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sermonette: Who Is the 'God of This World'? (Part One)

Spiritual Blindness
David C. Grabbe
Given 09-Jun-18; Sermon #1437s; 17 minutes

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Today we are going to look at one of God's actions that some people find very uncomfortable, particularly within Protestantism. This action does not fit their concept of Him, and so they tend to speed past the verse is where it shows up rather than allow the scriptures to change their minds. Even though it is not my intent or desire to stir up controversy, this may be somewhat controversial because eventually we will get to a verse that may not mean what we have thought that it means. I'll present what I have found, and you can study into this and see what you make of it. It is at least something to be aware of, and I believe you will see that what I'm going to suggest is a possibility, even a good possibility. We'll be turning to more verses than we normally would because there is a consistent pattern that is helpful to see. So we will begin in Genesis chapter 19. And verse 11 Genesis 19:11. This takes place with Lot in the city of Sodom. And it says, and they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, for they became weary trying to find the door. Now our topic for today is blindness, and we began here because this is the first mention. In this instance, the one being physically blinded were the violent Sodomites in this wicked city, and the ones doing the blinding were the two angels whom God had sent to deliver lots. Now please turn with me over to Exodus chapter 4 or find another reference to blindness. In Exodus 4 verse 11. Does God speak to Moses, for the Lord said to him, who has made man's mouth, or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? God is responding to Moses' resistance, and God declares that he is the one responsible for the organs that work and those that do not. He is telling Moses that whatever speech difficulties Moses had were entirely in God's hands. Moses said that he was slow of speech, and if that is accurate, God is claiming authorship of that difficulty, but also saying that he could still work through it. Back to our topic, whether one sees or one is blind is likewise in God's hands. Even though God is directly referring to physical capabilities here, we should understand that His sovereignty extends into spiritual capabilities as well. Our ability to see and hear spiritually are up to Him. In terms of blindness, John chapter 9, do not turn there yet, records Christ's healing of the man who was born blind, and the chapter teaches that blindness can be a result of sin, but at other times it is because God has willed it for a purpose that he is working out. Again, that principle applies to physical blindness, but also to spiritual blindness. Sometimes spiritual blindness is a result of sin. But other times it is because God is withholding understanding for a time. Next we will turn to one of the blessings and curses, curses chapter, Deuteronomy, chapter 28. Deuteronomy 28 and verse 28. The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of hearts. 29, and you shall grope at noonday as a man blind man gropes in darkness. And so God promises madness, blindness, and confusion. As it says in verse 15, this comes from disobeying his voice and not carefully obeying his commandments and statutes. Now this curse is the flip side of Psalm 111 in verse 10, which says that understanding comes with doing the commandments. Breaking the commandments though destroys understanding. Now the physical curses in this chapter are bad enough, but this curse really puts one into a terrible condition. With the other curses, one can at least analyze what is happening and maybe find a way to deal with it, but blindness makes one's plight even worse because one cannot even understand what is going on, let alone be able to identify a real solution, such as repentance. The nations of Israel are suffering under quite a few curses, and yet we are also blind to the cause and effect relationship. And so there is no thought that national immorality is the reason for our problems. And so all we can do is blindly grope around for solutions that cannot work because they do not involve God. As I said, this aspect of God, the same God who became Jesus Christ, makes people uncomfortable. They do not believe that he would actually do this. They do not believe that he means what he says. Now there is a similar and related disbelief about scattering, which is another curse of God. God scattered the people at the Tower of Babel because of their rebellion against him, and he scattered the children of Israel for the same reason, just as he promised. The Church of God has also been scattered, and yet many have concluded that Satan scattered the church. They are uncomfortable with God acting in this way. And if Satan were the prime mover, then we would just all be victims, rather than contributors to the things that God found detestable. Another unstated implication is that Satan somehow pulled one over on God, and yet it is God who promises and claims scattering, and because of his sovereignty, he is the only one who can bring about what happens to Babel, to Israel, and to his own church. Some, it would seem, do not believe that God will respond today as he has in the past to immorality, presumption, and spiritual neglect. It is true that God's chastening of his saints is of a different quality than his chastening of Israel, but the principle of common effect has not gone away. For example, our scattering has been organizational rather than geographical and catastrophic. And yet we are still scattered because God is faithful to his word. Rather than being immune to God's chastening, the church is even more accountable because of what God has given to us. Now this may have seemed like a tangent, but it is related, and it illustrates why it is so critical to have a biblical concept of God. So we can recognize the respective actions of God and Satan. Notice that God's actions do not always match our assumptions. God says that he will cause madness, blindness, and confusion of heart when his people walk contrary to his way. Now these are works that we might think Satan would be the source of, and yet here God claims responsibility. Please turn with me to John chapter 9. Where this same God being again speaks of blinding. John 9 and this takes place after he heals the man who was born blind. John 9:39, and Jesus said, for judgments, I have come into this world that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind. The Pharisees and others of the Jewish leadership were confident that they could see, and yet here Jesus declares that part of his ministry was to make some blind while opening the eyes of others. He declares something similar just a few chapters over in John 12, if you would flip there. John 12:37. Says, but although Christ had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him, dropped to verse 39. Therefore, it says they could not believe, because Isaiah said again, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, left they should understand with their hearts in turn, for that I should heal them. After 3.5 years and