Transcript & Slides: Satan's Main Aim

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Satan's Main Aim
By David Feddes

What would happen if Satan took over an entire city? The thought of Satan taking over might conjure images of a city in shambles, with people being cruel to each other and all sorts of horrible things happening. That might be how things would end up, but maybe that wouldn't be what would happen right away if Satan took over a city.

Donald Grey Barnhouse, a preacher in Philadelphia decades ago, once asked the question, "What would happen if Satan took over Philadelphia?" He thought that if Satan took over, all the bars would be closed, pornography would be outlawed, the streets would be safe and squeaky clean, children would be polite, churches would be full every Sunday—and Jesus Christ would not be preached as God and Savior. Dr. Barnhouse believed that Satan would be delighted to give us more of our own righteousness if he could rob us of Christ and His righteousness. Satan would give us more goodness if he could rob us of God.

Just think of Satan's strategies throughout history. The religion of Islam burst on the scene with a strict moral code and many cultural achievements, along with impressive military and economic strength in its early centuries. It was not just a disaster for everybody where it came; it was a mighty and powerful civilization. But Islam denied that Jesus is God and Savior.

In Victorian England and in much of America that fell under the sway of Unitarianism in the 1800s, they were very strong on morality. They emphasized good, proper behavior and clean living but were very weak on Christ as God and Savior. 

Consider nice, clean, all-American Salt Lake City, Utah, today, the world capital of Mormonism—one of the most beautiful, cleanest, and safest cities you can find, and one where Jesus Christ as God with us, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is denied.

So, maybe it's not such a terrible guess to say that if Satan took over a city or a civilization, it might seem really quite nice and well-ordered. But Christ would not be proclaimed. Satan's main goal is to keep us from seeing Jesus. Satan's main goal is to keep us from seeing Christ as the perfect picture of God, the display of the Father's glory.

The history of Satan's work over the past 2000 years is, in large part, a history of groups and movements that detracted from or distracted from Jesus Christ. Satan might eventually let a city go completely to the dogs and go down the tubes. But if he just had his way, he might make life pretty livable without Jesus Christ.

As we think about that, let's look at a key passage in the Bible in 2 Corinthians 4.

The Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write these words. Paul had once been a man who strongly emphasized morality, proper behavior, and good living, and he had despised Jesus Christ. But he came to see the light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and he knew what Satan's main aim is. Satan's main aim, as the god of this world, is to keep people from seeing the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

When we want to see who Jesus is, a great picture is found in Colossians 1:15-20.

Let's take this great passage, one of the clearest in the Bible teaching the truth about Jesus Christ, and see some of Satan's counterfeits and attempts to conceal, twist, distort, or hide what is true about our Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing this passage says is that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. If you want to know what God is like, you look at Jesus because Jesus is God. He is God made visible to us.

Muslims say that Jesus is not God appearing among us, but a prominent prophet. So, they say Jesus is very important and taught true things, but He is not God. He is not the way we see God appearing among us. Mormons say that Jesus came from a union between Mary and the visible body of Elohim, the Father. God the Father has a body, and Jesus was the result of the Father's physical union with Mary. This denies that God is invisible, that God is a spirit, and that God the Father does not have a body. It also denies the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches do hold to the full deity of Jesus Christ, and they are absolutely right about that. All Christians agree on this. But Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox aren't satisfied with Jesus as God's image and resort to using statues and icons as aids to worshiping God, rather than simply accepting that God is invisible. The way to know God is through the word of truth about our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Then, of course, there is contemporary spirituality. People say, "Oh, I'm not a religious person, I'm a spiritual person. I don't like organized religion, but I like spirituality. My inner feelings are the best indicator of who Jesus is or who God is," not Jesus as the image of the invisible God, but my vibes are the image of the invisible God. So, there are a variety of ways of denying the fullness of Jesus as the image of the invisible God.

Jesus is also, according to Colossians 1, the firstborn of all creation. "For by Him all things were created," it says. Heretic Arius, in the early 300s, said that Jesus Christ is the first creature. He is not God, the Creator. Arius said, "There was a time when He was not." There was a time when the Son of God didn't exist. Arius believed that Jesus had existed before He became Jesus, in the sense that He was a great being before He was conceived in the womb of Mary. He was the first creature made before other creatures, and that's what he believed was meant by "the firstborn of all creation."

