by satanic evil, too.
Because what they did was definitively evil.
Of course, this isn’t how modern medicine would see it. The women would suffer from a diagnosis in a medical manual, instead, like “postpartum-psychosis” and “ -depression.” Sure, what the women did was evil in an abstract way, modern medicine would scoff. But it wasn’t caused by satanic possession. What are we living in [chuckle], the biblical era?
Well … aren’t we?
In a created world, what has changed?
The human experience began at some point long ago, and this biblical era wasn’t part of that experience? With all those historically verifiable and familiar names and locations and kingdoms in the Bible, it sure seems like it was part of it. Regarding human illness and suffering, satanic possession was definitely an applicable and diagnosable health issue back then, evidenced by Jesus exorcising so many demons from humans, humans declared to be possessed and clinically sick. So, why can’t satanic possession be a diagnosis now? Today? Is it really that difficult to see the strangulation and butchering of innocent, defenseless children as an act of modern-day, biblical era evil connectible to old world Satan? Or how about connectible to just regular, garden variety evil?
In fact, why do humans even use the term “evil” if it has no real meaning? What does evil mean, anyway? What is its origin? Where does it come from? Or more pointedly, whom is it named after?
“Well, medicine doesn’t assess spiritual matters,” modern medicine would claim.
So then, what? We just ignore the whole idea as an explanation of human behavior, illness, and suffering?
“Well, medicine can’t diagnose the abstract, can’t determine such spiritual aspects as good and evil residing in individual human beings.”
So why not? Jesus sure as hell did. He spoke directly to this sort of diagnosis, in fact. Asked how we, as humans, could know who other people really are on the inside, whether they are evil or good people, specifically. Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruit.”
Fruit is a metaphor for behavior. If someone is kind, for example, they are kind all the time, exhibit traits of warmth and benevolence all the time, or at least predominantly. Recognizably, they are a kind person. If a person is angry and bitter, on the other hand, then they are predominantly angry and bitter. The critical and hostile meanness commonly appears because that is what and who these people are on the inside.
The external, visible behavior, the “fruit,” invariably corresponds with the internal person.
Or for clarity in this case, good people do good things, and evil people do evil things.
And regarding these good and evil people, who understands them, understands human beings, better than medicine? Medicine studies and diagnosis human behavior all day long every day. In diagnosing and treating people, why can’t it make this same behavioral connection? Why can’t it consider the spiritual health of human beings, and the role good and evil might play in human behavior, illness, and suffering? Casting out demons from inside people, Jesus certainly considered the spiritual health of human beings medically relative. So why does modern medicine ignore it now?
If someone is brought into the hospital frothing and deranged, why does medicine give the person’s condition so many different clinical names: schizophrenic, psychopathic, et al? Why don’t physicians just say the patient is possessed with satanic evil? They never say that, ever—even though good and evil are not only foundational concepts of the human experience, but well chronicled historically as an aspect of it. To the medical community, it’s like making such a diagnosis is absurd, risible. Except, Jesus made it, and even healed people of their spiritual ailments, too.
So, what is the argument now? Jesus wasn’t a legit historical figure?
Okay. Why do people today believe in the existence and legitimacy of, say, Julius Caesar, or Socrates, or Christopher Columbus, when people didn’t live in the eras to which these historical figures belonged? These figures are believed to have existed and to be legit because, as part of history, people wrote about them in books.
Well, people wrote about Jesus, too.
People who lived with Jesus, actually; who traveled alongside him and chronicled his life and his extensive miracles. They wrote an entire New Testament about him, in fact, in the most popular, best-selling book of all time, no less. So, Jesus is as legit as any historical figure, and then so must be the standards and clinical rules of the biblical era.
Meaning: in the modern era, satanic possession is still an applicable and diagnosable human health consideration.
Given the continuing standard, there is no way to classify mothers murdering and butchering their own children as a “good” thing. The acts conclusively evil, the bodies and souls of these women must have been, like Judas, physically invaded and commandeered by satanic evil. Instead of the clinical terms, why can’t modern medicine simply make that diagnosis and express it as it would any other? Expressed perhaps this way:
“Well, the patient was possessed by satanic evil, obviously, murdering her own children. We could apply one of many clinical diagnoses, but evil is clearly the baseline in these unfortunate events, is the motivating factor.”
And isn’t that true? Evil being the baseline?
In fact, evil is the most obvious aspect of the entire incident. Even if you don’t really believe in the whole concept of God and Satan, and good and evil. You are still obliged to call women murdering and butchering their own children acts of evil, whether they are “satanic” evil or not. The question is, when do we begin considering satanic evil an explanation for human illness and subsequent behavior? Instead of stopping at the clinical diagnoses, as we do, when do we begin diagnosing and addressing the deeper, foundational, and motivational evil? Easily recognizable and identifiable, evil is right there in front of everyone’s eyes, is in fact the baseline in every unjust and unspeakable thing human beings do to other humans. Yet we stop at all the clinical diagnoses and avoid the most obvious diagnosis.
And in that, do we not avoid the problem? The root cause?
The events of the biblical era still applicable today, the concept of God and Satan, and of good and evil, is the very foundation of the world and the human experience. Everything else, specifically every medical diagnosis, is consequently subject to that foundation and to those parameters.
In other words, the concept of God and Satan, and good and evil, are at the core of and drive everything in the human experience, and ultimately the world. If you don’t believe that, well: Armageddon. The world’s final, end-of-the-world battle between, yes, God and Satan, and good and evil—which doesn’t involve two faceless, thematic entities, but rather actual people: the righteous and evildoers. The good and the evil. So then, the medical diagnoses are just an overlay, are just secondary conclusions. Actually, they are just a way to avoid saying humans/patients are, like Judas, possessed by satanic evil.
Medical diagnoses and terms are much safer; they don’t invite “religious kook” derision and mockery.
Except, in a world founded by God, humans are still subject to the standards and clinical diagnoses of the biblical era. The same Satan that invaded Judas can invade modern mothers, too, and clearly did. In fact, think about all the evils human beings do to other humans. What is the baseline in all of that wickedness, the common denominator? We can label it whatever we want medically—the delusional betrayal by Judas, the postpartum psychosis of murdering mothers—but the culprit in every case is evil.
In fact, satanic evil. Because there is no other kind.
Closing his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul explained the human experience this way: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood [other human beings], but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
In other words, we have been looking at this human experience thing all wrong, have been shortsighted in our health assessments, remedies, and in our quest for human salubrity. Thus, we clearly aren’t doing human healthcare as well as we can. Because we are excluding a vitally important aspect of the human experience which would allow for it.
We can change that, and we must.
©JMW 10/2026
All Rights Reserved
