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 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Jesus is the one who shines the light of truth upon all humanity (John 1:4, 5). And those of us who know and love Jesus are to be lights to the world (Matthew 5:14–16), beacons of godly truth and love in a world of lies and selfishness.

But Satan has a multitude of tricks he uses to intercept the light of heavenly truth from reaching hearts and minds—what we might call blindfolds or veils. A blindfold or veil does not reduce the intensity of light coming from the sun; it interferes with our ability to see the light. Likewise, Satan’s strategies in no way reduce the intensity and purity of the light of heavenly truth that comes from God, but they can interfere with our ability to see that light.

But Satan cannot blind people to the light of heaven without people choosing to wear the blindfold. Satan creates and supplies the blindfolds, but we must choose to wear them or not! In other words, Satan must get people to accept his lies, his methods, his perversions in place of the truth. And why would people choose to blind themselves with lies, falsehoods, and distortions, to choose to stay in the dark rather than come into the light?

Jesus gave His diagnosis as to why:

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil (John 3:19 NIV84).

As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they ran and hid because they were afraid (Genesis 3:10). Sin itself causes the inner experience of fear, guilt, shame, doubt, and the fear of punishment. As Scripture says,

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:18 NIV84, emphasis mine)

People who are not reconciled to God and have not been reborn with hearts of love are controlled by fear, the survival drives, and motivated to protect themselves. They have a conviction that something is wrong within themselves, they do not feel right or safe, and they desperately want to feel safe, feel good, feel secure, but without Jesus they cannot. So they look for something else, anything, to take away the feeling of inadequacy, guilt, shame, and fear. Adam and Eve hid behind fig leaves, and all those also unreconciled to God are equally vulnerable to accept anything that makes them feel better—to feel safe—and, thus, people accept the various blindfolds that Satan offers as a means to avoid looking in the mirror and being diagnosed as sinful, falling on the rock Jesus Christ, and being reborn with a new heart and right spirit (James 1:23–25).

So recognize that the motivation for the blind to stay blindfolded is their fear of what they will see and feel if they remove the blindfold, which has brought them comfort for so many years. I recently saw a meme that put it this way: “If the truth makes you uncomfortable, don’t blame the truth…blame the lie that made you comfortable.”

The Blindfolds/Veils of Satan

The blindfolds of Satan work like virtual reality (VR) goggles. Put on a set of these, and you are not prevented from seeing—you are not in absolute blackness. Instead, you are “seeing,” but what you are seeing is fantasy, make-believe, pretend, a false reality that is projected between you and the real world around you. As long as the VR goggles remain in place, you are blind to reality. This is how Satan’s veils and blindfolds work.

Satan, the father of lies (John 8:44), creates a fantasy way of seeing things, false belief systems and perverted philosophies that fill the mind and blind people to what is actually happening.

Paul warned us to be wary of this:

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 NIV84, emphasis mine).

The principle of this world is the fear-driven strategy called survival of the fittest, which is seeking power to dominate and control others in order to make oneself feel safe. This methodology manifests in many ways, but the root is fear that drives people to get more power and control to coerce and dominate others.

This method of the world is manifest in those who find security in wealth, possessions, and riches. Many people are blinded by wealth, either the wealth they possess or the constant pursuit of wealth they don’t have, because they believe that if they did have more riches, then they would be safe. The lie, the fantasy, is that our security and safety can be found in earthly possessions.

But Jesus taught,

“What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26 NIV84).

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19–21 NIV84).

Eternal security cannot be found in earthly riches.

Others find security in rules, imposed law, and legal enforcement. They seek power of arms, of the state, of force to push their rules on others and to punish those who don’t obey the rules they set.

This same imposed-law, VR-fantasy way of seeing the world has blinded the minds of many religious teachers throughout history. They have failed to see the world through the truth that God is Creator and His laws are design laws, and instead, they have superimposed over the truth the lie that God’s law functions no differently than the types of laws sinners make, made-up rules that require legal oversight and external enforcement. This leads to legalistic religious philosophies in which security is found in rule-keeping, either as the classic legalist like the Pharisees or as the vicarious legalist who believes in a legal substitute who kept the rules for them, paid for their legal debt, in order to get them legally pardoned—and legally declared righteous while they remain unrighteous. But a legal religion, one that focuses on the law, never brings peace. No—it keeps people blind:

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Hebrews 10:1–4 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Imposed law, rules, even those given by God, are not reality; they are a shadow of reality. Like a parent’s rules that children must brush their teeth, the rule is not reality—the second law of thermodynamics is the reality; failure to care for one’s teeth resulting in decay is reality, not the rule-breaking. But God, like loving parents, gave various laws as a shadow, a stand-in, to help the ignorant until they could come into the light of heavenly truth and understand God’s reality, and when that happens, the shadow is done away with.

But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:14–18 NIV84, emphasis mine).

