red pill or blue pill? Your choice.
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of this dark world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).
The moment we’re born we inherit a system we didn’t create. It’s complicated. It’s incongruous. It’s dangerous. Who designed it and from whence did it come? When I launched this website, focused like a laser on context, I was not surprised to find that every avenue of research invariably led to a construct of false paradigms, buttressed by the dark spiritual realm. The devil is deceitful, but even a masquerading ‘angel of light’ is hiding in plain sight, if you just know where to look. The process is arduous, like a walk-through maze of reflective glass panels and hidden clear barriers, designed to trick your eyes and confuse your sense of direction. It doesn’t matter which path you choose, or the passage of time, it always terminates in the same place—a labyrinth of lies. It ends where it begins—with a man and a woman, and forbidden knowledge. Lies have a shelf life; truth is eternal. Take the blue pill and the story ends…Take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the story goes (The Matrix).
Context: What did the original audience know and understand?
The knowledge of good and evil is a divine prerogative. In the beginning God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:16-17). The knowledge of good (tov) and evil (ra) which Adam and Eve experienced was not the meager realization that some things were right, and some things were wrong (moral). Rather, eating the fruit of this tree opened Adam and Eve’s eyes to the fearsome reality that God, while good, is also supremely dangerous (nonmoral) (Genesis 3:5, 22). He can bless, and he can curse; human flourishing or human destruction. In his raw, inconceivable power, God is not only able to create, but also to destroy completely. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they did so seeking wisdom (here). What they got was fear of God. When they are made aware of this fuller vision of God, they become terrified of him, hide, and no longer trust him. They realize their defenseless, vulnerable state before God (they are naked), a relational situation which requires trust, or faith, in the person of God, which they have not yet acquired (here). “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” Psalm 111:10. As CS Lewis said, “He is not safe, but he is good” (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). Venture into the forbidden and you’ll know the wrath of God. And thus, the matrix began.
Paul’s concept of God (Yahweh) and the spiritual realm is informed by the origin myths of the nations and the Old Testament, which describe a world where cosmic-geographical lines have been drawn. Israel was on holy ground because it was Yahweh’s inheritance (Deuteronomy 32:8-9). The territory of other nations belonged to other elohim (gods) who were corrupt (here). In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he unpacks the spiritual realm, identifies the key players, and prepares believers for spiritual warfare. In a nutshell, Principalities are the strategists; they design the blueprint. Powers enforce it. Rulers spread it through culture. Wickedness saturates the atmosphere. This is the battlefield you’ve inherited. This is the matrix.
Who are the Principalities (archai)? Principalities sit on ancient thrones. They are the first rank of evil authority. Paul is referring to the oldest rebellion in creation’s history: the fall of the sons of God who once ruled nations under divine assignment, but who abandoned their post, corrupted their authority, and reshaped the destiny of entire civilizations. The very ones appointed to sustain righteousness in the nations, led them into darkness, into the destructive influence of forbidden knowledge. The sons of God begat the Nephilim (here), whose posthumous spirits continue to plague humanity. This is why nations rise, fall, rage, devour, deceive, war, and spiral in corruption across centuries. You are not watching “bad government.” You are watching ancient thrones of darkness influence human authority. As the old saw goes, “No matter who you vote for, you always wind up with John McCain.” Jesus Christ is the glitch in the matrix. He outranks every principality. His death, burial, and resurrection is not only victorious over sin and death, but also a cosmic military victory over the forces of darkness. He dethroned the principalities, and they know their time is limited. They are degraded edge lords, teetering on the razor’s edge of eternity. (here).
