Smoodock's Blog

In 1John 2:15 the writer of this epistle told his readers to “Love not the world!” Nevertheless, this same author claimed in his Gospel narrative: “God so loved the world…” (John 3:16). The word for world (kosmos; G2889) is the same for both Scriptures. Is there a difference, and, if so, what does it mean? First of all, we need to keep in mind that John isn’t dotting around from one unrelated subject to another in his epistle. He was still addressing the little children, the fathers and the young men of 1John 2:12-14, and he referred to “the world” in terms of what the believing community was then facing.

The world (kosmos (G2889) that the Father so loved, which he gave his Son in order to save (John 3:16), is the world order that he put in place, and the people that that world order was meant to govern and serve. The Lord loves order, not chaos. What the Father doesn’t love is when the world “order” works for some folks, but not for all. This would reflect the breaking down of the order (i.e. the kosmos) that the Lord put in place. That world system of things tends toward chaos. It isn’t dependable or lawful. It isn’t just or fair, and certainly it isn’t righteous.

The Law served the Jews and those they governed, but when Stephen stood up and explained that the Law pointed to Christ, the Jewish authorities rose up and slew him and persecuted the Hellenist believers, and this was against the Mosaic Law. The system of order that the Jewish authorities put in place had no room for Stephen and those like him. Although this system of things, tolerated the conservative disciples and the more moderate disciples of Christ, it turned against them, as well. Under King Herod Agrippa of Acts 12, the Apostles and the moderate disciples of Christ were persecuted, and they had to escape to foreign lands, outside of Agrippa’s authority. Still later, the most conservative of believers were persecuted, and James, the brother of the Lord was slain, and the persecution went international (cp. James 1:1; 1Peter 1:1), whereby there was simply no place for believers to escape to (cp. Matthew 8:20). It was this system of law, this kosmos (G2889) that was not of the Father, but was of the world system then in place, and that system originated in and catered to the prejudices of men. Love not this world, this kosmos (G2889), this unfair and unrighteous, chaotic enterprise.

John went on to say that, if a man did love this sort of world order, if he embraced such an abhorrent kosmos (G2889), how could the love of the Father, which gave itself to the whole of mankind in order to save it (John 3:16), dwell in that one, whose “love” excluded the very group of folks, who loved and praised the Lord for what he had done for them? Such a thing would be a great contradiction. One simply cannot “love” God and despise the people of God at the same time.

Notice what John claimed was a part of that kind of world, “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” (1John 2:16). John’s statement here needs to be placed in the context of the Garden of Eden: “when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” (Genesis 3:6).

It is interesting that the actions of Genesis 3:6 brought about the breakup of the world that the Lord had put in place,[1] and 1John 2:16 represents a world order that sought to undermine and destroy the Gospel and the new world order that the Father had Jesus set in place during the first century AD. Certainly, the destruction of the world order, whether that of Genesis 3 or that which was referenced in 1John 2, could never have come from God. Rather, it comes from a systematic effort of men who, in rebellion against God, seek to establish their own will apart from God, but such efforts tend toward chaos.

John concludes his thought by saying this system of things, this kosmos (G2889) with its lusts that are not of the Father passes away, and this points to the Jewish state, which would pass away at the then soon coming judgment of Christ (70 AD), but he who works the will of God abides forever. This, of course, refers to the Kingdom of God, which the Lord had begun through the Gospel, and it would last forever, never ending (Daniel 2:44). In other words, at the judgment, which was soon to come at the coming of Christ, the Jewish state would be destroyed with its Temple, and the Kingdom of God would be established in the world, as the Lord’s only representative to mankind, and it would last forever.

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[1] See my earlier study: The Overthrow of the World.