An important aspect of many religious traditions and of occult teaching has to do with attaining spiritual enlightenment. The Bible is not silent on the subject, and upon examination, we discover that when it comes to the nature and source of spiritual enlightenment, there are marked contradictions between the biblical worldview and all non-biblical worldviews, and even much of what claims to be evangelical theology today deviates from biblical revelation. Christian must learn what Scripture has to say on the subject, so that they may firmly cling to its teaching, and not be misled by the doctrines of demons cloaked in garbs of counterfeit wisdom and virtue.
From 2 Corinthians 4:4-6, we will derive several points about true spiritual enlightenment, especially as it relates to the gospel message. In the process, we will also take the opportunity to clarify the nature and content of the gospel itself:
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.[1]
THE INTELLECTUAL MESSAGE
Paul writes that the god of this age blinds the minds of the unbelievers – this means that the nature of spiritual blindness is intellectual. Nowadays, when even professing Christians have succumbed to extreme anti-intellectualism many people assume that spiritual blindness is non-intellectual; rather, the problem lies in some undefined “spiritual” aspect in man. Accordingly, they consider conversion to be some sort of supra-rational event, if not an altogether sub-rational or anti-rational one. However, they fail to see that Scripture never distinguishes the spiritual and the intellectual in this manner.
When Scripture refers to something as “spiritual,” it is often only emphasizing the spiritual nature of the intellectual concepts and activities – that is, it is only referring to the topic of the intellectual concepts and activities. Instead of dealing with intellectual concepts relating to, say, physics or history, we are dealing with spiritual concepts; nevertheless, the nature of these concepts remains intellectual. For example, we may say that chemistry is a scientific subject and that religion is a spiritual subject, but this does not mean that we deal with these subjects using two separate parts of our being. Rather, we use our minds to deal with both chemistry and religion; both scientific and spiritual subjects are intellectual subjects.
Romans 8:5 says, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” To live in the spirit does not mean to live through the “spirit” as a part of man distinct from the intellect, but it means that the mind would focus on and conform to God’s precepts. The popular notion of man as a trichotomy consisting of spirit, soul, and body (and that the spirit is different from the soul) should be replaced with the biblical notion of man as a dichotomy or duality consisting of a material or corporeal aspect (body) and an immaterial or incorporeal aspect (soul or spirit).
Paul consistently attributes spiritual blindness to the mind: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21); “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts” (Ephesians 4:18). Therefore, blindness to spiritual things only means an intellectual blindness about spiritual things, and its elimination involves and requires a supernatural operation on the mind. If it is the mind that is blinded, then it is also the mind that God operates on when he works to change the sinner’s evil disposition so that he may see the truth of the gospel, and be converted.
By saying that spiritual problems are intellectual problems, we are not suggesting that spiritual problems are academic problems, or that spiritual blindness is caused purely by a lack of education or information. We do not mean that one can learn the gospel only in an academic setting, or that only the educated can know to accept or reject it. Rather, by “intellectual,” we mean only “of or pertaining to the mind”; that is, spiritual blindness is a problem of and in the mind, and that the gospel message is directed to, understood by, and accepted or rejected by the mind, as opposed to other (real or imagined) parts or aspects of the human person. We are articulating from 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 the location and nature of spiritual blindness, emphasizing that the pivotal point is the mind, thus making clear that the rejection of the gospel is an act of the intellect. According to Scripture, resistance against the gospel proceeds from a dark, wicked, and twisted mind.
If they explicitly admit a concept of evil at all, some humanists and false religions teach that evil is cause solely by a lack of education or information, and correspondingly, the solution to evil is education. However, Christians cannot accept this false explanation, since their definition of evil is unbiblical (they do not see evil as disobedience to divine precepts), and their “education” does not refer to the knowledge of God through the Scripture.
In contrast, the Bible teaches that man’s problems involve more than just a lack of education or information, but that there is an evil disposition in the unbeliever’s mind that prevents him from seeing the truth and glory of the gospel, even when someone presents it to him with ample information and arguments. In other words, the unbeliever is “stupid” in the worst sense of the word; the non-Christian is a complete moron, and incurable by human power. Because his problem is not only a lack of information, but also a lack of intelligence,[2] God must cure his mind before he can correctly process the spiritual information necessary for his salvation, that is, the gospel.
Although spiritual blindness is intellectual, and although we may properly see preaching as a form of education, regeneration and conversion cannot occur by education alone because the unbeliever cannot see the “light” in the information (the gospel) we present before him. It remains that the blindness is intellectual, but the point is that besides our preaching, God must operate on the sinner by his power, so as to eliminate his blindness and alter his disposition, and thus to convert him.
That spiritual blindness is intellectual necessarily implies that its opposite is also intellectual. By this understanding of spiritual blindness, we can more accurately understand the commission that Jesus gave to Paul: “I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:17-18). To “open their eyes,” that is, to cure their spiritual blindness, is to “turn them from darkness to light,” and thus to grant them understanding. In connection to our discussion of 2 Corinthians 4:4, this means that Paul’s ministry would bring intellectual enlightenment about salvation to those who were spiritually blind and ignorant.
The above necessarily implies that no non-Christian is wise or enlightened from God’s perspective. According to Scripture, all unbelievers are intellectually defective and blind. Since God determines and knows all of reality, his thoughts and perceptions are certainly real and true, so that what God thinks about the unbelievers infallibly reflects the truth about them. Therefore, from a biblical perspective, all non-Christians are stupid and evil.
Even some professing Christians who have been influenced by an anti-biblical worldview may resist such a low estimation of sinful humanity, but Paul states that unbelievers are indeed those who “suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18). Their thinking is futile, and their foolish hearts are darkened (v. 21); although they consider themselves wise, they are fools (v. 22). These are “without excuse” (v. 20), so that the wrath of God is revealed against them (v. 18).
Some Christian scholars try to soften the Bible’s language, and state that the minds of non-Christians are defective only in the moral sense – that is, although they are intelligent, their evil dispositions compel them to draw false conclusions. But this is not what Scripture says; rather, Scripture affirms that non-Christians are defective in both a moral and an intellectual sense – that is, unbelievers do not act stupid and evil only because they are evil, but they act stupid and evil because they are both stupid and evil. Only God can change a person like this by regeneration. As Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3).