But Scripture teaches that "firstborn of all creation" does not mean that He is actually just a part of creation. Although, of course, He is the foremost of creatures in the sense that He is human as well as God. But in His divine nature, Jesus is the firstborn of God, over all creation. He is God's firstborn with the authority over the whole household and with all the rights over all of creation. That's what's meant, not that He is the first creature and that Jesus didn't exist before He became a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

Arius taught that Christ is just the first creature. Jehovah's Witnesses teach something very similar to Arius. They say that the Archangel Michael gave up his angel nature to become Jesus. Jesus was never God. This is a direct contradiction of the doctrine of the Trinity, which states, based on biblical revelation, that Jesus is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, and is divine, not just an angel or even a mighty Archangel, but God Himself and the creator of all things. The Bible never says that Michael created all things or that all things were created through him or that Michael is before all things. It says that of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Pantheism takes a whole different approach. There is no creator or creation; creator and creation are the same thing. The universe is God. By saying that everything is divine, it effectively says that nothing is divine. That's the whole idea of pantheism, very popular in Eastern religions and among some who even label themselves Christian theologians, especially those who are in love with evolutionism. Then there's naturalism, which says the ultimate reality is impersonal evolution, not a personal creator. Scripture says, "In the beginning God," and "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," and that Christ is the one for whom all things were created. Before anything came along that's not personal or material, there was the personal creator.

Naturalism contradicts this completely, saying that the ultimate reality is matter and energy. Personality, they claim, evolved out of random combinations of matter and energy, a flat rejection of what the Bible reveals. Another lie from Satan, to detract from the glory of Christ and from the glory of God the Father.

"For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities." Let's focus on that part: thrones, rulers, dominions, authorities. These were all created through Christ and for Him. It happens again and again throughout history where people begin to worship angels, believing they become more spiritual if they are in contact with certain spirit guides. They don't realize that the kind of spirit guides who try to take over your personality or become a substitute for God are the fallen angels, the fallen and wicked spirits. They start to worship angels. Real godly angels don't want to be worshipped. The only kinds of angels who will receive worship are the bad kind—the Satanic and demonic kind.

Worshipping angels instead of the living God has been popular in various religions. Another aspect of this is tribal religions where they believe they have to deal with local spirits and the spirits of their ancestors. They believe there is a great Creator God who made everything, but they believe that He's kind of in the wholesale business, living far away. Retail religion is dealing with these local spirits—the spirit of this tree or that forest, that rock, or this region, where they need some help—or dealing with ancestors who can do harm or help if those spirits are with them. These kinds of traditional religions, though they believe in a creator, act as if the lesser spirits—dominions, rulers, authorities—are the ones you really have to get along with. The Christian religion teaches, "Go straight to the top. Pray to God and depend on Him, and let His supremacy over all those other things He created be your comfort."

Roman Catholics, in a sense, deal with intermediate spirits as well because instead of just praying to God in the name of Jesus Christ, they encourage communication with the dead in much the same way those tribal religions believe. Ancestor veneration, prayers to Mary, prayers directed to patron saints—saints of a particular area or saints of a particular specialty of life. It's not enough to pray to God alone but to these spirit intermediaries. It's all part of the same syndrome of denying the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and looking to spirit intermediaries.

Jesus is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together. Again, Satan has come up with various ideas to undermine or deny this. Deism is the idea that God got the universe going and then wound up the clock, so to speak, and left it to run on its own. He's not involved with it anymore; He just got it rolling. Scripture says, "In Him, all things hold together," and He's upholding it every moment by the word of His power. That's what it says of Jesus Christ. Deism says, "No, there is a God. He made things, and now He made it according to rational patterns, but it's on its own." It's our job to figure out the rational patterns and live according to moral principles. That's it. God's not engaged with this world, and we don't need to engage with God directly.

A variation on this is what's labeled "moral therapeutic deism," a term sociologist Christian Smith, probably the foremost sociologist of religion in America, has labeled the typical American religion. He summarizes it as "God wants me to be nice"—that's the moral part. "He wants me to be happy"—that's the therapeutic part. But He's a non-factor in the real world and daily living. That's the deism part. There is a God out there somewhere, and He generally wants me to be a nice person, and He certainly wouldn't want me to go through anything difficult. He wants me to be happy at all times. But He doesn't really matter, and I don't really need to worry about having an ongoing daily connection with Him.

