But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 2 Corinthians 4:3–4 NKJV
Even when the gospel is preached as it should be preached, there are found those who do not believe; and the explanation is that the devil has blinded their eyes. The sun in the heavens has not been eclipsed, but a very dark blind has been dropped over the window of their little room. The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ shines, but it does not shine into them. The god of this age will use anything, no matter what, so long as it blots out the gospel: not usually material things, but rather speculative notions and teachings of men.
During the past century he has very effectually blinded multitudes by the revival of a favorite speculation of the pagan world before Christ: evolution. The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ does not penetrate where the evolutionary blind has been securely dropped. The blinded soul may entertain miserable notions of man as the image of a monkey, or some other elementary creature, or of a monkey as the image of man. He cannot in the nature of things know Christ as “the image of God,” though he may talk about a Christ of his own imagination.
There are many imaginary Christs, Christ as men wish He had been. There is only one real Christ, the image of God; Christ as He was and is, the Christ of the Bible.
And though Thy love be faintly seen
What’s seen demands our praise;
Without it, Lord, we still had been
Ensnared in Satan’s ways.