In our passage, since Paul is describing the unbelievers’ spiritual blindness toward the gospel, since spiritual blindness is intellectual, and since spiritual enlightenment is intellectual, it necessarily follows that the gospel, which the blind rejects and the enlightened accepts – is also intellectual. The gospel is not mystical, experiential, supra-rational, sub-rational, or irrational. Of course it is spiritual, but this only means that it is an intellectual message about a spiritual topic, in the sense that chemistry is scientific. Since Paul states that those who reject the gospel reject it by the mind, those who accept it do so also by the mind. Since the gospel is intellectual, this means that when we preach the gospel, we are directing the message to the mind.
True spiritual enlightenment involves an enhancement of the intellect and an increase in understanding. Paul says to the elect that God has “lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding” (Ephesians 1:8). When God saves a man, the part of him that is affected is also the part that is in God’s image, namely, the mind. Thus Colossians 3:10 says that the “new self…is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”
In addition, only true spiritual information can bring true spiritual enlightenment. Embracing false doctrines with the mind is not enlightenment, but spiritual deception. Therefore, we reject the notion that God is pleased with inaccurate but “sincere” preaching. Moreover, since spiritual enlightenment is intellectual, it necessarily follows that the information with which the mind is enlightened is propositional; otherwise, the information would be meaningless and unintelligible. This contradicts those who say that spiritual knowledge or enlightenment can come through experience, mystical or otherwise, but it remains that since spiritual enlightenment is intellectual in nature, the information with which it is enlightened must be in a form that the mind can define and grasp.
By itself, an experience can offer no information. In the first place, for any experience to have meaning, one must interpret it, and one cannot avoid using the presuppositions and categories already present in his mind to interpret any experience. Therefore, not everyone interprets an experience the same way. If this is the case, what is the experience meant to convey? This can never be settled by appealing to the experience itself. In any case, once a person derives meaning from such an experience, this knowledge becomes propositional. To avoid this, one must not interpret the experience at all, in which case it will mean nothing, so that it fails to convey any information that can enlighten the mind.
In summary, to say that spiritual blindness and enlightenment are intellectual means that our gospel preaching must be intelligible in presentation, cogent in argumentation, coherent in organization, and accurate in formulation. Our preaching must consist of coherently arranged propositions, clearly presented to the minds of our hearers. Whether for evangelization or edification, sound doctrinal preaching can never be replaced by experiences, prayer, music, fellowship, or rituals.
THE CHRISTOLOGICAL MESSAGE
Whereas 2 Corinthians 4:4 shows that the gospel is intellectual, verses 5 and 6 add that the gospel is christological: “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake…to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
From our earlier discussion, we understand that the “knowledge” in verse 6 is not some mystical or otherwise non-intellectual apprehension of truth; rather, it is an intellectual grasp of and assent to the gospel, and since this knowledge is intellectual, it is also propositional.
The “light” of this knowledge of “the glory of God” is found “in the face of Christ.” As we will further emphasize in what follows, God is the source of all spiritual knowledge, but he grants such knowledge only through Jesus Christ. Jesus himself insists, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
There are not numerous ways to God – there is only one way, and Jesus calls himself “the way.” Truth is not relative or changing – there is only one eternal and unchanging truth, and Jesus calls himself “the truth.” The New Testament writers identify him as the logos, that is, the eternal unchanging principle of order in the universe (John 1:1; Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:1-3, 13:8). Since this is true, only Jesus Christ is “the life,” whereas all other ways inevitably lead to everlasting death and torment. Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” No one can reject Jesus Christ and at the same time find God and life. Apart from Christ, there is only despair, death, and damnation.
In another place, Jesus declares, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30). Jesus states that there is no neutral ground – what is not explicitly Christian is in fact anti-Christian. Thus we must not only condemn all anti-christological religions and philosophies, but we must also condemn those that appear to be merely non-christological.
Paul writes that we are to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and…take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”(2 Corinthians 10:5). Of course, this does not mean that every statement that one makes must explicitly mention Christ. However, it remains that we must forcibly subdue (by divine power) every statement or thought, that does not at least implicitly acknowledge the ultimate authority of Christ. The divine power to accomplish this does not manifest through physical violence, since “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4). We triumph over competing religions and worldviews through rational argumentation, wholly founded on biblical revelation, and energized by the Holy Spirit.
Referring to Paul’s missionary work to the Thessalonians, Luke writes, “As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:2), and later at Corinth, “Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks” (Acts 18:4). Likewise, Apollos “vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 18:28). Our intellectual and christological message is also an invincible message.
Any message that is not christological in the biblical sense is in reality anti-Christian. For a message to be christological in the biblical sense, it must not advocate a merely abstract concept of “Christ” as an example of morality or mystical enlightenment. The message must either implicitly or preferably explicitly acknowledge the complete and unadulterated Christ. This includes Christ’s pre-existence and deity, virgin birth, incarnation and humanity, earthly life and ministry, atonement through his substitutionary suffering and death, his physical resurrection, and his future return as the judge of all.
The Christ of Scripture is God manifested in human flesh. He is fully God and fully man. John testifies, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). He also warns against any distortion or denial of Christ’s incarnation: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world” (1 John 4:2-3).
The true Christ is the historical Jesus of Nazareth. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, Paul summarizes at least part of the gospel message he preached, placing great emphasis on the historical nature of Christ’s redemptive work:
Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
Paul indicates that a clear conception of and faith in the historical Jesus and his work of redemption is of “first importance.” He states that it is “by this gospel you are saved,” and if we fail to “hold firmly” to it, then “you have believed in vain.” The biblical Christ is not a mystical or ideological Christ, that is, he is not just an idea or an example, but he is the second person of the Triune God manifested in history. His incarnation, life, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension really happened in history; they were not symbolic or mythological events.
Peter says, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). As Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, the angels said to his disciples, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). It is the same Jesus of Nazareth who will return, and he will return “in the same way.”
Christians must understand and affirm the historical nature of our christological message because there has been a resurgence of false doctrines in which Christ is presented as little more than an ideological symbol or moral example. But we have noted that any message that is not christological in the biblical and historical sense is of the antichrist. A symbolic Christ who is nothing more than an idea and who has performed no redemptive work in history cannot save anyone. The object of faith in such a distorted message is not the biblical Christ at all.
A christological message does not just accurately present the biblical Christ, but it also upholds the supremacy of Christ. Unlike the false prophets of false religions, it will never make oneself the latest and greatest revelation or prophet from God to mankind, as in Islam, Mormonism, and Baha’ism, and it will not usurp the authority that belongs to Christ, as in Catholicism. Paul writes, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5).