This is the way many people live. They think if you don't kick the dog, and if you pursue your own happiness, let God worry about God. That's the way to live. Moral therapeutic deism does not recognize that in Christ, all things hold together. If you're trying to live without Jesus Christ, your life falls apart. Then there's civil religion—the worship of the nation. You use a lot of God-talk in your political life, put Jesus and manger scenes in public displays, slap the Ten Commandments up in a few courthouses, and count on traditional values holding things together. Scripture says Christ is the one in whom all things hold together.

But civil religion wants to hold a society together based on using "In God We Trust" on our money, making public displays of this and that but not actually having the word of the living God in our hearts. We want the Ten Commandments in our courthouses, but we don't know what they are. Hardly any Americans can name all Ten Commandments, even those who call themselves evangelicals can barely name five of the Ten. Yet they want the Ten Commandments in public life. This indicates a trust in civil religion as something that generally holds things together. It's not just cults or other religions that can deny truths and realities about Jesus Christ. It's also the way we handle things and conduct our daily lives.

He is the head of the body, the church. That's another great truth about Jesus Christ and another fact about Christ that Satan tries to undermine. The Roman Catholic Church may say that Christ is the head of the church, but in practice, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ. He is Christ's person on earth to head the whole church. So, in fact, Christ is not treated as the only true head of the church. 

Many people aren't Catholics, and even many Catholics don't really revere the Pope that much. They believe the customer is king. They're basically consumerists in their religion. The church exists to please me. If it doesn't do what I like, I'm going somewhere else because there will be a church out there somewhere that will scratch my itchy ears and satisfy my appetite. So, I'm going to shop around until I get a church that suits my fancy. Very low on the list of important things about a church is whether Jesus Christ is actually exalted there, whether Jesus Christ is honored as supreme, and whether the way of Christ and the formation of people into the character of Christ is the number one priority of that congregation.

So don't go around saying, "Oh yeah, those Catholics, they've got their Pope and they're denying Jesus as head of the church." Many non-Catholics and even some Catholics are far more consumerist and just as surely denying that Jesus is the one and only head of the church. They seem to think the customer, not Christ, is king. Then there's the individualist: Christ is the head of the body. What body? Who needs a church body? "I can experience Jesus anywhere. I've got a personal 'me and Jesus' relationship. Who needs that church thingy?" That's another of Satan's denials of the supremacy and preeminence of Jesus Christ in revealing Himself and working in His body, the church. 

So, one way after another after another, Satan's got his strategies. Oh, here's another one—the doctrinalist. This is one where I could find myself in danger at times. We are ruled by truths and principles. We want to get our doctrines straight. We want to get our moral principles nailed down. I'm a person who teaches doctrine; I teach ethics. Getting all of that right, you can begin to start thinking, "Oh, if we can only get everything written down and figured out properly, who really needs the living Lord Jesus Christ engaged in our lives in a day-to-day manner?" We've got our doctrine correct. We have our teachings about how to behave nailed down, our i's are dotted, our t's are crossed. Who needs the actual involvement of the living Christ by His Holy Spirit in our lives in a daily conversational relationship of prayer, walking with Him, seeking His guidance, loving Him, and worshiping Him?

We need a connection, a living connection with our head. Unfortunately for the doctrinalist, it's bad doctrine to pretend that doctrine is everything. Doctrine matters a great deal. But part of true doctrine is saying, "We seek the living Christ to dwell in us and to live for Him. We are His body, and He is our head, our life, and our day-to-day director." He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent.

Theological liberalism is one of Satan's favorite methods lately. It just says Jesus didn't rise. In this age of enlightenment, when we are so scientific, we know that resurrections don't happen. Yeah, right. Then they try to tell us, "What really matters is the spirit of Jesus' teaching and His thought." Well, if Jesus is dead, said the Apostle Paul, your faith is futile, you're still in your sins. Forget about Christianity if Jesus isn't raised from the dead. But Satan has used theological liberalism over the last couple of hundred years especially to say, "Oh, you can be a Christian and not believe that Jesus rose from the dead at all."

Then there's easy believism, which says, "I can be forgiven and go to heaven without Jesus taking over my life. He doesn't have to be preeminent in everything. I can have Him and His forgiveness and salvation and still do my own thing." What a bunch of rot. But that's one of Satan's methods—to tell you that you can have Jesus as Savior but not as Lord. You can have forgiveness of your sins without Him being preeminent in your life. Dream on.

