John has
just given us a wonderful breath of fresh air in affirming several baseline
truths of the Christian life. As I said
last time, I think he was helping us to take a sort of spiritual deep breath
before the plunge into the abyss of evil.
Well, we have now arrived at the edge and there’s nowhere to go but down
for most of the remainder of chapter two.
Our apostle
launches directly into the meat of the argument in verse 15: Do not love the world nor the things in the
world. We have already seen
extensively the type of love John is talking about here. But we need to be absolutely certain that we
understand his meaning. This is “agape”
love, the predominant love of the New Testament. It is the love that God showed for us when he
sent His Son and temporarily sacrificed the unity and harmony of the Trinity
for our sake. To love like this means to
surrender our rights, prerogatives, finances, energy, and/or time for the sake
of the object of our affection.
In addition
to our comprehension of the kind of love being described, we also need to know
what John means when he says world. “Kosmos”,
translated into English as world, can be a neutral term. It simply means world, universe, or humankind. It is often used in a general umbrella sense,
as we saw in chapter 2 verse 2: but also
for those of the whole world. In
that verse John just means the mass of humankind as a whole without making
specific distinctions about good, evil, nationality, gender, or anything
else. But that’s not the tone being used
here in verse 15.
The world,
in this context, refers to the ungodly multitude; the whole mass of men
alienated from God and hostile to the cause of Christ. Consider chapter 3 and verse 1: See how great a love the Father has
bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us,
because it did not know Him. Now in
this verse John doesn’t specifically call out the world as being bad or
evil. But he most certainly implies it
by stating that “it” did not know God and therefore does not know His children
either. Remember from chapter 1 verse 5
that God is light, or good, and in Him is no darkness at all. So whatever is opposed to God is
automatically dark, or bad.
Just a few
sentences later, in verse 13 of chapter 3, John adds an additional descriptor
to our concept of world: Do not be
surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. There is a seething animosity implicit in the
regard the world has toward the people of God and indeed God Himself. At work here is the same principle Jesus
taught and John recorded in John 15:18-19.
So with that
in mind, consider what John is saying.
He is not saying that we should not take any enjoyment whatsoever from
the created order in which we live. He
is not calling us to a life of solitude in a lonely mountain monastery where we
abstain from all substances and activities which might in any way, shape, or
form bring us pleasure. No, what John is
getting at is that we should not make sacrifices for the sake of worldly, evil,
God hostile pleasures or pursuits.
To figure
out if you are guilty of this crime, think about the following. When you wake up in the morning and survey
the day that is before you, where do your passions lie? Are you enticed by the bountiful treasure
contained in the sacred Scriptures? Are
you eager to see what nuance of Himself God will reveal to you today? Is the focus of your time and energy the work
of the ministry and being a part of the will of God and the establishment of
His kingdom? I’m not asking if you spend
every waking moment doing absolutely nothing but reading, praying, and
ministering. I’m asking what your focus
is. Where do you spend the bulk of your
mental and physical energy? Is it on the
items listed above or is it on food, luxury, entertainment, work, family,
etc. If your answer to that question is
the latter then you are guilty of loving the world and the things in the world. And even if the things from the world that
you love like this are harmless, if you are placing them on a pedestal higher
than your affection for God then you have just made them an idol and they have
become evil for you.
What does
God say about this misguided love? Well,
I warn you, it’s not pleasant. Look at
the next sentence: If anyone loves the
world, the love of the Father is not in him. The phrase John employs here, “the love of
the Father”, is unique to this place in the New Testament. He placed it in the genitive case which was
the Greek method of showing possession.
To make this clear let me provide two alternative translations designed
to emphasize the possessive element here: “the love which belongs to the
Father” or “the love that comes from the Father”. This is the same construct typically used by
New Testament authors when referring to the “word of God”. It is God’s word. It belongs to Him. It proceeds from Him. It is a similar idea being expressed here
referring to the love of God.
There are
two ways we can take John’s meaning, one more terrifying than the other. Either he is saying that if we love the world
we cannot also at the same time love the Father. Or the sense is that if we love the world
then the Father does not love us. On the
one hand, John uses the Greek state of being verb, “estin”, to convey the idea
that this love from the Father does not exist within us. But on the other hand, as already stated,
this is God’s love that we’re talking about.
It does not belong to man. It
belongs to the Father.
I think both
aspects are present. First of all we
have already seen quite clearly from the contrast of light and darkness that
polar opposites cannot co-exist. They
are anathema to each other. This is
exactly what Jesus was getting at in Matthew 6:24: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love
the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” If you are busy spending your time investing
in worldly pursuits you cannot at the same time be investing in heavenly
pursuits. If your treasure is found here
on earth then it cannot be found in heaven simultaneously (Mat. 6:19-21). This is a principle that has been and will
continue to be foundational to John’s teaching.