Contrary to this, a number of false religions are founded on the very claim that their prophets were the latest and greatest prophets from God, even ones who superseded the authority of Christ, and who had the mandate and the authority to add to what has been permanently revealed in Scripture. Of course, others subsequently arose and declared the previous “prophets” obsolete, and that they were now the authoritative voice of God to humanity, that they were the truly enlightened ones, although some of those who went before had already claimed to be the final prophets. In contrast, 2 Corinthians 4:5 says, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” A true messenger from God preaches Jesus Christ “as Lord,” that is, he declares the supremacy of Christ instead of exalting himself.
To the Colossians, Paul writes:
My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge…For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him. (Colossians 2:2-3, 1:19)
In Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. ” Of course, since Jesus is the omniscient God, it necessarily follows that he possesses all wisdom and knowledge, and he “has become for us wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
None of the prophets before Christ was the very incarnation of God, and none of them had “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” As Hebrews 1:1-3 says:
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
God spoke through the prophets in the past, but now he had spoken through Christ, in whom are “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Christ is also the divine agent by which the Godhead created and even now sustains the universe. Therefore, the biblical Christ has complete and superior knowledge of all things.
We must understand what is being said here so that we can perceive what implications necessarily follow. Since Christ is God and in him are all (not just some) wisdom and knowledge, then unlike the prophets before him, Christ was the full and final revelation of God to mankind. It was Christ that the previous prophets spoke about in the first place (Luke 24:44; John 5:39) – that is, their message was christological in content and focus. And since Christ is the complete expression of God (Hebrews 1:3), there is nothing else that anyone after him can reveal that is not already in Christ.
Since this is true, there is no one after Christ who can rightly claim to be his equal or superior, nor can anyone offer revelations that contradict, update, or supersede the Christian revelation as recorded in Scripture. This being the case, you would expect one who claims to supercede Christ to first refute Christianity, but on the contrary, they claim to honor Christ as a true prophet of God. But they cannot have it both ways – they must either honor Christ as a true prophet, which prohibits further revelation that is not already found in Christ, or they must first refute Christianity before asserting their own alleged revelations. Jesus says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). He is the perfect and complete revelation of God since he is himself deity. Thus there can never be a greater or more current and relevant messenger or revelation from God.
If one affirms that Christianity is true, then he must also affirm that all other religions and worldviews are false; otherwise, he is not really affirming that Christianity is true, since Christianity insists on its own exclusivity – that it alone is true, and that it alone can save. On the other hand, if one claims that Christianity is false, then this generates a collision of worldviews between Christianity and the worldview by which this person declares Christianity to be false, and this gives the informed Christian the opportunity to totally annihilate his opponent’s beliefs in argumentation and to make him a public example.
There is no way around it – Christianity is either true or false. If Christianity is true, then its own claim that all other religions and worldviews are false is also true, and thus if Christianity is true, then all other religions and worldviews are indeed false. But if one claims that Christianity is false, then he must defeat us in the battlefield of rational argumentation.
Since Christianity claims to be wholly true in every aspect and detail, any claim saying that Christianity is only partially true or even mostly true is tantamount to saying that Christianity is false. In Christ is all wisdom and knowledge.
It is a cowardly compromise to say that there is some truth in every religion, so that one should not hold to his own religion to the total exclusion of others, and that one should always respect another person’s religion. Even some professing Christians consider this compromise a legitimate option, but this reflects their feeble or even non-existent commitment to Christ. Since Christianity itself does not allow this compromise, to affirm this position is also tantamount to saying that Christianity is false.
Now, if a worldview consists of both true and false propositions, one will not be able to identify the true from the false on the basis of that same worldview. If one is indeed able to distinguish the true from the false, this only means that he has already presupposed another worldview that he knows or assumes to be wholly correct, and by which he now evaluates the worldview presented to him. Since this is the case, this means that he does not learn anything from the worldview under scrutiny, because he has already adopted one that he assumes to be true in its entirety. But if the worldview he has presupposed is not entirely true, then again we have the epistemological problem of identifying the true from the false within the worldview.
For example, a person who tests a truth-claim with the “scientific method” presupposes a worldview that assumes the scientific method to be reliable for testing truth-claims. However, if the worldview based on which he makes this assumption is not wholly true, then how does he know whether the scientific method is reliable in the first place? It may be that his assumption about the reliability of the scientific method is precisely one of the things about his worldview that is false. Unless he somehow knows that his worldview is entirely correct, he would have no way to test or confirm whether the scientific method is reliable. Therefore, a worldview that is only partially true is also a worthless one. It logically collapses into total skepticism about reality, and no knowledge is attainable.
The Christian claim is that all of the Bible is true. Now, this same Bible says that Christ has all wisdom and knowledge; in addition, since he has created and even now sustains all that exists, this means that he is the divine agent by which anyone knows anything at all. Then, it necessarily follows that even if there is anything true at all in other religions, it can only mean that they have learned (or stolen) the information from Christ and Christianity without acknowledging the source.
From the human perspective, this makes them at least plagiarists, hypocrites, and frauds, but from the biblical perspective (that is, God’s perspective), their guilt is inexcusable. As Paul writes:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them…For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. (Romans 1:18-19, 21-22)
Paul states that God has given all men some knowledge about himself, but unbelievers refuse to acknowledge him. They refuse to acknowledge this giver of knowledge as God, and they refuse to give him thanks. Instead, they credit their knowledge to another source, and worship this as their God. “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator…” (Romans 1:25).
Therefore, to say that non-Christian religions possess some truth only serves to utterly condemn them, and does not lend support to their credibility or usefulness at all. And even if false religions contain several true ideas does not mean that we must respect them, but it only means that we have caught them “red-handed” in their crime of spiritual robbery against God. They have received from God, but they deny him.
They have set up what amounts to their “golden calves” and loudly declare to others, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt” (Exodus 32:4)! However, God has said, “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8). Rather than worshiping the true God, who has verbally revealed himself only through the Christian Scripture, unbelievers suppress their knowledge of this true God, and worship idols instead. Therefore, adherents to non-Christian religions are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). Not all who bask in the sun’s warmth and light are good, and not all who receive rain are righteous. An idol worshiper does not receive rain from his idol, since his idol is really nothing; rather, he receives rain from the Christian God – the problem is that he fails to give glory to whom glory is due. Although God has given him sufficient knowledge about himself, the unbeliever suppresses the truth about God through wickedness (Romans 1:18), and chooses to honor an idol instead (Romans 1:21).
