How is Satan god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4)?

In verse 3 we have the general statement, that if the gospel be hid (veiled) it is veiled in them that are lost; verse 4 gives the action by which the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, is intercepted, hindered from reaching the hearts of the unsaved: "the god of this world" (age) steps in and blinds the minds (the thoughts) of them that believe not. It should be especially noticed that the word is not "world" but "age." Two scriptures will aid in its interpretation. In Rom. 12 we read, "Be not conformed to this age;" and in 1 Cor. 2:8 we have "the princes of this age." The first of these would mean that we are not to be moulded by the influences of the moment through which we are passing, whether literary, scientific, philosophic, political, or social — the sum, in fact, of all the influences that go to form, at any time, the life of men as men; and the princes of the age are the world's, or the nation's, leaders, who, wise, as men speak, in their own generation, are utterly blind as to the things of God. When therefore we read that the god of this age blinds men's minds, we understand that he effects this by bringing in thoughts, whether through this world's teachers, or through their books, which are opposed to the truth of the gospel. A popular book, for example, which ignores sin, and consequently the atonement, while professedly dealing with spiritual things, would be one of his most successful instrumentalities for darkening the minds of unbelievers

Their gospel did not involve secretive mysteries: it was clearly, plainly declared. If hidden at all, it was so only to those who are lost, whose minds are blinded to clearly published facts. It is Satan, the god of this world, who so blinds them, not that he is able to do it without their being willing: he uses such bait as the attractions of this world, with its present gain and pleasure, and the glitter of such passing vanities blinds men's minds to the infinitely greater gain and pleasure in Christ. Men will easily reject facts in favour of fantasy that attracts their feelings for the time. "The gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" has no radiance for them: they simply "believe not."

(Vv. 3, 4). Seeing that the Apostle's life was consistent with his preaching, and that the gospel that he preached was a full uncorrupted presentation of the Word of God, he can say, "If also our gospel is veiled it is veiled in those that are lost." With Paul there was no veil — nothing to obscure the testimony — either in the preaching or the preacher. He gave out the truth as purely as he had received it. If under such ministry the gospel was rejected it was because there was a veil of unbelief on the hearts of the hearers. Satan, the god of this world, used the unbelief of man to blind their minds against the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. For such the result was fatal, it left them in their lost condition. As one has said, "It is not simply that Satan obscures it to them, but it is their own unbelief which brings them under the power of Satan."

Alas! there is a subtle and energetic adversary of God and man; there are men who have not faith but passions and lusts, which expose them to his influence in blinding them to the truth. And such are all by nature since sin ruined mankind, till grace work repentance to acknowledgment of the truth. But men who are feeble in owning the power of the Spirit are apt to be slow to perceive Satan's workings; and controversial zeal increases this unscriptural bias. Hence we see that the fathers in general, early and late, Greek and Latin, misapplied this simple and weighty statement of scripture, and denied the devil to be meant here, construing it as God blinding the minds of the unbelievers of this age! (See Cranmer's Cat. Patr. Gr. v., 373, 374, Oxon. 1844; Iren. Haer. iv. 392; Tert. advers. Marc. 11; Aug. c. adv. Leg. iii., vii. 29.) Hilary, in his zeal against the Arians, and among the Greeks, Chrysostom, would not allow Satan to be called god of this age, lest it might tell against the deity of Christ; and so OEcumenius and Theodoret, etc., down to Theophylact; as others, like Origen, against other early heretics, Marcionites, Manicheans, etc. It is instructive as a plain proof of patristic shallowness, where they agreed, as they rarely did, on an interpretation. They failed to distinguish between "God" used absolutely, and "god" with a distinct and restricted qualification. And as the Lord, in view of His own rejection unto death, spoke of the devil as the prince of this world (John 12; 14), so the apostle here designates him, with striking propriety, as "god of this age." During the new age, when the Lord takes the sovereignty of the world (Rev. 11), it will not be so; he will be bound, and thereby kept from his old deceits. Now he takes advantage of all truth to dishonour God and destroy men, his wretched slaves, who, in doing their own will, serve him effectually. Thus are they blinded, that the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine forth.

