Does Angels, Demons, and the Devil Change My View of Sin?

Following my recent post on disability theology, sin, and separation from God, a few people reached out with a challenge.

If sin isn’t some external force infecting humanity, what do we do with angels, demons, the Devil, hell, and the spiritual battle Christians talk about? Doesn’t this undermine the idea that sin is primarily about separation from God rather than a cosmic force battling against us?

For me, no, it doesn’t.

The issue is that many modern Christians ideas about sin, angels, demons, hell, and the Devil don’t actually come from the parts of Scripture people think they do.

Take angels. The popular image of angels as beautiful people with wings, glowing halos, and gentle smiles is surprisingly recent. The angels described in Scripture are far stranger and more intimidating. Ezekiel’s visions involve wheels, eyes, and creatures (Ezekiel 1:4–21 and Chapter 10) that look nothing like angels within Christian artwork.

Many of the ideas Christians associate with a cosmic spiritual war come from the Book of Enoch.

Most Christians haven’t read it, but it has enormously influenced Christian culture.

The book was written during the Second Temple period, roughly between 300 BCE and the first century CE. It isn’t part of the biblical canon used by most Christians. Instead, it’s what theologians call a pseudepigraphal work, a text that helps understand the beliefs and debates of the period between the Old and New Testaments.

That makes it important. It doesn’t make it Scripture.

One section, the Book of the Watchers, expands the Genesis 6 story. Angels rebel against God, descend to earth, marry human women, father giants, and introduce corruption into the world. This forms much of the imagery now associated with fallen angels, demonic powers, spiritual warfare, and cosmic evil.

The difficulty is that Enoch treats sin as something brought into the world by rebellious angels. Mainstream Christianity and biblical theology generally sees sin differently. The problem isn't spiritual invaders, it’s humanity itself.

Mainstream Christian thought, especially following thinkers like Augustine, understands evil as a lack of good rather than a thing or presence in itself. Sin is a turning away from God’s wisdom, love, and intention. It damages relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation. This views sin differently to a spiritual virus or war as it shifts responsibility towards humanity instead of supernatural beings.

The same issue occurs when discussing the Devil. In the Old Testament, “Satan” isn’t a personal name, it’s a title meaning adversary or accuser. This wasn't originally seen as a spiritual entity but as any human working against God's intent. Even in the New Testament, Jesus calls Peter “Satan” when Peter attempts to divert Him from His mission. Peter wasn’t possessed. He was acting as an obstacle and adversary.

That’s very different from the red-skinned ruler of hell found in popular culture.

Hell follows a similar pattern. Ancient Judaism largely understood death through the idea of Sheol, the grave. When your body returns to the earth. The ashes to ashes, dust to dust concept. During the Second Temple period, texts like Enoch developed elaborate pictures of cosmic prisons, fiery punishment, and rebellious angels.

When Jesus speaks about judgement, He often uses the language of Gehenna, a real valley outside Jerusalem associated with waste, destruction, and historical shame. His imagery is grounded in physical reality rather than the elaborate cosmic architecture found in Enoch. Later tradition largely conflated the two.

For me, this matters because of something called Creatio ex nihilo, the belief that God created everything from nothing. If God is entirely good and created everything that exists, evil cannot be a substance, force, or thing independent of God. Evil becomes the corruption or absence of good, much like darkness is the absence of light. The devil and fallen angels cannot be independent forces because that would imply God created them and evil and is not inherently good.

It’s the same volcano example I used in my previous post. Volcanoes are good. They fulfils their purpose. The danger appears when humanity ignores wisdom and places itself in harm’s way through them.

Sin works similarly. It’s not a cosmic infection or corrupting force entering humanity from outside. It’s separation from God’s wisdom and intention. That doesn’t mean spiritual realities don’t exist. It simply means I don’t think the primary problem facing humanity is a supernatural force or figures attacking us.

The primary problem is much closer to home. Sin is where humanity consistently chooses its own way over God’s, creating a chasm of divine separation. The devil is someone who corrupts others against God’s intentions. Hell is a colder and more terrifying space than fiery torment and becomes a nothingness void, a future without heavenly connection with God and your loved ones. A place where you become nothing but dust and soil for the earth. As for angels and demons, I see them less as supernatural monsters fighting an invisible war and more as spiritual realities within human actions that either draws people towards or away from God.

That’s the true story running through Scripture from beginning to end.

Once you understand these topics in this way, it challenges the idea about a evil cosmic war, focuses the battle within humanity itself, and explains sin, suffering, and our need for grace.