And not
surprisingly, the world disagrees with this assessment. In one of George Lucas’s Star Wars movies,
the character of Anakin Skywalker, who in the plot of the film is consciously
turning to evil, makes the following statement: “If you’re not with me, then
you’re my enemy.” In response, the
character of Obi-Wan Kenobi (the “good” guy) has this to say: “Only a Sith
(meaning an evil person) deals in absolutes.”
We will discuss discernment next week.
But how many children have watched this particular movie, other films
which espouse the same principles, news media reports, school curriculum, the
foolish advice of their young peers, and even the outlandish statements of
political figures or sports icons or movie stars that preach the same
message? And bit by bit, iota by iota, they
have been indoctrinated into the world’s hollow and deceptive philosophies
which are completely opposed to the teachings of Jesus such as that found in
Matthew 12:30: “He who is not with Me is
against Me”. Do you see how this
world system seeks to undermine and co-opt our affections for Christ at every
turn?
And their
efforts are certainly not limited to clear and obvious arguments. This idea of a refusal of absolutes permeates
every piece of our culture, often in subtle and difficult to detect ways. Religious syncretism, the idea that all
religions can and should co-exist together without distinction, is alive and
well today just as it was in the Roman Empire. The invention of gender identity as a
supposedly serious social question for our day is itself an outworking of this
core idea that everyone and everything should be considered normative,
regardless of how extreme or ridiculous it is.
Even the rise of feminism in the 20th century is a testament
to man’s core belief that he can circumvent God’s design and thumb his nose at
God’s standards. We may not be guilty of
loving the world as John is meaning it but we must be very careful to ensure
that we are not ensnared by subtle ungodly sentiments and beliefs authored by
Satan and implemented by his agents in the world.
Moving back
to our interpretation of the phrase “the love of the Father is not in him”, it
is equally valid that if this love of the world and all of its anti-God
tendencies is where our hearts lie then the love of God has not been fulfilled
or completed within us. John has already
made this point back in verse 5: whoever
keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. If you are busy hopping into bed with the
world it is a certainty that you are not involved in obeying God’s
commands. Therefore, His love for you is
absent from your life.
This is
absolutely terrifying. To entertain the
notion that the omnipotent God who is over all creation would have His face set
against us is the stuff of nightmares. Leviticus
26:17 paints the awful picture: I will
set My face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and
you shall flee when none pursues you.
Those whom the Lord is against shall be so discomfited that they run in
terror when no one is even chasing them.
It gives us a mental image of a person alone in the middle of a field,
with not another soul around, running every which way screaming in fright.
The only
thing that keeps a person sane in such a state is a steadfast refusal to
acknowledge the truth. Which of course
they are only too happy to do, being dead in their sins and lacking the
regenerative power of the Lord. This is
why men actively work to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom.
1:18). Because the terrible truth is far
too awful to consider.
To be clear,
this verse is not teaching that we can fall into a state of lost salvation in
which God’s love is removed from us. We
know this because John clarifies the point at least two times in this very same
letter. Just a few verses away in 2:19,
and referring to what he is calling “antichrists” he says this: They went out from us, but they were not
really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but
they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. And then in chapter 3 verse 9 we read: No one who is born of God practices sin,
because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. We will discuss these passages further in the
weeks to come. But for now suffice to
say that in 2:15 John is not teaching a loss of salvation doctrine. Rather, he is presenting the terrible state
that people are in who are in love with the world rather than with God.
Circling
back around to our text for this week, in verse 16 John describes three
examples of how this worldly love plays itself out: For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the
eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the
world. Each of these elements bears
some explanation.
First up is
the lust of the flesh. There are two
words we need to focus on here; lust and flesh.
Lust is the Greek “epithumia”. It
is simply a desire for what is forbidden.
But more than that, it is a longing or a craving. It is an insistent pounding in our brains
that compels us to seek out that which we desire. It’s important to note that this does not
necessarily have sexual connotations.
Although lust does often come into play in the arena of human sexuality
it can also describe any sense in which a person pines after evil.
For example,
Jesus used the term in John 8:44 in speaking to the Jews who were in opposition
to Him: You are of your father the
devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. The word desires in that verse is the
same as lust in 1st John 2:16.
In other words, those appetites that are seen in the character of Satan,
to oppose God and continually seek to undermine His authority and upset His
plans, is what John has in view here.
The other
significant word is flesh, or “sarx” in Greek.
There are typically two ways “sarx” is used in Scripture. We can very crudely classify them as Pauline,
or found in the works of Paul, and Johannine, or found in the works of
John. Paul tends to use “sarx” to
describe an unrighteous preference for that which will satisfy our physical
existence. Romans 7:5 captures this idea
perfectly: For while we were in the
flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the
members of our body to bear fruit for death. In contrast to this, John often uses “sarx”
in a more generic sense to refer simply to physical bodies, as in John 1:14: And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among
us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth.