Who are the Powers (exousia)? They are the second rank of evil authority, the realm of spiritual government, not spiritual chaos. When beings with this level of authority fell, they did not lose their structure... they corrupted it. They still operate with order... but it is order weaponized against God’s creation. The powers are the administrators and executors of dark influence over the nations. They are the bureaucratic systems, the regulators of corruption, the organizers of oppression, and the administrators of influence. The matrix cannot tell you who you are (The Matrix), because a demon has no interest in getting to know you over a nice cup of coffee. He detests you; you’re interchangeable, a useful cog in the wheel. That is why Jesus repeatedly confronted religious, political, and structural evil... not merely individual sin. He understood the systems behind the systems, and the men and women who conform to them (Romans 12:2) (here).
Who are the Rulers of this Dark World (kosmokrator)? They are the third rank of evil authority. The word is built from two parts: kosmos — world, order, arrangement, and krateō — to seize, hold, govern, exert mastery. Together they paint a picture of a spirit who grips the world-system and shapes its moral and spiritual atmosphere. They govern the imagination, desires, trends, and values of a generation, creating moral blindness that dominates human culture. Remember the sexual revolution and bellbottom pants? The groovy mood of the 1960’s didn’t come from nowhere. It arrived as the zeitgeist of the age, trumpeting personal freedom— sex, drugs, rock-and-roll—further degrading the human soul. Every era has a shade of darkness, but Rulers determine its tone. If you wed yourself to the spirit of the age, you will be widowed in the next (here).
What is Spiritual Wickedness in High Places (poneria)? “High places” in Scripture were always more than geography, they were altars, gateways to spiritual powers. What happened there determined what happened everywhere else. Principalities establish territorial rule. Powers manage the infrastructure of deception. Rulers of Darkness send down shadows over societies. Everything Paul named, up to this point, carried personhood. But now he names wickedness itself. It is the unseen stratosphere above earthly life— the corruption that fills the air, the spiritual toxins released by rebellion, the moral pollution that drifts across generations, the atmosphere that resists holiness, the environment where sin feels normal and righteousness feels strange. Those who walk with God can feel the shift when the atmosphere changes, as if the air grows thick as morality begins to rot. The world feels dark because the air is dark. Paul names this atmospheric wickedness before he introduces the full armor of God, because the armor is not primarily for attacking demons, it is for surviving the climate. Truth protects you from the lies. Righteousness protects you from the moral decay. Faith shields you from fear. The gospel steadies you amidst the chaos. Salvation anchors you against identity confusion. The Word cuts through distortion. Prayer keeps your lungs filled with heaven while the world chokes on darkness. The armor is not for the demon in front of you, it is for the atmosphere around you. You do not walk naked into a spiritual storm; you are clothed in Christ Himself (here).
What about governing authorities? Should we submit? (Romans 13:1). This is an example of English translations missing the mark. The word “submit” is the Greek word hupo-tasso, which literally means to arrange things respectfully in an orderly manner underneath. Social orderliness would have been understood by the original readers, but it is obscured in our English translations. The same word is used in Ephesians 5: 21-22 to encourage husbands and wives to submit to one another, and it reflects God’s concern for order and respect. Paul believes that governing authorities are necessary for keeping the peace. They should be purveyors of goodness, because God is a God of order – not anarchy or chaos. There’s ANOTHER word, hupo-kouo, which is best translated “obey,” which literally means to conform, to follow a command, or to kowtow to an authority as a subordinate. As right-minded folks like thee and me recognize, authorities have a penchant for the powers of the dark side. So, it’s not surprising, this word is not used in relation to the governing authorities. Instead, it always suggests a hierarchical context, such as the relationship between parents and children or masters and slaves (Eph 6:1 &5). Though Paul deliberately disobeyed laws that were in conflict with God’s commands, he still submitted to the authorities by accepting the legal consequences of his actions (here).