Since Christ possesses all wisdom and all knowledge, then the fact that a non-Christian can know 1 + 1 = 2 means that Christ has given him this knowledge, since Christ is “the true light that gives light to every man” (John 1:9). This knowledge does not originate from, follow from, or reside in the unbeliever’s non-Christian worldview, but it is rather an integral part of the Christian system. If the unbeliever does not then give thanks to the Christian God, then he would be guilty of spiritual and intellectual robbery in failing to give credit to whom credit is due.
On the other hand, Christians freely receive knowledge from the one they worship: “It is because of [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Since Christ has a monopoly on truth, any person who knows anything at all owes his knowledge to him, and a failure to worship Christ and give him thanks is a sin that deserves the ultimate punishment.
Therefore, it also follows that it is sinful for Christians to say that they can learn truths from other religions. Suppose that another religion has within it a piece of true information about God. Based on the biblical premise that Christ is the possessor of all wisdom and knowledge, this piece of information must necessarily be a “Christian” truth – that is, it belongs to Christianity alone – and therefore it is exclusively a part of the Christian revelation. How foolish it would be for a person to learn what belongs to Christianity (that is, any and all truths) from a non-Christian source, and a source that for certain presents even truth in a mixed and distorted fashion? And if a religious system is only partially true but not entirely true, how can a person distinguish the true from the false? Christians who say that other religions contain some truths are able to recognize these truths for what they are precisely because they have already learned them from the Christian worldview; otherwise, there is no way to tell the true from the false.[3]
Suppose a given system of thought includes the following propositions: (1) X is a man, and (2) X is an accountant. If, in reality, (1) is true but (2) is false, how will a person know to affirm (1) and deny (2), unless he is already acquainted with X? Unless the system is completely true (or false), there is no way to tell which proposition is true (or false) without importing knowledge from outside of the system, and if one imports knowledge from outside of the system, then he would be evaluating the system in question by the second system from which he has gained the knowledge to evaluate the first.
That is, if worldview A is not complete true or false, then there is nothing within worldview A by which we can accurately judge a particular proposition within worldview A as true or false. If we bring in something that we know from worldview B by which we judge something within worldview A, then we are making worldview B to stand in judgment over worldview A. But if one has already obtained knowledge that is accurate, relevant, and extensive enough from worldview B by which to evaluate worldview A, then he cannot meaningfully learn anything from worldview A. He is judging it, not learning from it.
In other words, if a worldview is not completely true, then on the basis of the same worldview, there is no way to tell whether a given proposition within the same worldview is true or false. But if you already know enough from another worldview to judge the propositions within this first worldview, then there is nothing you can really learn from it, since you already know what it can offer you and more. Of course, the worldview by which you judge another worldview must itself be completely true; otherwise, you will have the same problem again. Any worldview that is not completely true collapses into skepticism, so that it can know nothing at all.
Therefore, there is nothing to learn from a religious system that is not completely true. You can only learn from a system of thought that is completely true, and then use what you have learned from this worldview to evaluate another worldview, but never to learn from it. Thus to say that a given religion has “some truth” even though it is not completely true is to condemn it as utterly worthless, and not to praise or honor it, or to give it a place in society.
No non-Christian religion can teach any true information that is not already explicitly stated or implicitly assumed in the Christian worldview. There is nothing true that any non-Christian religion can teach that is not already part of the Christian system. To say otherwise would be to deny our basic premise that all wisdom and knowledge are in Christ, in which case we will question whether the one making the denial is a Christian in the first place. If not, then this again generates a confrontation of worldviews, and the informed Christian is guaranteed victory.[4]
Therefore, we conclude that there is nothing that Christians can learn from non-Christians that is not already included or implied in the Christian worldview, only that Scripture reveals these truths without distortion, impurity, or mixture, and that it reveals these truths in a way that is comprehensive and coherent. So even if there are true propositions in non-Christian religions, there is absolutely no reason to learn these truths from them. As we have established, even if non-Christian religions contain some truths, since these religions are not completely true, you will have to already know these truths before you can recognize them and distinguish them from the false propositions within these religions. And if you already know them, then you are not learning them from these non-Christian religions. Therefore, for me to say that other religions may have “some truth” in them is to insult them – I am implying that their prophets and adherents are wicked thieves and complete morons, certainly not worthy of anyone’s trust and respect.
Paul writes, “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 3:10). God intends for the church to glorify him by manifesting his wisdom in the context of proclaiming an exclusively christological message. He certainly does not intend for the church to praise non-Christian religions for the wisdom and knowledge that they have stolen from us and then regurgitated in distorted form, and still less for the church to acknowledge even the falsehoods in other religions as truths.
It is difficult to justify how a “Christian” who has anything good to say about non-Christian religions can deserve anything less than excommunication, still less should we ordain them as ministers of the gospel! A minister must promote the Christian faith and denounce all non-Christian religions, not to advocate a truce or fellowship with demons.
Although we have been focusing on non-Christian religions, the same points apply to worldviews that claim to be non-religious. For example, Christians can learn nothing from an atheistic worldview unless it is completely true. The atheist can know nothing at all if not for Christ the logos, who gives light to every man, so that there is nothing in the non-Christian worldview that can offer any truth to the Christian that is not already in the Christian worldview.
We may draw an analogy from the physical world. A Christian may obtain a drink of water from an atheist, who has it to offer by collecting rain. But the source of rain does not come from and cannot ultimately be explained by anything inherent in the atheist’s worldview; rather, rain comes from the God who has verbally revealed himself only in the Christian Scripture. The difference is that the Christian gives thanks to God for the water, but the atheist does not, and in failing to acknowledge the true God who is the ultimate source of rain, the atheist sins and commits his soul to damnation.
Likewise, a Christian may appear to learn that “1 + 1 = 2” from an atheist, but this piece of information belongs to Christ, who has all wisdom and knowledge. The atheist is just teaching the Christian something that is inherent in the Christian’s worldview (and that is in fact incompatible with the atheist’s first principle), which he has learned from Christ the logos without giving due thanks to him. On the other hand, the Christian should acknowledge that all knowledge belongs to Christ, and show gratitude to God for obtaining this piece of information.
In other words, all true propositions are in fact “Christian” propositions – they are the property of Christ – and therefore are much more appropriately and accurately expressed within the context of the Christian worldview. Thus to say that Christians can in fact appear to learn true information from non-Christians, such as “1 + 1 = 2,” does not mean that it is desirable to do so. And it does not mean that the non-Christian can accurately present any true piece of information, because his false presuppositions will inevitably distort anything that he teaches.