One of the
Scripture interpretation principles from week 1 was to consider first the
localized meaning of the text as the author wrote it, and then expand from
there if necessary to other books by the same author. At least one of the reasons for this is to
establish a consistent usage pattern for particular words that have multiple
definitions. So in the case of flesh, it
is most likely that John, considering how he uses the term elsewhere, is
talking about physical existence, or the more generic of the two meanings. So when John says “lust of the flesh” he is
describing an unrighteous obsession for those things which will satisfy the needs
of our natural bodies.
The next
phrase in verse 16 is “the lust of the eyes”.
We already know what lust means.
And the word translated eyes, or “opthalmos” in Greek, is exactly that;
the organs of sight that are embedded in our heads. This is kind of the mental equivalent to the
physical fixation seen above. It is
those things we observe visually that entice us toward unrighteous lust thus
controverting God’s prescription for joy and fullness of life. We see something desirable and become
convinced that this object and only this object can possibly fulfill our hopes
and dreams.
This is the
issue in Exodus 20:17 when God gives the 10th commandment: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house;
you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female
servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Why do you suppose the Lord takes such pains
to give us this laundry list of our neighbor’s belongings that we ought not to
covet? Why didn’t God just say “don’t
covet any of your neighbor’s things?”
Because the “lust of the eyes” is such a powerful, dangerous, and
addictive drug.
It cast the
nation of Israel into utter chaos during the reign of David when his son
Absalom rebelled against his father. His
rebellion was one of the consequences of God’s judgment concerning David’s
great sin of adultery with Bathsheba, which all started in 2nd
Samuel 11:2 because of the lust of the king’s eyes: Now when evening came David arose from his bed and walked around on the
roof of the king’s house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing; and the
woman was very beautiful in appearance.
The danger
was bad enough in David’s day. But oh
how terribly insidious in 21st century America the lust of the eyes
is. We live in a society fueled by
advertisement. Billions upon billions of
dollars are spent every year ($592.43 billion worldwide in 2015, if anyone’s
counting) for the sole purpose of attempting to entice you to buy toys, engage
in illicit sex, gorge yourself upon food, and doctor your physical appearance
so as to garner the acclaim of your peers.
John says to us from across the centuries: ignore this danger at your
peril.
And then he
comes to the final example of love of the world: “the boastful pride of
life”. This is the marriage of
“alazoneia” (boastful pride) and “bios” (life).
“Alazoneia” is empty talk. It is
an insolent and vacant assurance that trusts in its own power and resources,
consequently despising divine statutes.
This is the critique hurled in characteristically blunt fashion by James
in chapter 4 verse 16 of his book: But
as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. If we were to back up three verses we would
see that James is talking about people who go about their daily lives, making
plans and enacting stratagems, all without consulting the Lord or committing
their path to Him. They are fully
reliant upon their own resources to accomplish that which they desire in
life. Whether this is money, fame,
pleasure, or power is irrelevant. The
fault is in not seeking God’s counsel and bulling ahead on your own initiative.
Furthermore,
the life, or “bios” that John is speaking of is not merely physical existence
and what we devote that existence toward.
It is also the means by which our way of life is sustained. Notice how John uses the same word in verse
17 of the next chapter: But whoever has
the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against
him, how does the love of God abide in him?
Goods in this verse is translated life in chapter 2 verse 16, but it is
the same word in Greek, “bios”. It is
not only the life that John is referring to but the material possessions that
fuel continued life. All of this leads
us to a chilling understanding of the “boastful pride of life”. It is a self-reliant determination, devoid of
any lasting substance, to use one’s own intellect, resources, and abilities to
sustain one’s life, increase one’s standing, and pursue one’s happiness.
These three
elements; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride
of life all come together to form a sort of triple play of sin, or a triad of
evil. John proceeds to state the obvious
at the end of verse 16. In reference to
the three despicable patterns of behavior he has just described he says: is not from the Father, but is from the
world. We might be tempted to call
the apostle “Mr. Obvious” at this point.
It seems like an elementary statement that he need not even have
bothered with. But if the experience of
my own life has taught me anything it is that the human mind is a master at
avoiding that which is right in front of our faces. I have no doubt your life has demonstrated
the same tendency.
Besides,
John is not done. I think he inserts the
clause at the end of verse 16 because he is continuing that same line of
reasoning into the next verse. Remember
that in the original Greek there were no verse divisions. So John’s thought literally flowed straight
through without a break. And the
connection he makes is this in verse 17.