Historical and Theological Progression: The matrix is like a Potemkin village. The term is named after the Russian field marshal and prince, Grigory Potemkin. He was a former lover and trusted adviser of Empress Catherine the Great. During the 1787 Crimea Tour, legend says Potemkin built fake, portable cardboard villages along the Dnieper River. He allegedly moved peasants and livestock to different spots along the route to trick the Empress into thinking the newly acquired region was thriving. Based on this ruse, a Potemkin village is any false display or physical structure, built solely to mislead and create the impression that a situation is good when it is not. The most durable lies are not the complicated ones. Where truth is driven off, make-believe fills the space. Consider any edifice, any complex, long-standing conceptual framework, belief system, or organization, such as the academy, the government, or even the church. Is it good? Does it participate in human flourishing? Is it grounded in truth? Or does it undergird itself with sophistry—the art of making very cleaver arguments for things that are not true. Lately, the lies are no longer noble, they are nonsensical, as incongruous as a darting yacht. Regardless of what a system claims to be, it is what it does. Without the hallmarks of truth and human flourishing, it is a mechanism of the matrix.
Pride is the sin God hates most. It is the root and beginning of all sin, leading naturally to ambition and vainglory, which gives birth to specific acts of disobedience and other capital vices. It is the secret whisper that imparts forbidden knowledge. Consider this example. We are living at a time when atomic weapons and nuclear power are the spirit of the age. Is this knowledge good or evil? Does it advance human flourishing, or does it destroy humanity? Bearing the imprimatur of dark forces, prognosticators are fomenting fear of nuclear war, bent on an efficient and effective way to eliminate life on earth. We are trapped in an unimaginable reality: a human being will pull the trigger on the total and complete annihilation of every man, woman, and child. How is this possible? Follow the downward twists, on well-worn steps, to the labyrinth and you’ll find the answer. It had a beginning. Once upon a time a man made a deal with the devil. Like Faust , in the twist-of-fate story by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1772-1831), he was an unsatisfied scholar who traded his soul to the devil for worldly knowledge and experience. Unlike Faust, who found redemption, his fate was doomed. His name is J. Robert Oppenheimer. He is known as the father of the atomic bomb. He led the secret Los Alamos Laboratory team that engineered and built the world’s first atomic bombs, during the Manhattan Project (1942-1947). Four years before his death, he was asked what book was most influential in his vocation. He listed a collection of satanic poetry that praises the devil, its pages filled with demons, damnation, vampires, possession, death, blasphemy, and rebellion against God. His favorite poem praised satan as the giver of forbidden knowledge and the light of new inventions. Oppenheimer was drawn to dark knowledge, just as the ancient world was drawn to the secret knowledge of the apkallus, the ancient gods of Mesopotamia. His friend, Isidor Rabi, said that Oppenheimer would sometimes turn away from the hard, crude methods of theoretical physics into a mystical realm of broad intuition, where he acquired knowledge from a mysterious, unknown source. Oppenheimer code-named ‘ground zero’ for the first atomic blast, Trinity, and proclaimed, “I am death, the destroyer of worlds.” The first victim of his atomic weapon was Trinity. Next, the worlds of 250,000 innocent Japanese in Nagasaki and Hiroshima were destroyed. The 2023 biographical film on Oppenheimer fails to mention his fascination with satan. Instead, he is presented as an angel of light. Long after his death, destruction in the 21st Century continues on a mass scale. Examine any quadrant on the map and you will see the four horsemen of the apocalypse bearing down hard, as if hell is empty and all the devils are here. They are determined to destroy as many people as possible, before God destroys the matrix and casts every damned demon into the pit of hell.
Conclusion: As you may have guessed, it doesn’t matter which pill you choose, red or blue, or when you enter the matrix, it always begins where it ends— with men and women and forbidden knowledge. Escaping it is only possible through the glitch in the matrix— Jesus Christ. Malcolm Muggeridge, British journalist and satirist, wrote the following in the 1970’s. It was a bellwether of things to come, a truism today. “So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense. Thus, did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over--a weary, battered old brontosaurus--and became extinct.”
Sources: The Baal Book, Stephen de Young; Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Karel Van Der Horst et al; Demons, Michael Heiser; God is a Man of War, Stephen de Young; The Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser; The Lord of Spirits, Andrew Stephen Damick; The Religion of the Apostles, Stephen de Young