Here also it is well to notice that "the glorious gospel," as in the Authorised Version, is not only inadequate, but incorrect. For "the glory" is definitely of Christ exalted to God's right hand, in virtue of not His person only but redemption, that we who now believe might see Him, and have our place in Him, there. What enlightenment can compare with this? It is part of what the apostle calls "my" and "our gospel." Christ was, and is, God's image, alone fully representing Him; but the gospel, as Paul preached it, was not of His descent and life here only, nor of His death and resurrection, but of His glory in heaven also. Hence the appropriateness of the language, with which the reader may contrast the vague platitudes of the Cat. Patr. v. 374, 375.

Verse 4. "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not," etc. The title here given to Satan is the boldest and fullest admission of his existing power over man that the Scriptures contain. By the Just One he had been styled the "prince of this world" (John 14:30), when He prepared to yield Himself into his hands, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled Having first proved Himself the alone effective denier of the devil's right and power over men, by fulfilling His course as the gracious Healer of them that were oppressed by him, He thus — because Israel would none of Him — transfers judicially His own just title to the stranger, whose lying voice they followed rather than His own. And now that the full gospel of saving grace is proclaimed among men by the commandment of the everlasting God, the invisible opposer of the truth is recognized by the Spirit as the god also of this world. The point of distinction is as clear as it is solemn. By rejecting the Man approved of God, the world showed itself ready to receive His rival. (John 5:43; 2 Thess. 2:9). By refusing Him who now speaks to men from heaven by His Son, the "crooked and perverse generation" of the present age of grace give evidence, by their aversion from the way of life, that their minds are governed by another god. For he to whom men yield their wills is entitled to be called their god. The only true God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, calls now on all men to repent and turn to Him. The father of lies, on the other hand, dissuades men from welcoming the glad tidings of salvation, by flattering them in their own imaginations. Like Israel, the Gentiles also have a blinded mind, and although in them the spirit of unbelief is fostered by other means, it is in both essentially the same natural hatred of the light of God. (John 3:20; Rom. 1:30).

2 Corinthians 4:4 speaks of Satan as "the god of this world" or "this age" (aion), and in Galatians 1:4 we read of "this present evil world" (aion) or "age." Because Satan is its head and god and has built up its great system and orders its course, it is an evil world or age which we live in. "The whole world lies in the wicked one," John tells us (1 John 5:19, New Trans.).

Nor did the work of the cross immediately dispossess Satan of this usurped dominion, any more than it immediately brought judgment on the world or drew all men to Christ. After His death, Satan's power is still recognised. Thus we are told, by the Apostle Paul, that "the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not" (2 Cor. 4:4). Writing to the Ephesians, he says — "In time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2). Later in the epistle he writes — "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12). What is the darkness of this world? Christ is the light, and that which rejects Christ is blinded by "the god of this world," and is in darkness. The world, then, as distinguished from believers, who "are not of this world," has a ruler, and that ruler is Satan. In writing to the Colossians (1:13), the apostle says that God "has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." Who "the power of darkness" is, we see from the text last quoted. It is from his dominion that grace has delivered us, and the world, those who are not delivered, are still under him. John, too, in like manner, declares that "we are of God, and the whole world lies in the wicked one" (1 John 5:19). This is very solemn, for it shows not only that Satan has great power of evil in the world, but that the world is looked at in Scripture as an organised system of which Satan is the head, the prince, and the god.

We need scarcely say that this power is not absolute, that it does not prevent God working in His providence, or carrying out His great governmental purposes. To what extent Satan's power reaches, it would, perhaps, be very difficult to say, and it is no part of our object to discuss. Two facts are, however, to be noted — first, that his power is at present restrained by the presence of the Holy Ghost down here, "for He who now lets will let until He be taken out of the way" (2 Thess. 2:7) — next, that when this curb is removed, his boldness in wickedness and his dominion over the world will for a time be unchecked, and he will dispose of the dominion of the world, giving to the beast "his power, and his seat, and great authority" (Rev. 13:2). This will last but a short time, and will end in his own discomfiture and captivity. But until that time, however Satan's dominion may be restrained, Scripture owns him as being, in fact, the god and the prince of this world, the real instigating power in the hearts of men, the one in obedience to whose direction man's schemes are organised and his affairs governed. True, this is only by sufferance — but whose sufferance? The sufferance of God. And is it not a deeply solemn and significant fact that God should be withholding the kingdom of the world from His Son, and allowing it to be usurped by Satan? Is it not enough to warn every believer from taking part in the world's affairs, or seeking the world's approval and support? What is God opposing to the power of Satan? Simply the presence of His Spirit as the witness for Christ. Do Christians think that they know better? Do they suppose that by taking a different course, by setting the world to improve the world, by appealing to its suffrages to set things straight, they can really alter its character or deliver it from Satan's dominion under which God has left it? Is it wiser — is it more reverent — to attempt that which God is not concerned in, that which His Word tells can only end in fearful failure; or to walk in fellowship with Him, holding aloof from the world and its affairs, and in the power of the Spirit, setting forth the Christ in whom alone deliverance from the world and its judgment is to be found — gathering a people out of the world to the One whom God has set at His own right hand in glory, and by whom in His time the sceptre of the world will be righteously wielded, and the blessing of the world surely accomplished?

