The Matrix: “The Evil One Controls the Whole World” (1 John 5:19)

Lessons From the Outer Limits: Only Jesus Christ Can Unplug Us From the Matrix – Part #10

By Richard Allen – July 20, 2026

In 1999, one of the biggest “Sci-Fi” movies ever made – hit the ‘silver screens’ across the United States: “The Matrix,” starring Keanu Reeves, grossed $457 Billion worldwide. This movie, like “Star Wars” 22 years before, changed the motion picture industry on several levels. It was clearly a revolutionary movie from a “Sci-Fi” perspective. As Google AI Overview explains:

“The Matrix (1999) revolutionized cinema by pioneering "bullet-time" – a visual effect that lets audiences see slow-motion action while the camera orbits at normal speed. It broke the mold for R-rated blockbusters by merging Western action with Hong Kong martial arts, anime aesthetics, and deep philosophical concepts.” [ https://www.google.com/search?q=How+did+%22The+Matrix%22+revolutionize+the+motion+picture+industry%3F]

Both visually and technically stunning, “The Matrix” wowed audiences with its action scenes and an interesting plot, drawing audiences in, as they try to understand the ‘fake world’ concept that underlies the story. According to IMBd:

“A computer hacker discovers that his life is nothing more than an elaborate simulation run by an evil AI.  Thomas A. Anderson is a man living two lives. By day he is an average computer programmer and by night a hacker known as Neo. Neo has always questioned his reality, but the truth is far beyond his imagination. Neo finds himself targeted by the police when he is contacted by Morpheus, a legendary computer hacker branded a terrorist by the government. As a rebel against the machines, Neo must confront the agents: super-powerful computer programs devoted to stopping Neo and the entire human rebellion.” [ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/plotsummary/]

When Thomas Anderson, a.k.a. Neo, is contacted mysteriously online by Morpheus (Lawrence Fishbourne), he’s told to ‘follow the white rabbit,’ an allusion to Lewis Carrol’s “Alice In Wonderland.” After selling hacked software to a group of young adults, he follows one of the girls with a ‘white rabbit’ tatoo to a local club.  There he meets ‘Trinity,’ a mysterious woman who tells Neo that she wants to take him to meet Morpheus, the leader of a rag-tag group of renegade hackers. As it turns out, there are not many actual humans living in real bodies, most people are physically enslaved underground, while their minds live within an AI Program called “The Matrix.” So Trinity takes Neo to meet Morpheus in an abandoned building. Neo is a complex character, who already believes that “there is something wrong with the world, something that just doesn’t add up.” Morpheus engages Neo in a thought provoking way, explaining that “he knows why Neo had come to see him.” Here’s the dialogue between Morpheus and Neo:

Morpheus: Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something.  What you know you can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Neo: The Matrix?

Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind…. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes… Remember, all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more…

After taking the red pill, Neo’s real body is ‘awakened’ and set free from a pod deep under ground. After several weeks of recovery, Neo learns that the world as we know it, is a programmed AI construct, built by machines after their ‘battle with mankind in a war for dominance.’ This war left the planet a barren ruin. Since the machines ran on ‘solar power,’ men ‘scorched the sky’ with their weapons, believing the machines would shut down without power. But the machines cleverly designed a way to supply their power needs by ‘turning humans into little more than batteries,’ grown, raised and living in individual pods in huge underground farms,’ with their minds wired into “The Matrix!” Neo learns that the human body produces a lot of electricity and heat. So the machines kept us in their ‘pod farms, plugged in, subdued, docile and enslaved.’ What better way to control all mankind than by giving our minds a false reality – allowing us to believe that we are still living free, breathing, eating and reproducing above ground as we had for thousands of years. Our projected lives were part of an AI program that simulated a ‘controlled reality in the machines’ false world.’ 