For example, in a non-Christian worldview, one cannot even give an explanation as to why a certain number must mean the same thing from day to day. But on the basis of the biblical worldview, we understand that the universe has been created and is even now being sustained by a being whose eternal, rational, and omniscient mind gives meaning and stability to the laws of thought and logic. The number “2” (not the symbol, but the concept that it represents) will mean the same thing tomorrow as it does today not because of human convention, but because it remains the same in the mind of God, and we pattern our thoughts after him as those made in his image.
No non-Christian worldview, including the religious ones, can give a more satisfying answer to this question, since we have established that any worldview must be wholly true in order to be meaningful and relevant. A religion that posits a “God” who holds the meanings of numbers constant, but cannot defend the other claims integral to its worldview, ultimately collapses into epistemological skepticism, since there is no way to tell the true from the false. We would not know which beliefs within a given worldview is true or false if even one of them is false.
Even the seemingly non-religious propositions, such as those regarding astronomy and economics, are best expressed and taught within an explicitly Christian context. For example, since God is the ruler and planner of history, a textbook on Western civilizations that fails to mention divine providence is not good history at all, since it neglects the very defining factor of historical events and progress. In fact, an accurate history book must be completely dominated by its teaching on divine providence. We may say similar things about physics, literature, music, and even sports.
Since God is as he has revealed himself through the Scripture, no intellectual discipline can afford to ignore him. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) is a superior explanation to the universe’s existence than any sophisticated system of cosmology that fails to acknowledge him as the first and sustaining cause of all that exists (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3). One who insists on reasoning independently from God must first refute the challenge presented by the Christian worldview.
Christianity is not just one option among many. The message of salvation is either exclusively christological, and that only in the biblical sense and with a historical basis, or it is no gospel at all. Unless a system of thought is truly christological, with the historical and divine Jesus Christ of Nazareth as the object of faith and worship, it has no power to save – not the one who hears it, nor the one who preaches it. On the other hand, Paul writes, “the holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). There is salvation only in the biblical, and therefore christological, gospel.
Unbelievers often accuse the exclusive stance of Christians as unloving, but the Bible teaches that true love “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). Non-Christians have no authority to define divine love for us. Intellectual cowards take what seems to be the easy way out by saying that Christians reject non-Christians ideas and beliefs because they are narrow-minded, hateful, and bigoted – but on their worldview, they cannot even authoritatively tell us why it is wrong to be narrow-minded, hateful, and bigoted. Rather, we reject all non-Christian worldviews, religious or otherwise, because they are false. An “open-mindedness” that would accept the lie just as quickly as it assents to the truth is an indication of a foolish, depraved, and twisted mind – not a sign of intellectual acuity or moral progress.
Therefore, let us seriously consider the apostolic declaration: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:8-9). True Christians dare not and wish not disagree with the apostle – thus may anyone who advocates a non-Christian religion or worldview be condemned to endless torment in hell.
All true Christians must insist that Christianity has a monopoly on truth, and that all non-Christian worldviews are false, because this belief is an integral and necessary part of the biblical worldview, so that to reject it is to reject Christianity. Whether one finds this doctrine of exclusivity repugnant or satisfying does not affect its truth, but if one disagrees with it, then he must refute it. Christianity is the sole possessor of truth, and what appears to be truths in other worldviews are nothing more than stolen goods, and all claims to divine revelation in other religions are false. No name-calling against the Christian, saying that he is advocating hate and bigotry, can change the truth of this claim. Anyone who denies the Christian’s claim to exclusivity must be ready to confront the Christian worldview with his own non-Christian worldview.
Christianity dares to declare itself as having a monopoly on truth and expect others to comply, and it is willing and eager to demonstrate its superiority in argumentation. But of course, non-Christians are intellectually dishonest and morally despicable, and those who are the non-elect will remain resistant to the Christian worldview, including its claim to exclusivity, even after the Christian has triumphed in argumentation. At the same time, many professing Christians have succumbed to the cowardly appeal of the unbelievers for “tolerance,” so that they have stopped obeying the biblical mandate to confront false religions and worldviews. Although Christians may be courteous toward unbelievers on a social level, those who are sympathetic to non-Christians on a theological or ideological level commit treason against Christ and his kingdom.
Colossians 2:9-10 says, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” If “all the fullness of Deity” is in Jesus Christ, then there is nothing left to be revealed by another prophet that is not already in Christ, which in turn means that no prophet after Christ can be greater than he, so that those who claim to be greater must be false prophets. Since Christ is “the head over every power and authority,” no one after him can supersede him. If we “have been given fullness in Christ,” who in turn has “all the fullness of the Deity,” then there is nothing to learn from non-Christian religions and worldviews. Since Christ is not merely a messenger or manifestation of God, but God himself, no prophet may add to, change, update, or contradict the Christian revelation. Those who do are impostors and liars.
Those who claim to profess faith in Christ should understand to whom and to what they have committed themselves. Those who call themselves Christians but who at the same time experience great difficulty with Christianity’s exclusive claims should reconsider if they are really Christians (2 Corinthians 13:5), or whether they had greatly misunderstood the gospel message, and thus had undergone a false conversion. If they understand Christianity’s exclusive claims, but still deny that Christ is the only way to salvation, and that all non-Christians are condemned to hell, then by what definition are they Christians? In what sense can a person be a Christian who at the same time declares that Christ is just one option among many, and that Christ’s own claims to exclusive authority and truth are mistaken (Matthew 28:18; John 14:6)?
They should understand that to affirm Christianity is to condemn all non-Christian religions, philosophies, and worldviews, and to affirm that all non-Christians are condemned to endless torment in hell. Since this is what Christ himself teaches, a person who rejects this has no legitimate basis on which he can claim to be a Christian; rather, he should be honest and admit that he has never been a Christian, and that he is still a non-Christian.
Besides defending our faith against the questions and accusations from unbelievers, we must press them to provide justification for what they believe. But with no less urgency, we must confront the indecisive professing Christians within the church, demanding that they choose once for all whom they will serve (Joshua 24:15), and cease being double-minded, or “between two opinions” (1 Kings 18:21). If Christianity is true, then all non-Christian religions and worldviews are false; if any other religion or worldview is true, then Christianity cannot at the same time be true.