countless miracles, there was still a high level of disbelief, particularly among the religious leadership. Note that the source of disbelief was God Himself. It says he had blinded their eyes and he had hardened their hearts. The reason was that if they had turned to him, he would have healed them. Now that that may strike us as odd if we assume that his will at all times is to heal. Maybe this seems unkind or mean spirited in these days of nondiscrimination. But this shows that it was not his will, his will to heal the nation at that time. The nation was still disobeying his commandments and statutes and still under a curse. The curse was so effective that even though Jesus declared them to be blind, they were confident that they were seeing clearly, so there is no reason for them to even consider repenting. We'll see one more clear example of this in Romans chapter 11, if you would turn there with me. Romans 11, beginning in verse 7. Paul writes, what then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks, but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. Just to have written, God, God has given them a spirit of stupor. Is that they should not see and ears that they should not hear to this very day. And David says, let their table become a snare in a trap, a stumbling block in a recompense to them. Verse 10, let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see and bow down their back always. And dropped to verse 25, for I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mercy, lest you should be wise in your own opinion that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so Paul gives us more evidence of God's blinding and specifically of Israel. And this passage also explains the basic reason, which is that God is working with the elect in a way that he is not doing with Israel yet. And therefore he has blinded Israel until he brings in the Gentiles that he is going to bring in. Israel was disobedient, so he scattered her, so he blinded her, and in the future he will regather her and heal that blindness. And then she will recognize her savior and have a right concept of what a relationship with him means. And now we get to the interesting part. Please turn with me to II Corinthians chapter 4 verse 4. This is a verse we've read countless times and probably referred to many more. II Corinthians 4:4. Says whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, left the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is in the image of God should shine on them. Now considering what we've seen, who did the blinding that this verse is talking about? Because of the lowercase g, we assume that it is Satan, and because of this verse, Satan has received the title of God of this age, or God of this world. But there is a good possibility that this is another case of mistaken identity. I'll give you a brief synopsis of the reasons. We, we will not dig into all the reasons until the next message, but I will tell you what lies ahead, and you can begin studying this for yourself. On a technical note, many translations use the phrase God of this world, but the new King James is more correct with the rendering of God of this age. The word is Ion, a ION, and it means age rather than world. Now we've seen a number of clear and definitive scriptures in which God declares that he will blind and he has blinded. And there are more scriptures on blindness that you can find, as well as scriptures about eyes being closed. They consistently show that the true God closes eyes and opens them. He blinds and he heals in no other place as Satan said or shown to blind or to close eyes. And so if this verse is about Satan, it is a major anomaly. Now rather than blinding, Satan deceives. He works to distort the vision that already exists in order to influence people to sin, but he is not shown opening or closing the eyes. The actions are distinct in that Satan's deceptions are active oppositions to truth, while God's blinding is usually a temporary state wherein he chooses to withhold the truth in its fullness. God embodies truth, but he does not give all truth all at once. God blinds either temporarily or for judgment, but Satan actively opposes truth. Along with that, numerous verses show that people can blind themselves, as we've all experienced. The truth can be uncomfortable, and if we do not have a dogged devotion to it, we will close our eyes to those parts of the truth to which we do not want to submit. II Thessalonians 2 verses 10 to 11 speaks of those who do not have a love of the truth, and Paul 5th that God will send them strong delusion. In other words, they prefer a state of blindness, and God gives them what they want. So while we cannot open our eyes to greater truth without God's intervention, we can close our eyes to what truth is available and thus blind ourselves. Now a second difficulty with this verse being about Satan is that the word translated as God is Theos. And nowhere else is Satan referred to with Theos. That's the second significant anomaly. Satan is not called a God anywhere else, let alone the God of something. Of course, Isaiah 14 records Satan as saying that he wants to be like, or even to be the mufti. And the translators here may have given him his desire, at least in name. And likewise, Ezekiel 28 is about the prince of Tyre, who is a type of Satan. And God's controversy with the prince is that he had set his heart as the heart of a God. The prince is far greater in his own estimation than in reality. But the true God never names the devil as God of anything. And so if this verse is about Satan, it is an exception to the pattern, and exception should cause us to dig deeper. Instead of calling Satan a God, Jesus and the apostles consistently call him a ruler. He is the ruler of the demons, and 3 times in the book of John, Jesus calls him the ruler of the world. He is also the ruler of the power of the air. He has authority, intelligence, and capabilities far above any man and should never be underestimated, and yet he is in no way approaching to God's level except in his own mind. There is a major difference between a God and a ruler, and the highest that Satan is called elsewhere is a ruler. Another point is that this verse is talking about this age rather than this world, as I mentioned. Now there are several scriptures that we will see next time that show that Jesus Christ is sovereign over all the ages, and he has not made Satan a go over this age, only a ruler with limited authority. Remember, Satan had to ask permission to afflict Job, and he had to ask permission to sift Peter like wheat. In Ephesians 1, Paul says Christ is far above all principality and power. A final point is that the wider context of this verse, going back to chapter 3 shows that it's talking about the very same blinding that we saw in the books of Roman Romans and John. Now I can't tell you why the translators chose to use a lowercase g, but from what we have seen, it disrupts the consistent pattern of scripture and it elevates Satan. Which could be an indicator of what happened here. For God-willing, we will pick this up the next time.

DCG/aws/

 

 

Sermon Topics

False Gospels

Jesus Christ's Return

Life after Death

Repentance

Resurrection

The Gospel

The Kingdom of God