The lesson opens with optical illusions and the saying “to see is to believe,” then defines an illusion as a distortion of the senses and of our perception of reality. The world trusts what can be observed and verified, but the fall has infected the whole of man, so that his thoughts and philosophies are distorted and he has lost the true sense of reality. Even God’s word comes to be treated as merely probable rather than certain.
Pilate’s question in John 18, “What is truth?”, opens the truth about this fallen world. The slides expose false hopes as illusions: trust in the state, in military might, in riches and in self-reliance, like the Laodicean church that thought itself rich while blind and naked. Against these stands Christ, in whom all things hold together. Remove the triune God and nothing holds; redemption through Christ is a return to reality.