The Jews who crucified Christ viewed the old covenant through the veil of human law, rules, enforcement, legality. They did not understand it through God’s design law, the laws that reality is built upon. They did not understand that the law, the rules, were shadows pointing to reality, to Christ. As we behold Christ, we are transformed to be like Him. This is the design law of worship; we actually become changed, neurobiologically and characterologically, to be like that which we worship and admire. This is why we are to fix our eyes on Christ (Hebrews 12:2); in so doing, we see through the veils and false systems that Satan has foisted upon the world. The old covenant was a shadow pointing to the reality:

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds” (Hebrews 10:15, 16 NIV84, emphasis mine).

The reality of God’s kingdom is how things are built by God to function, and salvation is restoring sinners back to sinless perfection, which is harmony with God and how He built them to operate. Thus, the reality is that God, through Jesus, heals, recreates, and transforms sinners back to the righteousness of God by restoring His living law of love into the hearts and minds of all who trust Jesus. We are literally recreated to be new people who live lives of love, not of fear, who see past the fear-based survival systems that blind the hearts and minds of those who are perishing.

But for some, they remain blinded by the veil of imposed law and seek to avoid fear, guilt, and shame through religious rule-keeping, either their own rule-keeping or a legal substitute’s rule-keeping. But this leads to judgmentalism, criticism, and division. Persons who are not reborn to have the law written upon their hearts see those who do not keep the rules in the “orthodox” way as “sinners” and “reprobates.” They see the world like this:

The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get” (Luke 18:11, 12 NIV84).

They devalue, ostracize, and even seek to punish those who don’t keep the rules the way they have determined is right. Why? Because their sense of security, feeling safe, is found in rule-keeping and not in a genuine trust in Jesus, in whom they could have been reborn with a new heart and right spirit.

The imposed human-law view also leads to the fantasy theology of penal substitution, in which legal mechanisms are applied in court systems in heaven, resulting in God declaring people to be righteous when they are, in fact, unrighteous—a true fantasy, a falsehood, a virtual reality.

The reality of God’s kingdom is that through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, those who are restored to trust/faith become righteous:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Other blindfolds include various forms of Eastern meditation, in which people will engage in a self-directed emptying of the mind to calm their existential fears in order to feel a greater sense of peace and control, but without ever actually dealing with the sin infection within their heart that is the cause of their fear. (For more on the difference between biblical and Eastern mediation, see our Meditation Guide).

Other blindfolds include all the false religions of the world, the various belief systems in which people do something in order to appease, assuage, propitiate, or in some other way influence their deity to bless and not punish them. The performance of such works—whether penance, ceremonial cleansings, pilgrimages, sacrifices, religious rule-keeping, or speaking the “right” words when praying—is what gives such worshipers peace, for it makes them feel in control of what the deity does, locking the deity into some required response based on their actions. Their security is in their works to control their god, not in trusting God.

And, of course, another blindfold is godlessness, evolutionism, scientism, the belief in only the forces of nature and the godless origins of life, which blinds the minds of people to the reality of God’s kingdom. Such people will typically become political and social activists to try and shape society or fix the world in a way that gives them some sense of control and security.

The Blinding Power of Fear

Sin causes fear, guilt, and shame, a sense of insecurity which causes a fear of rejection and punishment. Everyone wants these feelings to go away; everyone wants to feel safe, secure, and good about themselves. Thus, this natural emotional state caused by sin, if not resolved through trust in Jesus, causes people to be not only vulnerable to deception, but it also causes them to be eager to accept the blindfolds of Satan in order to avoid these negative feelings.

Every single blinder that Satan uses exploits our need to resolve these destructive, sin-induced feelings. People choose one of the veils or blinders as a means to blind themselves to their own sin condition, thereby avoiding feeling fear, guilt, and shame. They cling to their blindfold, their satanic VR goggles, because the false view makes them feel safe, giving them a sense of control, security, and wellbeing. But it is all a fantasy because the underlying problem of sin, which is the cause of their fear, is not addressed and removed.

The virtual-reality lies of Satan ultimately function to get people to replace trust in God with trust in a substitute, such as wealth, power, imposed law and law enforcement, works, personal performance, science, natural laws, or self.

This is why Paul wrote, “Everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23 NIV84).

Our security, safety, and peace are found only in Jesus—in complete trust in Him. If we want to “see,” if we want the veils of Satan removed, if we want to know the truth of God’s kingdom, then we must surrender all other sources of our safety and security to Jesus. We must exchange all of the earthly security methods for the “eye salve” that comes from the only Remedy (Revelation 3:18).

Then we will see a different kingdom, a kingdom not of this world, a kingdom built on truth, love, and freedom—a kingdom in which our security is found in God, not in law, not in rules, not in wealth, or power, or control over others, but in Jesus.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since Jesus died to bring us the truth about God and to eradicate selfishness from humanity, we no longer need to be afraid but can confidently enter the Most Holy Place—God’s very presence—because Christ’s death revealed the truth about God and ripped open the veil of lies told by Satan that blinded our minds, and destroyed the infection of selfishness that separated us from him (Hebrews 10:19, 20 REM).