Do not love the world nor the things in
the world. If anyone love the world the love of the Father is not in him. For
all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and
the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is
passing away, and its lust; but the one who does the will of God abides
forever, 1 John 2:15-17.
The
Bible uses the word “world” in different contexts, on the one hand we have John
3:16, For God so loved the world…,
then we have the passage before us; the meaning of the word “world” is not the
same in these two passages and in this respect the language of the Bible is no
different than language across the world – the context controls the meaning. In
John 3:16 we are told that God loves the world and elsewhere in Scripture we
are taught to love our fellow man; God loves the world so much that He gave His
only begotten Son to bear the sins of the world; the message is that God loves
people, He loves His creation, even though we have rejected Him and marred His
image in us He loves us with a passion beyond our understanding. In John 3:16
the “world” is people (see also 1 John 2:2).
But
in 1 John 2:15 – 17 the “world” is not people, it may have people in it and
subject to it and who are proponents of it, but it is not people. Whatever the
“world” means in 1 John 2:15, it means something that is so dark and sinister
and insidious that to love this thing, to be enmeshed in this thing, to pursue
this thing, is to alienate oneself from the love of the Father and to associate
with something that is passing away and will be no more.
This
poison was introduced to humanity in Genesis 3:6, the cup of the “world” was
offered and we drank it, and for millennia we have passed the cup of poison
from generation to generation. The bartender, if you will excuse the image, in
Genesis was Satan, whether the drink was shaken or stirred I do not know; I do
know that we have been collectively drunk on the lethal cocktail through the
corridors of time.
It
is tempting to define the term “world” in such a way as to leave the matter
done and allow the reader to move on, but something so sinister does not lend
itself to concise definition; from the Garden to Cain and Abel, from Babel to
the slaughter of infants in Egypt, from idols in Solomon’s Temple to the
wickedness in high places of Ephesians Chapter 6 to the swirling images of
Revelation – evil working through the system termed the “world” in 1 John 2:15
has myriad images and manifestations; what are its images and manifestations in
our day? What are its images and temptations in my heart and mind? What bait
does it dangle in my life, luring me to bite on its hook?
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