You may grow in your knowledge of Jesus' preeminence and in your application of it to various areas of life as you discover more and more. But if Christ is not your Lord, if you do not worship Him, and if He's not number one in your life, you are not a saved person. Easy believism is Satan's lie that even if Jesus isn't preeminent in your life, you're just fine. Then again, back to consumerism:

"What I want from a church is..." and you fill in your own nice little consumerist blank. Jesus might even make your list as one of the many things that the customer wants. Maybe He's number 11 on the list. He should feel very fortunate that He made the list at all. Scripture says He is to be preeminent in everything.

For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Jesus is divine. He's revealed that in His words and works and in the truth of the Bible—that He is the very fullness of God, the very image of God. When you're looking at Jesus, you're looking at the Father. But Judaism rejected Jesus as Christ. Some Jewish people accepted Christ, and many of the earliest Christians were, of course, Jewish. All the apostles were Jewish, as was Jesus Himself. But Judaism as a religion rejected the deity of Jesus Christ and Jesus as the fullness of God. They crucified Jesus for blasphemy, some of the Jewish leaders did.

The Arians, the heretics of the early 300s, denied that Jesus is fully God. The Muslims deny that Jesus is God. The Unitarians deny that Jesus is God and say that Jesus is just a great man who knew God well and explained great moral principles. The deists deny that Jesus is God. The Jehovah's Witnesses deny that Jesus is the fullness of God. The Mormons deny it. They all have one thing in common: whatever their differences, Jesus is not God's fullness united to human nature. That is their claim. The consumerist has it a little different. He may have a sound doctrine of Jesus, or he might not. But the consumer says that focusing on Jesus isn't enough. That doesn't fulfill us. We want something more when it comes to church life.

So what if it's a Christ-centered, Bible-believing church? We actually have other things on our wish list. So, the consumerist denies by his life what he professes, perhaps, in his doctrine of Jesus' deity. Then, the next thing about Jesus: "Through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross." It has been very common of Satan throughout history. His main aim is to deny the glory of God in Christ. And where is God's glory in Christ most revealed? Where is God's love in Christ most revealed? At the cross and the resurrection of Jesus. So, a denial of the cross and what it achieved is something that, again and again, Satan will try to pursue.

Muslims say that Jesus did not die at all. Jesus was just a great prophet; He wasn't the Son of God. As a great prophet, Allah would not let a prophet so great be disgraced or killed. So, someone else was made to look like Him. Judas was made to look like Jesus, and Judas was the one who was nailed to the cross. Prophet Jesus was taken straight to heaven without ever dying. So, there is no atonement for sin in Islam because Jesus never died at all. Scripture says that if righteousness could come through the law, Christ died for nothing. Muslims teach that you get righteousness by law, by Sharia, and they teach, therefore, that Jesus didn't die at all. They not only say He didn't die for nothing; they say He didn't die. This is a fundamental denial of the cross. It is Satan's greatest counterfeit in history to have a religion of a billion people that says Jesus is not God, and Jesus did not die.

The Legalist is very closely related. Many followers of Judaism and Islam are legalists, and some who call themselves Christians are too. They believe that by keeping God's law, by our own efforts, by being good boys and girls, we can save ourselves. That is a denial of the blood of the cross. If we could save ourselves, would God have sent His own beloved Son to hang on that cross, to bear such awful agony, to take God's wrath against sin? Would God have done all that if we could just do it on our own?

If we could save ourselves by the works of the law, Christ died for nothing (Galatians 2:21). But He died, and He didn't die for nothing. He died because we needed it. He needed to die for us so that we could have peace with God through the blood of the cross. Then there's the pluralist. The religious pluralist says that many paths lead to God. Some of them may say that all paths lead to God in the end. So, it doesn't really matter whether you believe in Jesus. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," but the pluralist says Jesus is a way, a truth, a life, and many come to the Father apart from Him. Jesus still keeps saying, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," whatever the pluralist may say. The Bible teaches that the cross is the only way—that Jesus has provided faith in His blood as the only way to be made right with God. The pluralist will deny that. They will say there are many other ways, and very often, they think this blood stuff and cross stuff is kind of icky and primitive. So, they end up saying all paths lead to God except the cross.

