Who is the god of the age?

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist, my name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

On today's program I'm going to be answering a listener question.

This question came in several days ago from a man by the name of James Hook and James I know that you're a listener so hopefully you'll be able to hear this program as I seek to answer the question that you gave.

And the question that James sent in was about 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 4.

So if you have your Bibles open let's go to that passage and let's read it and then we will examine James's question.

The verse says in the ESV which is what I'll be reading in, in their case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

Okay that's the verse, that is 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 4.

And the question that James is asking is that basically the question is this is typically understood to be referring to the devil when it says the God of this world.

But he asked the question wouldn't, would it be inconsistent to say that this is actually talking about the triune God, that this could actually be talking about God himself.

And I understand the heart of the question and I want to go ahead and say that having looked at a few commentaries already and having looked at the text itself I can see where this question would arise because it does use the word theos and you included that James if you're listening you included that in your email to me the Strong's Concordance reference here.

And the Greek actually does read in 2 Corinthians 4.4 in ois hatheos to a onos that is in their case God excuse me let me say that again in their case the God of this world that is to a onos.

So when we see this phrase referring to the God of this world it is the word that we typically think of for the true God the word theos.

So why is it that so many commentators and I will go ahead and tell you the vast majority of commentators do see this as being a reference to the devil but why is it that we see the word theos and we assume that it's referring to the devil.