Many professing believers who uncompromisingly condemn theft, adultery, and murder, would at the same time encourage non-confrontational dialogues or exchanges with non-Christian religions as if there is something to learn from them, and as if idolatry is less sinful or serious than theft, adultery, and murder. But murder is not a greater sin than idolatry. Jesus says that “the first and greatest commandment” is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37-38), and relegates loving other people as the second greatest commandment (v. 39). Nevertheless, it seems that most professing Christians react to theft and murder much more strongly than idolatry, and this is not right. The attitude of most professing Christians toward false worship fails to reflect the Scripture’s extreme denunciation against it, and to the extent that our thoughts disagree with God’s, we make him out to be a liar, and sin against him.
Those who claim to be Christians must make up their minds – if they profess Jesus Christ as Lord, then they must immediately and permanently give up their idolatrous and syncretistic mindset. They must affirm that the knowledge necessary for salvation is found in the Scripture alone, that God’s redemptive work is appropriated through Christ alone, and that it is applied to the individual by faith alone.
The appeal for tolerance or to be theologically inclusive is often an excuse to avoid dealing with the numerous and irreconcilable contradictions between worldviews. The non-Christian (and many who claim to be Christians) should stop being an intellectual coward, face reality, and admit that because of these contradictory claims, not every worldview can be true.
Indeed, one who rejects Christianity’s exclusivity is already practicing exclusivity in saying that it is exclusively true that no religion may make exclusive claims, that all exclusive religions are to be excluded from acceptance. What gives the “tolerant” people the right or justification to be intolerant of Christianity’s exclusive claims? If they are truly tolerant, then why not endure our criticisms without fighting back? But they do fight back, and they attack Christianity with a vengeance.
Although easy targets such as Buddhism, Mormonism, and Baha’ism also make strong exclusive claims, they are not attacked nearly as often, if at all. This is not just a case of ignorance about comparative religion, but it is a case of selective prejudice amounting to a global spiritual conspiracy with Satan behind it. Why do unbelievers focus their efforts on attacking Christianity? Numerous things may go on in their twisted and depraved minds, but there are at least two reasons. First, only the Christian worldview poses an intellectual threat – all the other religions are obviously nonsense. Second, in reality there are only two sides or groups – Christians and non-Christians; those who reject the Christian faith – whether they are atheists, Buddhists, or Mormons – are really all on the same side. Ultimately, the battle rages between truth (Christianity) against a variety of falsehoods (atheism, Mormonism, etc.), and not a number of worthy worldviews competing for dominance.
Appeals for theological and ideological tolerance often betray a “Please don’t hurt me” mentality, amounting to a tacit admission of intellectual incompetence, and an admission that non-Christian worldviews just cannot contend with the Christian worldview on the battlefield of ideas. Many people claim that intolerance of other people’s ideas is a result of ignorance – that is easy to say, but I can just as easily say that they are just afraid that the Christian will completely annihilate their most precious pagan beliefs in debate, and they are desperately begging us not to humiliate them, without wanting to sound weak and stupid.
In the first place, I demand to know exactly what “intolerant” people are ignorant of; that is, those who claim that ignorance breeds intolerance must tell me exactly what piece of information these intolerant people lack.[5] Then, I would demand justification that ignorance indeed breeds intolerance,[6] that the intolerant people indeed lack the information that the tolerant people claim that they lack,[7] that the intolerant people are indeed intolerant because they lack the information that the tolerant people claim that they lack,[8] that intolerant people would become tolerant upon gaining the information that they supposedly lack,[9] that the information that they supposedly lack is true or factual,[10] and that tolerance is a good thing in the first place. I am confident that no advocate of “tolerance” can successfully establish any of these points in debate.
The truth is that even those who claim that intolerance results from ignorance reject certain claims as false based on what they claim to know, and not what they do not know. For example, they may reject the idea that the earth is flat because they claim to know that the earth is not flat, or they may reject the idea that homosexuality is morally wrong because they claim to know that sexual orientation is genetically determined. Whether their alleged knowledge is true or relevant is not the point; rather, the point is that they reject certain claims because of some knowledge that they claim they have, and not because of ignorance.
This shows that, even by their own practice, intolerance of other people’s beliefs is often a result of knowledge or at least a claim to knowledge, whereas tolerance may often be a mark of ignorance – that is, if you do not know what is true or false, you have no basis from which to reject any position. Intellectual intolerance comes from the knowledge that the various worldviews contradict one another, so that they cannot all be correct. Intolerance on an ideological level comes from the knowledge that the existing worldviews make contradictory claims. On the other hand, intellectual tolerance implies ignorance, indecision, and cowardice.
However, if the unbeliever or if the “tolerant” people challenge the Christian’s claim to knowledge, saying that what the Christian claims to know is in fact false, then these people are in fact being intellectually intolerant of the Christian’s claim, and they are intolerant because of something that they claim to know. Thus, again, intolerance comes from knowledge, or a claim to knowledge. What results is another clash between the Christian and the non-Christian worldview, giving the Christian another opportunity to crush his opponent in debate. Tolerance is a sham – those who advocate tolerance cannot defend it, and they do not practice it.
The Christian position is that we must never tolerate falsehood, but we must rather destroy it; nevertheless, we destroy false ideas not by physical violence, but by intellectual persuasion and argumentation. We encourage intellectual violence against non-Christian ideas and religions, and not physical or military violence. Honest and courageous people should encourage various worldviews to clash in private and public debate, and decide beforehand that they should abandon the beliefs that cannot withstand intense scrutiny. Christianity will be the only one left standing when the dust settles.
THE REVELATIONAL MESSAGE
Besides its implication for christological preaching, 2 Corinthians 4:6 also sets forth the revelational nature of the gospel: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
The verse contains an allusion to the Genesis creation account that carries an important implication for the subject of spiritual enlightenment and the nature of the gospel message – namely, emphasis is given to God’s initiative in creation and the power of his sovereign decrees: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:2-3). Of course, Paul does not say that a sinner’s conversion results from God’s decree in creating physical light, or that he performs the two acts in exactly the same way; rather, he alludes to the Genesis account as an appropriate analogy.
We have established that the “darkness” in the sinner is intellectual (Romans 13:12; Ephesians 5:11) – that is, he rejects the gospel because his mind has been blinded. Paul explains, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts” (Ephesians 4:18). Therefore, the “light” with which God breaks through the darkness in the sinner is also intellectual. 2 Corinthians 4:6 itself indicates that this light is the light of “the knowledge” of the glory of God. In more than several places, Scripture also uses “light” to denote intellectual understanding. For example, the parallel structure of Psalm 119:130 equates “light” to “understanding”: “The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” Prophecy says that Christ’s work would grant his people “the knowledge of salvation” (Luke 1:77).