The doctrine of Satanic existence and power is gradually unfolded in the word of God, and with a certain analogy, in point of progressive development, to that of Christ. The serpent appears from the beginning as man's tempter, and the enemy of God; while, in the same chapter (Gen. 3), Christ is, as the Deliverer and Avenger, revealed in promise. That old serpent is the devil and Satan (Rev. 12:9). But, subsequently to the record of his first great work of destruction, he is but rarely mentioned in connexion with the general course of the world, though the effect of his influence, as the fountain of iniquity and the father of lies, is everywhere manifest, in the overspreading of wickedness and idolatry which the word of God describes. As the god of this world he is recognized, if not yet distinctly as its prime. The way of the nations was to do sacrifice unto devils (Ps. 106:36-37). It is in the book of Job that we have the clearest view afforded us of Satan's general influence and power over sublunary things. In most of the remaining instances in which he is distinctly mentioned in the Old. Testament, he appears, in an exclusive relation to the people of God, as their watchful tempter and adversary. But the fulness of truth, on this point as on every other, is to be found only in the New Testament. There, as we read: "The darkness is passed, and the true light now shines" (1 John 2:8). It is a light in which the great principles both of good and evil are revealed to the believer. In that sense, facts in the Old Testament become doctrines in the New (cp. 1 Cor. 10:11). Thus Cain, in the former, is the murderer of his brother; but it is in the latter that the deed is referred to its ultimate source: "he was of that Wicked One" (1 John 3:12). With respect to the specific titles of prince and god of the present world, they stand in an obvious relation to Him, to whom both titles rightfully belong. The first of these was applied to Satan by the Lord Jesus, when His own rejection, on the world's part, was on the eve of its consummation (John 12:31). The second title was assigned to him by the Holy Ghost, when, as the Witness of the glory of Jesus, He thus placed the seal of an emphatic reprobation, upon a world which had rejected its true God (2 Cor. 4:4). The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ thus disowns the world, by refusing to be called its God. Since the world would. none of Him when He came to it in the Person of His Son, He makes it over — judicially — to another god. Man is thus the willing slave of his destroyer, until the power of elective mercy brings him out of darkness into light (Acts 26:18).

Returning to Paul's ministry, he says, "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." The light of the Gospel which brings to us the knowledge of God also exposes the lost condition of those who know not the Gospel; and if it is hidden from men, it is because Satan has blinded them; they are under his influence. But the Gospel has been sent to men "to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God" (Acts 26:18).

We have been speaking about the glory of the Lord: now the Apostle brings before us the glory of Christ, Who is the image of God. The Gospel of God's grace tells of the divine resources to meet the need of the sinner, but the Gospel of the glory of Christ sets before us the last Adam, Who is the image of God. The first man was made in God's image to represent Him on earth; but Christ is the perfect representation of God in heavenly glory. What God is, in His disposition towards men in righteous grace, is seen in the glory of Christ. But all that Man is for God, not only in relation to earthly things, but also in relation to what is heavenly, is displayed to the eye of faith in the glory of Christ. (The Son as the image of the invisible God, in Colossians 1:15 is somewhat different from what is brought out here. There we see God, Who dwells in unapproachable light, coming forth in the Person of the Son; seen as only He can be seen, in the Son of His love). In the preaching of the Gospel, Paul called upon men to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ: it was Christ he preached, not himself. True servants of the Lord serve the saints for Jesus' sake.

When Paul was converted, he was sent by the Lord Jesus to the Gentiles, "to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me" (Acts 26:18). The truth is this, you and I are no match for the devil. He has overcome every man save One — the Lord Jesus, the Saviour of men, — and he holds every man in his hand who has not been brought by grace to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And if a man does not believe the Gospel, what is the reason? God tells us. "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world (the devil) has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to them" (2 Cor. 4:3-4). That witness is very solemn, and should awaken every careless, unsaved man to bethink him of his awful condition.