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Early in our marriage, when my wife and I had just moved to a new city while I was starting doctoral work, we attended a worship service—knowing almost no one there but hoping to make friends. The preacher, who mumbled a bit, was trying to make a rhetorical point about the importance of a good name: “I mean, how many of you ladies out there have the name Jezebel?” Time seemed to be in slow motion as I turned to see my wife, Maria, raising her hand.
Turns out she thought he had said, “How many of you ladies out there have heard the name Jezebel?” which, of course, she had. She blushed and immediately dropped her hand when she discovered the actual question, while I imagined meeting all of these new people to have them say, “It’s so nice to meet you, Jezebel. Welcome to our church.”
We made it through that moment, seemingly without anyone noticing (or else too polite to bring it up), and the years have proven that my wife lives up to her actual name—that of the mother and some of the disciples of Jesus—and not at all to that of the murderous queen who once hounded the prophet Elijah almost till death did them part. She sighs and rolls her eyes every time I tell that story and says, “That preacher was hard to understand—and you know it.” She’s right. Thirty seconds of Jezebel confusion—in this case—has made for thirty years of laughter from me.
Old Jezebel keeps showing up in other kinds of confusion, though, in ways that are not funny at all. On any given Sunday, I am at my church teaching through the Book of Revelation. I said the first week, We’re going to have a couple months in more familiar territory—as I teach through Jesus’ messages to the seven churches of Asia Minor— before things get weird.
What I meant was that the themes at the beginning of the Apocalypse are easier to grasp: keep persevering, repent of sin, don’t lose heart while suffering, return to your first love, and so on. Most people get confused or scared right after that part, with images of trumpets and seals and horsemen and multi-headed dragons and marks on the forehead. And so, I thought, the first third of Revelation is freer from the bad speculative teaching that keeps some people distant from Revelation. But then I remembered Jezebel.
The ascended Jesus sent a message through John the Revelator that there was one major point of disobedience in the congregation at Thyatira, namely that they “tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Rev. 2:20, ESV throughout).
This past week, I happened upon a social media post from a minister (apparently in the Pentecostal or charismatic tradition) asserting, “There is no ‘Jezebel Spirit.’ At best, these are words used to silo and demoralize people you disagree with.” He went on, “I believe in the gifts of the Spirit—all of them. This is not godly. It’s wrong and demonic and needs to be purged from our vernacular.”
I’m not yet familiar with this minister’s work so I don’t know exactly what’s theologically in the background for him, but I do know that, on this, he’s exactly right—the concept of a “Jezebel spirit,” the way it’s often used today, has no grounding at all in Scripture and, ironically enough, is often used to fuel the very sin Jesus charged the Jezebel of Revelation with promoting.
Part of the confusion, of course, is with the way we use the language of “spirit.” One can speak of the “spirit of ’76,” referring to patriotism; or to someone having “the spirit of Barnabas,” implying they’re an encourager; or “the spirit of Lydia,” meaning they’re generous. One could speak of someone seeking to sell access to God as being of “the spirit of Simon.” But, usually, the language of the Jezebel spirit is used in our churches today to refer to something quite more than just that.
Many preachers or teachers name the Jezebel spirit as a specific demonic being or force, and, in doing so, portray a particularly dangerous and evil aspect of women—especially of women to men. Often, this will come with a list of “characteristics of the Jezebel spirit” that are disconnected from the actual words of the Bible. In most cases, one does not have to be a Freudian to wonder if these “characteristics” are not describing a particular woman or group of women with whom the preacher or teacher is perturbed.
The Bible does teach exactly what Jesus unequivocally acknowledged as true—that there are dark, spiritual personal beings afoot in the cosmos. The Scriptures sometimes speak of these beings as “principalities and powers.” In most cases, though, these beings are not named and classified for us. This is because their power is not, like a pagan god, independent of us.
The powers of this present darkness work through deception (Gen. 3:1–3) and accusation (Rev. 12:10). One of them screamed in his presence, “I know who you are—the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24). But they had no power over Jesus. Of Satan, Jesus said, “The ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me” (John 14:30). [S1] That’s not only because of his deity but also because of his obedient humanity.
The spirits of darkness work through human fallenness and rebellion, which is why the scriptural remedy for them is the gospel, prayer, and repentance of sin—not talismans or incantations. When Jesus rebuked those in the church who “hold the teaching of Balaam” (Rev. 2:14), he was not speaking of some specifically masculine entity hypnotizing the congregation. He was speaking of those who imitated the prophet-for-hire of old. And when Jesus referenced a teacher as “Jezebel,” he did so in terms of the villain of ancient Israel—one who taught that God could be replaced with idols and that immorality could be carried out without accountability.
When the Jezebel spirit is taught, it is usually presented as eerily consistent with the pagan myths of the succubus, who would sexually attack men by night, or the myths of the sirens, who would lure unsuspecting men to their deaths. The implication is usually that there is something especially treacherous and dangerous—indeed, supernaturally treacherous and dangerous—about women.
Men, in this view, are seen through the lens of frailty—they are the sum of instincts and desires that are uncontrollable when in the presence of the power of the temptress—while women are viewed through the prism of calculating evil. This, of course, is inconsistent with the fundamental gospel truth that both men and women are fallen and, left to ourselves, under condemnation (Rom. 3:10–18).
The Jezebel spirit is convenient in a couple ways. I’ve seen it used to suggest that women who call for holiness and justice in the church should be shunned or ignored. In working with survivors of church sexual abuse, I’ve lost count of how many of them were told that their work for accountability was that of a Jezebel spirit. I have seen women who have done no wrong have their reputations destroyed. Some of them are exiled from their communities. Some are unjustly and unrelentingly harassed in law courts or by church discipline.
I’ve also lost count of how many male leaders have used the term, or something akin to it, to minimize their own culpability for sexual sin. The Jezebel spirit enables them to point to the problem before God as “the woman thou hast given to me,” who is simultaneously a superhuman serpent in the garden.
In many cases, men have used Jezebel language to use purported biblical authority to blame others—sometimes innocent people—for their own abuse of power. In other words, one is able to point to the Jezebel spirit while doing exactly what Jezebel did—crushing those who stand in the way of the sin one wants to commit (1 Kings 21:8–15). In so doing, it’s possible to twist the Bible to say what it doesn’t say (thus leading people to idolatry) while literally demonizing women in order to minimize one’s own sexual transgression (thus teaching people to excuse immorality). That’s exactly what the false prophet of Thyatira was doing.
Women are sinners, just as men are. The way of Jezebel is death; the way of Ahab is too. A woman who thinks she’s unable to follow the path of Nimrod or Esau or Jeroboam or Herod is deceiving herself. A man who thinks he’s unable to mimic the pattern of Jezebel is also. Redeemed women are heirs of the kingdom, just as redeemed men are. Women can fall into false teaching, just as men can. Women need the gospel, just as men do. To project one’s fear or loathing of women onto a Jezebel spirit isn’t to identify a demon but to imitate one.
Russell Moore is the editor in chief at Christianity Today and leads its Public Theology Project.
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