All these evil things are not from the Father, but are from the world,
and…The world is passing away, and also
its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
He says the
world is passing away. This is a single
Greek word, “parago”, that means to lead past or pass by. It also has potential connotations of a
misleading element, depending on context.
The term is only used 10 times in the New Testament and most of the time
it simply means to move from one point to another in a short period of
time. But it also has a sense of the
temporal and the fleeting. John uses
“parago” two times in his writing other than here in verse 17. One of them we have already looked at, in
chapter 2 verse 8: the darkness is
passing away and the true Light is already shining. The other occurrence is in the gospel of
John, chapter 9 verse 1: As He passed
by, He saw a man blind from birth.
From these
two points of reference we can very clearly see the idea of a short duration,
in both a metaphysical and a corporeal sense.
Firstly, in God’s view, and in the ultimate scope of history, the time
of darkness that we are in now both personally within our hearts and
corporately in the world at large, is nothing but a wispy vapor. Although the evil of this age may seem
overwhelming and solidly entrenched and therefore immovable, it is only a
momentary light affliction in light of eternity (2 Cor. 4:17-18). Secondly, just as Jesus passed by the blind
man or we might walk past a ball left in the yard on our way to the car in the
morning, there is no substantive longevity present in “parago”. It is quite literally a flash in the pan.
And this is
John’s point. He preaches to us to not
be ensnared by the world. He warns us
not to have the world as the focal point of our sacrificial affections. He explicitly and graphically describes the
outward evidence of such a wayward obsession in the three phrases “lust of the
flesh”, “lust of the eyes”, and “boastful pride of life”. And he caps off his argument by pointing out
that the world, of which this triad of evil is part and parcel, is fleeting. It is temporary. If we hitch our horses to the wagon of the
world we are making a doomed investment.
I recall the
teaching of Jesus about this sort of foolish endeavor in Matthew 7:24-27: “Everyone then who hears these words of
mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the
rock. And the rain fell, and the floods
came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because
it had been founded on the rock. And
everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a
foolish man who built his house on the sand.
And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat
against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” May God forbid that we are ever so stupid as
to engage in idiotic behavior such as what John is describing in his letter and
Jesus described in His public teaching.
Now then, to
wrap up this essay I would like to take a small detour from 1st
John. The reason is that I want to
explain the larger significance of this triad of evil that John has presented
to us. I think what he is doing in verse
16 is nothing less than giving us a comprehensive summary statement of the
entirety of the human condition. I think
his descriptions and examples are so far reaching, so fundamental, so
elementary, that they touch every one of us in one way or another. The way in which John does this is by
paralleling the account of Eve’s disobedience in Genesis 3:6. Consider the text: When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a
delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took
from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. This verse is an exact step by step mirror of
1st John 2:16.
The woman
saw that the tree was good for food. In
other words, it was a valuable commodity for curbing the pangs of hunger and
providing fuel for the body. What else
is this but the lust of the flesh as described above? The woman saw that the tree (and presumably
its fruit) was a delight to the eyes. In
other words, it was very attractive and stimulated her desire for it by virtue
of its appearance. What else is this but
the lust of the eyes as described above?
The woman also saw that the tree (again, the fruit is included by
implication) was desirable to make one wise.
In other words, Eve believed the serpent’s tale of knowledge and godhood
that were to be had by eating from the tree.
So in her estimation this was a profitable course of action to pursue so
as to utilize her own efforts to procure a benefit for herself. What else is this but the boastful pride of
life as described above?
I think what
John is saying in 1st John 2:16 is that we need to wake up and
realize that every thought, every intention, every passion, every fancy that we
are born with is part and parcel of the same terrible delusion that resulted in
Adam’s and Eve’s separation from God. I
think this verse is John’s functional equivalent to a passage such as Romans
3:10 from Paul: There is none righteous,
not even one. I realize John does
not explicitly indicate in this verse that he is making a connection with Eve’s
actions in Genesis 3:6. But for me the
parallel is just too strong and clear to ignore. And as I see it the point for us is
this. None of us can claim clemency from
the legacy inherited from our first parents.
John sums up all of our deprivations, all of our machinations, all of
our obfuscations, and all of our predilections with this one simple passage of
Scripture. And in doing so he neatly
eviscerates any attempt at denial that we might try to throw up in our
defense.
The context
of verses 15 to 17 is the unsaved who have not been granted the gifts of faith
and repentance. But every Christian
started from this same initial point of rebellion. Furthermore, every Christian needs to take
careful stock of their spiritual condition.
We need to assess ourselves to ensure that we are not living the kind of
life described by John in this paragraph.
Because if we are then there is a disconnect between what we profess
with our lips and what we practice with our actions. As he said right off the bat, if we love the
world then the love of the Father is not in us.
We cannot have it both ways.
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