II Corinthians 4:3-4: "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." From this verse, we see that there is a worldwide conspiracy in motion: Satan and his minions are at work to keep the unbelievers of the human race blinded to the accurate gospel as recorded in I Corinthians 15.
One might ask, "If God selected those in eternity past who would be forever consigned to hell, why is Satan at work blinding the minds of men, since they're pre-selected to go there anyway? His blinding accomplishes nothing. That's a good question and one that bedevils the Calvinist, but not one we're going to consider. Instead, we're going to reflect upon how Lucifer does this blinding. Of course, there's more than one way, but we're going to put Scripture with Scripture and consider only one avenue in one particular case; the case of one Jewish man and one particular Jewish grandfather.
Let's begin with a text, something Jesus said to a group of unbelievers: "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. . . . Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies." Christ is throwing this hand grenade into the midst of a group of those Jews who were all riled up against Him. He never sought to flatter them nor court their favor.
In Jesus' statement, He gives us a bit of satanology: Satan is a liar--he told the first one on the planet, so he's the birther of the lie. His lie was that the human being could be God and decide for himself what was right and what was wrong. Let's couple that with how he blinds the minds of men: he lies. And this brings us to that aforementioned Jewish man and his aforementioned Jewish grandfather.
The Jewish man, let's call him Joe Cephus and let's put him in Brooklyn, USA. Joe is from a religious family and is close to his grandfather, having a great respect for the father of his father. They have a Bible in their home, what we would call the "Old Testament," but of course, no New Testament. And this is where the lie surfaces and Joe's grandfather tells it.
Whenever Joe raises a question about the New Testament or even when he doesn't mention it, his grandfather is on the spot to tell him, "Stay away from it, don't read it, any of it." By this, his grandfather is doing two things, one intentional and the other inadvertent. The first thing he's deliberately doing is causing his grandson to ask a question: "Why?" And he's eager to answer.
He tells him, "Because it's a book about how to persecute and kill Jews!" Wait. What? Persecute and kill Jews?! Where did that come from? It came right out of II Corinthians 4:3-4 -- the conspiracy to blind the minds of the unbeliever, Jew and Gentile. It came from the father of lies and that lie will do nicely to blind Joe's mind to the gospel.In Joe's mind, it must be a terrible book.
But, unbeknownst to the grandfather, by his stern dictum, "STAY AWAY FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT," he had switched on Joe's curiosity which meant that Joe just had to read it. And that's what he did. You tell Joe not to do something and he'll move heaven and earth, swim every river, and climb every mountain to do it.
As he starts to read it, the first thing he notices is that the focus of the New Testament is on a Jew and that the Jews are the authors of it.Then he sees that those Jewish authors quote his Old Testament, the Bible in his home also written by Jews, and they're quoting it favorably, even authoritatively. As he reads on, the sees that the Christians aren't persecuting and killing the Jews, it's the other way around in the book of Acts. Then he reads that Paul, a Jew, wrote, "I could wish myself accursed if it would mean that my kinsman according to the flesh would be saved."In addition he could find no instructions in the books of the New Testament on how to persecute and kill Jews. As he reads more and more, the veil begins to lift. Joe trusts Jesus, saying with Thomas, "My Lord and my God."The power of the Old and New Testaments has destroyed the lie.
This raises a question for the unbeliever: what lie(s) have you believed about the Bible and the Jew on whom it focuses? Dispel the lies and find the truth by doing what Joe did: read it.
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