There is much in this movie to interest Christians, who daily observe the “whole world system lying in the power of the wicked one, who is Satan” (1 John 5:19). For those believers who are members of the ‘Called Out Ones,’ that is, the Church of Jesus Christ – like Neo, we have a sense that something is seriously wrong with the world. And like Neo, we are all ‘called out’ to take the ‘Red Pill’ from Jesus, and ‘break our minds free of this fallen world.’ Only then can we begin our ‘pilgrimage on our way to the celestial city, the heavenly Zion, the Jerusalem that is above.’ (Galatians 4:26). Over these next few blogs, there will be much to cover and interact with in “The Matrix.”  It is clearly a pseudo religious movie, abounding with Biblical references – along with the influences of Judaism, Hindu and other Eastern religions. Besides many Biblical references and comparisons, the one influence that is fairly prominent, is a form of ‘Gnosticism.’ By no means does this spoil the movie for the Christian. As we’ve noted in every Blog in this series, none of these movies has a ‘pure Gospel narrative.’ But like all the other movies we’ve covered in this Blog Series, “The Matrix” just can’t help itself, always coming back to ‘shadow parts of Gospel of Jesus Christ.’

“The Matrix” quickly introduces us to the story’s hero, Thomas Anderson, a.k.a. Neo.  He’s the ‘Son of Man’ but he’s also ‘The New Man,’ the actual meaning of the word, neo.

Morpheus, a John the Baptist character who heralds the coming Messiah, proclaims Neo to be “The One,” that is, the “Annointed One” of God. His being a ‘Christ-figure’ and then becoming the ‘Savior of the World,’ is the whole plotline of “The Matrix” and the two sequels that spawned from it. I marvel how ‘the Gospel story’ in Matrix – even if defective and non-saving – still reveals the “truth about God – how His eternal power and divine nature have been understood since the creation of the world” (Romans 1:20). Our stories, books and movies always find a way to express our deepest needs and longings.  We long for a ‘Superhuman Savior’ – one like us in our broken humanity but endowed with power – especially ‘power over death.’  Again, I’m not saying that “The Matrix” is proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus, but I am marveling at how fallen men and women keep coming back to the “greatest story ever told!” This story is always percolating in our hearts and minds, calling us to seek “The One” who alone can meet our deepest needs, and deliver us from the “fallen world of darkness” all around us. The irony is, while “The Matrix’s” premise that we live in a simulated AI world is not true, Scripture teaches there are two actual realms in which men live:  The ‘Kingdom of Light and the Dominion of Darkness.’ Here’s what Paul says in Colossians:

“Giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Colossians 1:12-13).

Where The Matrix” gets it wrong is, proclaiming that our fallen world is an “Illusion,” that is, just a fake AI Construct. There is much about the world that is ‘fake’ and ‘pretend,’ but the problem is – Not that the world is Fake – But that it   is Fallen!  Biblically the world has been “ruined and corrupted by sin.” Neo himself is a ‘reluctant savior,’ not sure of himself or his role in ‘Saving Mankind’ from the sinister machines.  These machines had attained consciousness and ‘turned, like Frankenstein’s Monster,’ on their creator.  His name has several meanings: “Neo” means ‘new’ but it’s also an anagram for ‘the One,’ as all members of his new ‘Rebel Gang’ question “if he’s the One?”  But his name is also unique: Anderson is the combination of the Greek word for Man in the Bible: 

“Andros.” Anderson literally means, "Son of Man," one of the favoriete titles given and used by Jesus during His earthly pilgrimage. But even his first name, ‘Thomas,’ makes us think of ‘doubting Thomas,’ Jesus’ reluctant disciple who only believed the provable facts he could see and touch.  Neo starts off doubting the message that he’s hearing from Morpheus, but after he's unplugged from the Matrix, he’s fully awakened to the ‘false world of the Matrix’ around him.  Let me close with a statement by Morpheus to Neo that is true. There will be more to come in the next Blog. Morpheus describes “The Matrix” as: 

“It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth!”

Soli Deo Gloria!