I intended to look at this little paragraph in its entirety this afternoon, but it’s too important not to study in depth. We may finish it on Wednesday, but it might even require a third lesson. In any case, you can consider this to be the introduction to what John is saying in these three verses. And what was he saying? “Love not the world…” “Love NOT the world.”
I learned a new word the other day. I already knew the meaning of the word “exhortation.” And I use it often enough that I hope you know it as well. An exhortation is “an earnest, powerful encouragement to take some specific action.” My new word was “dehortation.” As you might expect a dehortation is “an earnest, powerful encouragement NOT to do something.” It was a relatively common word in the 17th and 18th centuries, but it is little used today. In verse 15 John dehorts us not to love the world.
We will get to our theme, “the world,” in a minute…
But first it might be appropriate to ask WHY?
Why should we not love the world? John will answer that in his own way in the rest of this paragraph, but I will start with an additional answer. Our apostle says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man 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 of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” Christians, whether little children, strong young men, or aged and mature fathers… Christians should not love the world, because the world is at odds with our Heavenly Father. The world, and all that is in the world, are not of our Father. That should be sufficient reason not to love the world.
But if it is possible, in Proverbs 4:23 Solomon gives us a more basic reason not to love the world. After spending three chapters extolling the wisdom that is found in Jehovah, David’s son says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” After he says, “Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.” After wise Solomon says these things about wisdom he adds, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.”
Most poets will tell you that we love with our hearts, not with our heads. We know that the puppy on which we have set our heart is going to cost us great deal of money before she breaks our heart and dies twenty years down the road. But we take her home anyway, because our heart demands it. And we probably all know some poor, besotted young woman who is willing to marry that foolish young man, despite knowing the pain he is going to cause her over the next fifty years. She says “I do,” because she loves him. Her heart has been given to him.
We can forgive these people, because we have been there ourselves, or we are headed in that direction. But after we leave these loves, we need to be very, very careful. Solomon says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Out of our hearts come the really important issues of life. As “little children” become young people, they acquire wisdom which helps them to see various dangers. They should learn to watch for those particular temptations and sins to which they are especially prone. Watch for the acquaintance who often carries terrible gossip, and guard against the enticer and the liar. By God’s grace we can learn to run from the drug dealer, the liquor salesman and other tempters. We know we shouldn’t watch certain kinds of videos and reels, so we learn to avoid them.
But in diligently guarding against outside attacks, we can neglect to guard our most vulnerable spiritual organ. We can be so focused on the dangers assaulting us, we can forget the problems within. “Keep (seriously guard) thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.”
We’ve all experienced a few little ouchies, which required a bandage to stop the little trickle of blood. But I hope you never have any major arteries punctured or severed. Because that kind of hole in one’s body can bring about death. Similarly, when our emotional or spiritual heart is punctured, and we permit our love to gush out, it can be disastrous in a different way.
There may eventually be problems with opening our hearts to a puppy, but we will survive. But there are a thousand other potential loves which have the ability to suck every drop of life out of hearts. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” What can happen if we open our hearts to a greedy love of the world’s money? I Timothy 6:10: “The love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” A love and greed for wealth pierces the heart with a sword which will drain it of spiritual life. If you open your heart to pornography, a form of fornication, eventually there will be no love left for the Lord and His holy morality. Do you know of anyone who no longer loves the Saviour they professed as a child, because he permitted his heart to love marijuana, and then meth? Perhaps it was the love of the taste of alcohol. How many hearts have been drained of love for Christ, through an idolatrous love of Jesus’ mother? There are so many portals in our hearts, any one of which, if opened, can lead to a loss of proper love. “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
John, tell us again, what is it you are dehorting?
He tells us “Love not the WORLD.”
What is the world? There are 3 Greek words translated “world” in the Bible, and there is another which is rendered “the earth.” The word “aion” is translated “world” thirty-eight times, but it refers a long period of “time” almost twice as often. We don’t need to consider “aion” this afternoon, because it is not the word John uses here for “world.” However it is found as the last word in verse 17: “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” Another less common word is used to speak of the inhabited world. An example is Luke 2:1: “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” Again that is not the word John uses here.
His is the very common word “kosmos.” He employs it seventeen times in this epistle alone, beginning in verse 2 of this chapter. I have printed out those verses for you to study later on. They include I John 2:2: Christ “is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole kosmos.” “Love not the kosmos, neither the things that are in the kosmos.” “The kosmos passeth away, and the lust thereof.” “This is the victory that overcometh the kosmos, even our faith.” John never uses any of the other words to speak of the “world.”
It is really interesting that “kosmos” is translated world 186 times but one other way just ONCE. When Peter was encouraging Christian ladies to be good testimonies before their lost husbands he said, “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” Peter brings out the nature of “kosmos” when he says, in I Peter 3: “Whose ADORNING let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart…” The word “adorning” is “kosmos” and it suggests that at its root it refers to an orderly arrangement of some sort.
