<p>4:4- see on Eph. 1:20.</p><p><i>In whom</i>- The problem was internal; the minds of the unbelieving were blinded. 3:14 has said that their minds were hardened or blinded because the veil of Judaism lay upon their minds. &quot;The god of this world&quot; is therefore sure to be related to Jewish, legal influences.&nbsp;</p><p><i>The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving</i>- The Eastern (Aramaic) text reads: &ldquo;To those in this world whose minds have been blinded by God, because they did not believe&rdquo;. It is darkness which blinds men&rsquo;s eyes (1 Jn. 2:11), i.e. not walking according to the light of God&rsquo;s word. There is only <i>one</i> God &ndash; not two. And it&rsquo;s also noteworthy that Is. 6:10 speaks of <i>God</i> as having the power to blind Israel. The New Testament repeats this. Rom. 11:8 says that <i>God</i> (and not Satan) blinded Israel to the Gospel; 2 Cor. 3:14 says that their minds were blinded or &ldquo;hardened&rdquo; (RV) as Pharaoh&rsquo;s was. Whoever &ldquo;the god of this world&rdquo; is or was, God worked through it and is therefore greater than it. Henry Kelly comments: &ldquo;Given this track record, can we see the God of this Aeon as <i>our</i> God, as Yahweh? He is, after all, in charge of everything&rdquo;. It is God and not any independent Satan figure who sends people an <i>energeia</i> of error to believe falsehood (2 Thess. 2:12) &ndash; the ultimate &lsquo;energy&rsquo; in the process is from God.</p><p>For something to be called &ldquo;the god of this world&rdquo; does not necessarily mean that it is in reality &ldquo;the god of this world&rdquo;; it could mean &lsquo;the thing or power that this world counts to be God&rsquo;. Thus Acts 19:27 speaks of the goddess Diana, a lifeless idol, &ldquo;whom all the world worships&rdquo;. This doesn&rsquo;t mean that the piece of wood or stone called Diana was in reality the goddess of this world. I mentioned in section 1-1-2 that Paul is quoting &ldquo;the god of this world&rdquo; from contemporary Jewish writings rather than actually believing such a &lsquo;god&rsquo; existed. It&rsquo;s also possible that &ldquo;the god of this world&rdquo; who blinds people is an allusion to material in the documents comprising what are now known as the Gnostic Gospels. The <i>Hypostasis of the Archons</i> claims to record God&rsquo;s rebuke of Satan: &ldquo;&ldquo;You are mistaken, Samael&rdquo;, which means, &ldquo;god of the blind&rdquo;&ldquo;. Paul in this case would be alluding to popular belief about Satan, and reapplying this language to the Jewish opposition to the Gospel, and to the human &ldquo;blindness&rdquo; which stops them accepting Christ. In Eph. 4:18 Paul specifically defined what he meant by &ldquo;darkness&rdquo;: &ldquo;Having the understanding darkened... through the ignorance that is <i>within</i> them... The blindness of their heart&rdquo;. That opposition, rather than any mythical &lsquo;Samael&rsquo;, was the real adversary / Satan.</p><p>Even if it is insisted that Satan exists as a personal being, the question has to be faced: Who created Satan? Is his power under God&rsquo;s control, or not? Time and again the &lsquo;Satan&rsquo; and &lsquo;demon&rsquo; passages of the Bible indicate that however we are to understand these terms, God is more powerful, God is in control. The book of Job shows how the Satan there had all power given to him <i>by God</i>. The power of the Lord Jesus over &lsquo;demons&rsquo; makes the same point. And in that context, note how Ex. 4:11 assures us that God is the one who makes people deaf, but Lk. 11:14 speaks of how such muteness is apparently caused by demons. Clearly, God is in control. This world, with all the evil and negative experience in it, has not been left under the control of some out&ndash;of&ndash;control evil being. With this in mind, it should be apparent that the &lsquo;god of this world&rsquo; can&rsquo;t mean that the world is under the <i>ultimate </i>control of Satan rather than God. Rather, &ldquo;the god of this world&rdquo; <i>aion</i> &ldquo;can also be read as merely a personification of all the forces of this <i>aion</i> that would thwart the success of the Christian message&rdquo;.</p><p>The way that the idea of &lsquo;Satan&rsquo; is used to describe both individual sin and societies governed by the principle of sin is very much in line with the way that first century society was very much a communalistic rather than an individualistic society. The society was the person. Further, social scientists and psychologists have time and again confirmed the Biblical teaching that the fundamental motivation of human beings is the ego, self-interest &ndash; what the Bible calls &lsquo;Satan&rsquo;. This is what drives people at the individual level, and thus drives societies. It&rsquo;s appropriate, therefore, for &lsquo;Satan&rsquo;, the personification of human sin and self-interest, to also be a term applied to human governments and societies as a whole. Truly in this sense (the Biblical) Satan could be understood as &ldquo;the god of this world&rdquo;.