Anti-intellectuals detest the idea that conversion is an intellectual transformation, but this is what Scripture teaches. Non-Christians are intellectually blind, and their minds are filled with darkness. Conversion occurs when God sovereignly causes the light of the gospel to break into their impoverished souls, to give their feeble minds “understanding,” so that they may “know him who is true” (1 John 5:20).
Paul’s allusion to the Genesis creation account also illustrates that it is solely because of God’s sovereign choice and initiative, and not because of the sinner’s own choice and initiative, that the unbeliever’s blindness is removed, and so that the light of the knowledge of God might shine brightly in his mind. Being blind to the light of the gospel, the unbeliever will not and cannot simply decide to receive the gospel. If he is willing and able to do so, he would not be blind in the first place, but the Bible calls him blind.
Paul writes, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). The gospel is “veiled” to those who are perishing, since their minds have been blinded. To dispel this intellectual darkness in his chosen ones, God sovereignly causes intellectual light to shine in their minds, similar to what he did at the time of creation, when he said, “Let light shine out of darkness” (v. 6).
It is God who causes this to happen, not the sinner himself. It is not even done at the sinner’s request, since being intellectually blind to spiritual things, the sinner would not make such a request in the first place. Thus Scripture says, “There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God” (Romans 3:11). There is no one who seeks God who has not been first “apprehended” (Philippians 3:12; KJV) by God solely because of his sovereign will and pleasure. Regeneration and conversion do not come by man’s will or works (Romans 9:16), but only by God’s will and mercy (Romans 9:15; John 1:12-13). We love God only “because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Although the Bible unmistakably asserts God’s absolute sovereignty in salvation, without spiritual enlightenment, man’s ancient sinful desire for autonomy (Genesis 3:1-7) seizes his thinking and controls his theology. Thus many professing Christians greatly emphasize man’s “free will,” although Scripture teaches that man has no free will. The will of man exists as a function of the mind, but it is not free in the sense of being autonomous, or immune from influences apart from the man. It may seem that a person chooses according to his desires and dispositions, but even these desires and dispositions have not been freely chosen by the man himself.
In contrast to the pagan “free will” theology, Scripture teaches that God possesses unrestrained power and liberty to control man’s thoughts, desires, and choices: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases” (Proverbs 21:1); “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). This is a controversial topic, but it is controversial not because Scripture is obscure, but because of man’s ferocious desire for intellectual and behavioral independence – the seed of rebellion implanted in him by the “ancient serpent” (Revelation 19:2).
Non-Christians prefer to think that they control their own lives, but informed Christians realize that only God has control, and those who love God would not have it any other way. As Jeremiah says, “I know, O LORD, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps” (Jeremiah 10:23; also Luke 12:19-20, James 4:13-15). What we call Arminianism is the theological fruit of the devil’s work in sinners; what we call Calvinism is the theological fruit of God’s work in the elect.
From this, we will proceed to examine the role of God’s revelation in conversion, and in constructing the Christian worldview. The Bible teaches that God is the one who chooses those whom he will enlighten, that is, to give the “light” of the knowledge of Christ, so that they may be converted:
To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God; but those who are outside get everything in parables, in order that while seeing, they may see and not perceive; and while hearing, they may hear and not understand lest they return and be forgiven. (Mark 4:11-12, NASB)
He has blinded their eyes, and He hardened their heart; lest they see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them. (John 12:40, NASB)
At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.'” (Luke 10:21)
After saying to Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (John 3:7), Jesus continues to explain, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (v. 8). It is God who decides on who will undergo regeneration, and not the individuals themselves, just as “the wind blows wherever it pleases,” and is not subject to our control.
We have already established that the gospel message is exclusively christological, and that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Jesus is the only way to God, but at the same time, Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws [literally, compels or drags] him” (John 6:44). Without the prior regenerating work of God, a person’s mind remains in darkness, and he will never come to Christ on his own.
By saying that the gospel message is revelational, part of what is meant is that it is God who initiates a person’s faith in Christ, and not his own will or desire. No preacher can cause the light of the gospel to break through the darkness in his hearer’s mind – it must be a creative and sovereign work of God. In this sense, true spiritual enlightenment is revelational. When Peter says to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus answers, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:16-17).
Man is unable to turn the darkness within another person’s mind into light. Nevertheless, God uses means by which he enlightens those whom he has chosen, so that he commands Christians to “preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15), and Paul’s ministry is one that opens people’s eyes and turns them “from darkness to light” (Acts 26:18). Of course, the power to do this “is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden” (Romans 9:18).
Therefore, a person does not receive spiritual enlightenment through an ascetic lifestyle, prolonged meditation, prescribed prayers, chanting meaningless syllables, performing ridiculous ceremonies, or other strange and foolish means. The foundation of the Christian life is not self-effort; rather, true spirituality begins as God rescues a person from his complete spiritual helplessness. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Salvation is “the gift of God…not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). We recognize that we have been saved solely due to God’s mercy, and not because of anything good inherent in us. All that is good in us, we have received from God (1 Corinthians 4:7), and there is no place for boasting. Since all good things come from God, and since he is limitless, the Christian life is one characterized by an “ever-increasing glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18), whereas non-Christian worldviews cannot even begin to offer true spirituality, but rather, they lead their followers from despair, to death, and to damnation. In contrast, the Christian’s glory is that which “comes from the Lord” (v. 18), and will last forever (v. 11).
Just as only God could overcome the initial physical darkness by his creative power, only he can grant true enlightenment to a person by his sovereign decree. All attempts by people to reach God amount to a rebellious effort to construct a spiritual and intellectual Babel. “Let us unite and build an edifice tall and strong enough to reach the heavens!” But God has “made foolish the wisdom of the world” (1 Corinthians 1:20). They are ignorant of the fact that, in digging the foundation of self-effort on which to construct their building of spiritual enlightenment, they are in reality digging their own graves. All of their “righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), for apart from the Christian revelation, there is no salvation, no righteousness, no hope, and no future.
If even Christians cannot do anything without Christ (John 15:5), then non-Christians are truly insignificant “nobodies,” living futile and meaningless lives. It is time that professing believers begin seeing things this way, and realize how great a salvation (Hebrews 2:3) the Lord Jesus Christ has purchased for his elect with his own blood, and thus give thanks! The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is not trivial, but it is as great as the gap between light and darkness, Christ and Belial, and the temple of God and idols (2 Corinthians 6:14-16).
