God of This World

In whom the god of this world has blinded the eyes of those who believe not, lest the glorious light of the gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine upon them. (2 Cor 4:4).

When we read this we think immediately of the one thing that blinds men’s hearts to the gospel more than anything else and that is the law. Paul combated this source of blindness in every one of his epistles. Take Rom 10:1-4 for example. The Jews were ignorant (blind) to God’s gift of righteousness, because they went about to establish their own righteousness through the law. The law blinded them. The veil in the tabernacle was to prevent vision into the glorious presence.

Going back to 2 Cor 4:4 we look at the context. Paul compared his ministry to Moses, who put a veil over his face because it shone and Israel was afraid (2 Cor 3:13-18). They were afraid because the law spoke of their sin. They could not see the acceptance of God in Christ. Paul said that even in his own day the veil still blinded the heart of those who hear the law. The veil blinded them.

We will come back to the context soon, but first we will look at what some other commentators have said about 2 Cor 4:4. Chrysostom and Augustine claimed that this is the God of this world, meaning God. (The Greek Bible text does not use capital letters.) They did so due to the Arians of their day, who said that if this god is Satan, Christ can also be a small “g” god. So to defend the divinity of Christ, Chrysostom took this position on the verse.

His position does have some currency:

What then? Israel has not obtained that which it seeks for (for it sought it through the law), but the election has obtained it and the rest were blinded…as it is written, God has given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they cannot see and ears that they cannot hear, to this day. And David said, Let their table be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and recompense to them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see and bow down their back always. (Rom 11:7-10).

This is big “G” God. He is the one who makes them blind here. Even if we disagree with Chrysostom and claim with Calvin that 2 Cor 4:4 refers to Satan, we must concede that whatever Satan does here, he does because of God’s permission, not by any rule or government of his own. The phrase “god of this world” is god of this age, possibly referring to this present evil age (Gal 1:4). So does this mean that this god is Satan?

We can see man, Satan and God working together in Paul’s explanation to the Thessalonians. The condition starts with man: he does not receive the love of the truth. Then God sends man strong delusion (hands him over to his lusts) by empowering Satan’s lying wonders, that they might be damned (2 Thes 2:9-12). Man is responsible for his condition, not Satan.