</p><p><b>A Jewish Interpretation</b></p><p>If Scripture interprets Scripture, &ldquo;the god of this world (<i>aion</i>)&rdquo; in 2 Corinthians 4:4 must be similar to &ldquo;the prince of this world (<i>kosmos</i>)&rdquo; (Jn. 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). Both the Jewish age <i>aion</i> and <i>kosmos</i> ended in A.D. 70. In the context, Paul has been talking in 2 Cor. 3 about how the glory shining from Moses&rsquo; face blinded the Israelites so that they could not see the real spirit of the law which pointed forward to Christ. Similarly, he argues in chapter 4, the Jews in the first century could not see &ldquo;the light of the glorious (cp. the glory on Moses&rsquo; face) gospel of Christ&rdquo; because they were still blinded by &ldquo;the god of this world&rdquo; &ndash; the ruler of the Jewish age. The &ldquo;prince&rdquo; or &ldquo;God&rdquo; of the &ldquo;world&rdquo; (age) was the Jewish system, manifested this time in Moses and his law. Notice how the Jews are described as having made their boast of the law&hellip;made their boast of God (Rom. 2:17,23). To them, the Law of Moses had become the god of their world. Although the link is not made explicit, there seems no reason to doubt that &ldquo;the prince of this world&rdquo; and &ldquo;Satan&rdquo; are connected. It is evident from Acts (9:23&ndash;25,29&ndash;30; 13:50,51; 14:5,19; 17:5,13; 18:12; 20:3) that the Jews were the major &lsquo;Satan&rsquo; or adversary to the early Christians, especially to Paul. Of course it has to be remembered that there is a difference between Moses&rsquo; personal character and the Law he administered; this contrast is constantly made in Hebrews. Similarly, the Law was &ldquo;Holy, just and good&rdquo;, but resulted in sin due to man&rsquo;s weakness &ndash; it was &ldquo;weak through the flesh&rdquo;, explaining why the idea of Satan/sin is connected with the Law. Because of this it was in practice a &ldquo;ministry of condemnation&rdquo;, and therefore a significant &lsquo;adversary&rsquo; (Satan) to man; for in reality, &ldquo;the motions of sins...were by the Law&rdquo; (Rom. 7:5).</p><p><i>That the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn</i>- &quot;Dawn&quot; is better &quot;shine out&quot;. The glory of Christ and therefore of God cannot shine through the veil of legalism. That Christ &quot;is the image of God&quot; is mentioned to make the point that being blinded to Him means being blinded to God. It is not possible to have a relationship with the Father without the Son. The Gospel is the glory of Christ. The blessings now mediated by the exalted Lord mean that <i>whatever</i> the barriers, those who appreciate those blessings and the <i>height</i>, the pure, wondrous <i>height</i> of His exaltation and what this thereby enables for us, will <i>naturally</i>&nbsp; preach it. The Gospel is &ldquo;the gospel of the glory of Christ&rdquo; (2 Cor. 4:4 RSV). The glory of the &ldquo;similitude of the Lord&rdquo; that Moses saw and reflected (Num. 12:4) is likened to &ldquo;the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God&rdquo; (2 Cor. 4:4). Like Moses, Jewish people have the vision of that glory, but they have it veiled; they potentially have it, but it is hidden, because their minds are veiled. This could possibly suggest that Paul saw more potential in the Jewish mind for Christ than other races; thus he speaks in Rom. 11 of how the natural branch which has been cut off Israel will be more effectively grafted back into the olive tree than the wild Gentile branches. This of course has similarities with the Lord&rsquo;s teaching about Himself as the vine, whose unfruitful branches had been cut off (Jn. 15:2). Israel &ldquo;much more&rdquo; than the Gentiles can be grafted back in, whereas Gentile converts do this &ldquo;against nature&rdquo; (Rom. 11:24). In the context of Israel&rsquo;s final repentance, God speaks of how every one of the Jewish people has been potentially created for His glory, because they carry His Name (Is. 43:7). Although Israel have been &ldquo;quenched as a wick&rdquo; for their sins (Is. 43:17 RVmg.), we are to realize that the wick is still smouldering, and are to follow the Lord&rsquo;s example of never totally quenching it but instead seek to fan the wick of Israel back into life (Is. 42:3).</p>