God’s creation, the world and the universe, is as intricate and orderly as a vast well-designed machine. There are hundreds of important natural laws which must work perfectly for life to exist on this planet. Things like weather, gravity, photosynthesis, the complexities of the atmosphere and a hundred other things have been created by El Shaddai to maintain life in this kosmos. But that machine, God’s original creation, has been corrupted and cursed as a result of Adam’s sin. And there is a sense in which the world has been stolen and usurped by Satan. The kosmos has become chaos because of sin. It is still a organized system, but it has become dark and sinister, rather than light and godly. When our Lord Jesus was tested by Satan, “the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Satan could offer Christ “the world,” because he has temporarily become “the god of this world.” Now world and “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father… And the world passeth away..” I expect to come back to this subject, but suffice it to say at this point: the world will pass away because God intends to judge it and its pirate king.
We could probably stop at this point, pray, say “amen,” and all go home. The introduction to the message is done and the rest will be manageable in another sermon. But some of you may have some lingering questions about “the world” in John’s dehortation. For example, why are WE exhorted “love not the world,” but it is said that our GOD love it? “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Why are we prohibited from doing something the Lord Himself does? Is it simply because He is God, doing what He wants to do, while forbidding us to the same thing? Or could there be some nuance to the word “world” which applies differently from John 3 to I John 2?
Most of us are not fluent in Greek, myself included. That means I must turn to others to help me understand the language in which our New Testament was written. Doing that I find good men sometimes differing with each other on definitions and explanations. For example, W.E. Vine says that “kosmos” can mean seven different things: He says it can be the physical earth, after which he produces several scriptural examples. He refers to the earth in contrast to heaven, followed by other scriptures. He says, as a figure of speech it can refer to the human race. World distinguishes the Gentiles from the Jews. It is the present condition of human affairs, in alienation from and opposition to God. He says it is the sum of all temporal possessions, as in houses and lands. Then metaphorically kosmos speaks of the tongue as “a world of iniquity” – James 3:6.
Should we listen to Vine? Then how about Marvin. R. Vincent. Vincent goes from seven to five explanations of “kosmos.” He says, the world is an ornament, arrangement and order. It is the sum-total of all the material universe considered as a system. It is the universe as the abode of man. It is the sum-total of humanity in the world. It is the sum-total of human life in the ordered world considered apart from, alienated from, and hostile to God, and of the earthly things which seduce from God. Nearly all these men refer to Ephesians 2:1 and 2: “ you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.”
Should we listen to Vincent? Then how about L.S. Chafer? He says: At least three general senses attach to this expression. 1) The material earth as a creation of God (Acts 17:24: “God that made the world…”) 2) The inhabitants of the world. 3) “The institutions of men as set up independent of God and headed by Satan; That is: the satanic system organized upon principles of self, greed, armament, and commercialism. This is the world that God does not love and believers are warned against loving.”
On the word “world” in verse 17 John Gill says two things – both of which I think are incorrect. He says, this is talking about the habitable earth as a place, because our eternal home is heaven. Christians shouldn’t love the world “as if it was their habitation, where they are always to be, and so loath to remove from it, seeing they are but sojourners, and pilgrims, and strangers here.” It is certainly true that we should not love the world as our permanent home, but this is not the meaning of this verse. And then as a second option, Gill adds, “Nor should they love the men of the world…” How could “men” be the meaning of “world,” when the rest of the verse says, “neither the things that are in the world.” That would be like saying, love not wicked men nor the things that are in those wicked men.
No, I think John is referring in this paragraph to the Satanic system in which we now live. Kenneth Wuest quotes Richard Trench: “All that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims, aspirations, at any time current in the world, which it may be impossible to seize and accurately define, but which constitutes a most real and effective power, being the moral, or immoral atmosphere which / at every moment of our lives we inhale, again inevitably to exhale..”
John says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man 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 of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
Not every time John uses the word “kosmos” in this epistle does he refer to the Satanic world system. Sometimes he refers to people, and other times he points to the physical creation. And for those who would like to verify that statement, I have printed out all seventeen verses. You can take them home and read them over asking yourself these questions: Does this speak of the physical creation? Does this refer to the people of this creation? Does this refer to the evil society in which we live.
As far as our text is concerned, I am convinced this “world” is not a reference to planet earth. And it is not referring to people, whether general sinners, saved people, or Gentiles versus Jews. John is speaking of the ungodly social system in which we live. Finally, to quote from the only Baptist in my library to address the definition of “world” beside John Gill – George Crawford rightly declares: The world here “is the ordered system of which Satan is the head, his fallen angels and demons are his emissaries, and the unsaved of the human race are his subjects, together with those purposes, pursuits, pleasures, practices and places where God is not wanted. Much in this world-system is religious, cultured, refined and intellectual. But it is anti-God and anti-Christ.”
Christian, our duty is to “Love NOT the world, neither the things that are in the world.”