Well, that's just the old dragon Satan talking. Most pluralists are also universalists. They say all people are saved, even if they don't count on the cross of Christ. By the way, this is a growing threat within the Christian Church itself. Some of its most popular preachers, with thousands in their mega-churches, are saying, "Love wins," meaning that everybody gets in in the end. Scripture says that many will be told by Jesus to "depart from me into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Those people who are not in Christ, whose sin has not been atoned for by His cross and have not put their faith in Him, will be lost forever, despite what every pluralist and universalist says. I don't care how many degrees you have in theology, how many people you have in the pews of your church, how many millions your church's budget is, or how big your television or radio audience is. If you claim that people are saved without Jesus Christ, if you tell them they don't need faith in the blood of the cross, you are a liar, an enemy of the cross, and a tool of Satan. Okay, that wasn't a nice thing I just said. It just happens to be true.

Satan's main aim is to blind people to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So, if that's Satan's main aim, how should we deal with Satan's tricks? Well, my friend Jerry Lorenz, our technology man at Christian Leaders Institute, has to deal with various things in the work that we do. One of those is protecting our computers against hack attacks. Our servers, Jerry tells me, have to fend off more than 100 hack attacks every day. Various hackers and programs are constantly trolling around the internet, trying to take over computer server space.

To fend them off, you need to keep the computer itself healthy, have a strong firewall, and have good programming that will constantly maintain it and fend off every attempt at an attack. Jerry does not have to know everything that ever goes on with those hackers. He just has to know how to defend a computer and keep it healthy. Similarly, in our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, we do want to know some of Satan's main strategies, but we don't need to know the name of every demon or stay up around the clock wondering what direction the next attack will come from. We don't necessarily have to memorize even all the stuff I just talked about in this lecture.

I mention these things because it's important to be alert to Satan's strategies. But remember his main aim: to keep you from seeing the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The best way to deal with Satan and his hack attacks is to focus on the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Have a daily walk with Jesus Christ in prayer, conversation with Him, and listening to Him in the Scriptures. That will build a very strong firewall against the devil, who is always on the prowl, seeking whom he may devour. You can't keep track of him and all his demons all the time. But if you keep your life focused on Jesus Christ, your firewall will be very strong indeed, and you will be able to fend him off.

Satan's main aim, as we have seen, is to keep us from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. So, we need to keep focused on Jesus, His cross, and His resurrection. "Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross."

Satan's got his strategy. "The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." Those of us who are Christians and those of us who are teachers of the gospel need to remember it's not about us. It's not our thing. It's not our church. It's not about us pleasing the customer. “For we do not proclaim ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Satan’s Main Aim
Slide Contents
By David Feddes

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:4-6)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col 1:15-20)

He is the image of the invisible God

• Muslim: Jesus is not God appearing among us but a prominent prophet.
• Mormon: Jesus came from Mary’s union with the visible body of Elohim the Father.
• Catholic and Eastern Orthodox: Rather than be satisfied with Jesus as God’s image, statues and icons are aids to worship.
• Spirituality: My inner feelings are the best indicator of who God is.

… the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created… all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things…

• Arius: Christ is the first creature; he is not God the Creator.
• Jehovah’s Witnesses: The archangel Michael gave up his angel nature to become Jesus the man. Jesus was never God.
• Pantheism: The universe is God.
• Naturalism: Ultimate reality is impersonal evolution, not a personal Creator.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

• Angel worship: becoming “spiritual”
• Tribal religions: local spirits and ancestors
• Catholic: prayers to Mary and patron saints

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

• Deism: God got the universe going and then left it to run on its own.
• Moral therapeutic deism: God wants me to be nice and happy, but he is a non-factor in “the real world” and daily living.
• Civil religion: God-talk, public displays, and traditional values hold things together.

And he is the head of the body, the church.

• Catholic: In practice the pope is head.
• Consumerist: The customer is king. Church should aim to please me.
• Individualist: Who needs a church body? I can experience Jesus anywhere.
• Doctrinalist: We are ruled by truths and principles—who needs the living Christ?

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

• Theological liberalism: Jesus did not rise.
• Easy believism: I can be forgiven and go to heaven without Jesus taking over my life.
• Consumerism: What I want from a church is _________. (Jesus might make the list as one of many things the customer wants.)

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell

• Judaism, Arian, Muslim, Unitarian, Deist, Jehovah’s Witness: Jesus is not God’s fullness united to human nature.
• Consumerist: Focusing on Jesus does not fulfill us; we want something more.

and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

• Muslim: Jesus did not die.
• Legalist: We can save ourselves.
• Pluralist: Many paths lead to God.
• Universalist: All people are saved, even if they do not count on the cross of Christ.

What is the best way to protect a computer server against hack attacks?

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col 1:15-20)


Satan blinds, God shines

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:4-6)