Because divine revelation is the source of the Christian worldview, this means that it is not constructed upon man’s futile speculation or his deductions from false first principles; instead, the entire Christian worldview comes from God’s verbal communication to mankind, which is the Scripture. Paul warns, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8). A “philosophy” or worldview founded on mere tradition, human convention, or non-biblical presuppositions is “hollow and deceptive.” It promises much, but fails to deliver. It appears intelligent and sophisticated on the surface (at least to some people), but it is easily exposed as foolish and absurd. It claims to be an accurate representation of reality, but instead distorts and misrepresents what is in fact the case. It claims to provide certainty, but collapses into total skepticism under the weight of its own false presuppositions.
Instead of being taken captive by such a false philosophy, Paul says that our worldview should wholly depend on Christ. We must contemplate the ultimate questions from the biblical perspective, controlled by biblical principles and presuppositions. Christian teaching provides the only authoritative and accurate basis for a comprehensive philosophy, because all the fullness of deity resides in Christ (Colossians 2:9) – he is the all-sufficient foundation for all of life and thought. Moreover, Christians “have been given fullness in Christ” (v. 10), so that we know we have access to his fullness and sufficiency. And since Christ is “the head over every power and authority” (v. 10), we can be certain that no true revelation or prophet will contradict or supersede him.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
In one of his letters to the Corinthians, Paul writes:
But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. (2 Corinthians 11:3-4)
As Eve was deceived by Satan, many have been “led astray from [a] sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” Why were the Corinthians easily deceived? Paul says that they were willing to “put up with” a different Jesus, a different spirit, and a different gospel. In other words, they practiced “tolerance.”
Thus Christians must impose a zero tolerance policy against heresies and false philosophies. To continue having a “sincere and pure devotion to Christ” necessitates building our immunity against non-Christian ideas. We may show courtesy and kindness to adherents of other religions and worldviews, but intellectually speaking, we must not sympathize with anything that does not agree with Scripture. In Revelation 2, Jesus praises the church in Ephesus, saying, “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false” (v. 2).
Jude writes, “I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (v. 3). Our faith has been “once for all entrusted to the saints”; therefore, it does not need to be updated, and it is not subject to revision. The biblical gospel as set forth in Scripture allows no subsequent revelation to supersede or even supplement it. This faith has been permanently established in its fullness by Jesus Christ and his apostles, and it is this faith that we must believe and defend.
We have learned from 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 that the gospel is intellectual in nature, christological in content, and revelational in source. Spiritual enlightenment leading to eternal life through faith in Christ comes only from the Christian revelation. Such a gospel message is ultimately also an invincible message, with which no other message or worldview can compete or compare. Its bold declaration by believers is the means by which God accomplishes his purposes and plans for humanity, whether it is the salvation of his elect, or the damnation of the reprobates. Jesus Christ is the light of our minds, and everyone who rejects him remains in darkness and death.
[1] Although many commentators assume that the “god of this age” (ho theos tou ai?nos toutou) refers to Satan, it is not as straightforward as it first seems. The exact phrase does not appear anywhere else in Paul’s writings, and it is customary for this apostle to refer to God with ho theos. Moreover, some see evidence for the use of this expression in reference to God in Daniel 5:23 of the Septuagint and Tobit 14:6 of the Apocrypha (ton theon tou aionos).
Many people would assert the “god of this age” here must refer to Satan just because of their presupposition that God would never hinder anyone from grasping spiritual truths; however, if they think this way, they would be imposing their unjustified theological bias into the text. Scripture indicates that God indeed withholds spiritual sight from many people. Quoting from Isaiah 29:10, Paul writes, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day” (Romans 11:8). And Jesus himself says, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children” (Matthew 11:25).
On the other hand, although there are no exact parallels in reference to Satan to the expression in question, Scripture indicates elsewhere that Satan is the “ruler” of those who disbelieve: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:1-2). In addition, the view that Satan is “the god of this age” gains some support from appealing to early extra-biblical writings such as that of Ignatius and certain rabbinical documents. As for “the rulers of this age” in 1 Corinthians 2:6, 8, the expression refers to the leaders responsible for Christ’s crucifixion (or those of whom they are a type; v. 8b) and other respectable men of the time (as judged by worldly standards; 1:25-30), and does not refer to Satan or demonic spirits.
One should not reject either interpretation at the outset. For our purpose, we will assume that “the god of this age” is Satan, while keeping in mind the teaching of Scripture, that even Satan’s activities are under God’s complete and sovereign control. Therefore, whatever Satan does is done only as a secondary agent to fulfill God’s sovereign decrees, and this includes blinding the minds of men. In addition, even if the expression really refers to Satan in this passage, the Bible still teaches that God can and does blind (and also open) the minds of men to spiritual truth as he wills. As Romans 9:18 says, “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” Without conclusively settling the meaning of the expression, we will proceed to examine the nature of spiritual blindness itself.
[2] Some people will object that many non-Christians are very intelligent; however, they are using unbiblical standards of measurement. Scripture says that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), and that those unbelievers who claim to be wise are in fact fools (Romans 1:22). Thus God infallibly declares that all non-Christians are stupid.
[3] In a sense, there is no truth at all in non-Christian religions and worldviews, since even what appears to be a true proposition would mean different things within a non-Christian worldview as opposed to the Christian worldview. This is because all propositions are related to many other propositions, and even if a non-Christian affirms a proposition that appears to be true, the propositions that describe the relationship of the proposition in question to other propositions would be very different in a non-Christian worldview as opposed to the Christian worldview. Thus Christians and non-Christians would have (should have) very different understandings of even “1 + 1 = 2” – Christians consider all numbers in relation to the Christian God and the Christian Scripture, but the non-Christians do not.
[4] See Vincent Cheung, Ultimate Questions and Presuppositional Confrontations.
[5] That is, if intolerant people are ignorant of X, then what is X? I grant that when it comes to “intolerance” about different things, the alleged X will probably vary; nevertheless, my challenge remains relevant in each area and instance of “intolerance.”
[6] That is, ignorance of X breeds intolerance.
[7] That is, the so-called intolerant people are indeed ignorant of X.
[8] That is, the intolerant people are intolerant because they are ignorant of X.
[9] That is, once these intolerant people know X, they would stop being intolerant.
[10] That is, that X is true in the first place.