SCRIPTURE
15Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; 16for all that is in the world -- the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches -- comes not from the Father but from the world. 17And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever. (1 John 2:15-17, NRSV)
WHAT
Have you ever been to a concert? Often there is a “warm up act,” which is a group, band, or singer who is not the main attraction but who performs first to get the audience warmed up and ready for the headliner.
We might think of today’s passage as a sort of “warm up” for the main attraction which will come starting in our next passage. In the midst of the church schism about which John the elder is writing, he is finally going to address what he thinks about those who have left the Church. In the next passage, the elder calls these schismatics “antichrists:”
As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now MANY ANTICHRISTS HAVE COME. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us. (1 John 2:18b-19, NRSV)
It’s hard to imagine the elder expressing his opinion about the schismatics any more clearly! We will save examination of these verses for the next two commentaries. But I wanted to point it out now because what the elder says in today’s passage is preparing us for “the main act.”
In today’s passage, John the elder draws a sharp distinction between those allied with what he calls “the world” and those who do the will of God. Of course, we can predict in which category he will place the schismatics.
We need to be sure we are clear about what John means by “the world.” The Greek word is kosmos, from which we get “cosmic.” John does NOT mean the world in the sense of creation, or nature. Jews and Christians alike believed that God created the world, and it was good (unlike the Gnostics who, as we saw in the Background commentary, thought anything material was bad). Paul says, for example:
…“the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s.” (1 Corinthians 10:26, NRSV)
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer. (1 Timothy 4:4-5, NRSV)
The Gospel According to John even goes so far as to say:
“For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16, NRSV)
Christians -- then and now -- found beauty, harmony, and wonder in creation. People -- then and now -- often encounter God in nature. So “the world” the elder refers to is not the world of nature. Rather, he uses the term kosmos in the sense of the way the world behaves, its pattern of life. It is a moral term describing, as N. T. Wright puts it:
“…the things people want, expect, long for and dream of that drive them to think and behave the way they do. If you go with the drift, if you don’t reflect on what you’re doing but just pick up habits of mind and body from all around you, the chances are you will become ‘friends’ with ‘the world’ in this sense.”
By the term “the world,” or kosmos, the elder simply means the world apart from God. For John, that would have been society under the Roman Empire with its false values and its false gods.
Keep in mind, as we saw in the Background commentary, by the time the elder is writing these letters late in the first century A.D., the Church was composed largely of second and third generation disciples. Very few were left who had walked with Jesus when he lived on earth. Very few even knew someone who did. Their Christian faith had become routine, mundane, ho hum. “Boring!” as kids say. John the elder makes no reference to any sort of persecution in his letters. So the danger this church faced is not from the outside. The danger he addresses is born of routine, of ho hum sameness, of boredom. The danger is compromise with the world.
God had told the Israelites long ago:
For I am the LORD your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. …you shall be holy, for I am holy. (Leviticus 11:44-45, NRSV)
This command is repeated often in scripture, including in 1 Peter:
Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16, NRSV)
The word for “holy” in Greek is hagios, and the fundamental concept is being different, of being set apart. My favorite definition of holy is “an ordinary thing set apart for God’s purposes.” Holy water, for example, is simply ordinary tap water set apart by prayer for the purpose of baptism. Holy Communion, in Methodist churches at least, uses ordinary bread and ordinary grape juice, often bought at a local grocery store, but which are set apart in the Prayer of Consecration for God’s purposes. To be holy is to be different, to be set apart for God’s purposes.
Some of the disciples in Gaius’ church had grown tired of being different. The standards of morality their faith called for were hard, and it made them stand out. They felt like fish swimming upstream. But they wanted to be like everyone else. They wanted to swim downstream with all the other fish. This desire to be no different than others made them highly susceptible to the “shiny object philosophy du jour” of Gnosticism. These “shiny object” philosophies – then and now – always promise heightened enlightenment. “Leave behind those old fashioned and disproven ways of thinking and behaving. Join us and come closer to the truth and experience real joy!”
The elder warns them, however:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world… (1 John 2:15, NRSV)
Does John seem to be oversimplifying here, of seeing things only in terms of black and white? Must we insist the real world consists of shades of gray and it is not always as simple as the elder lays out? Perhaps. But even Jesus seems aligned with the elder’s black and white, no shades of gray warning when he says:
“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matthew 6:24, NRSV)
John goes on to describe three sins typical of the world’s way of living:
…for all that is in the world -- the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches… (1 John 2:16, NRSV)
Let’s unpack each one just a bit.
· “The desire of the flesh” includes, of course, sexual desires. But it is more than that. As William Barclay puts it, “It is to live a life dominated by the senses. It is to be gluttonous in eating habits, soft in luxury, slavish in pleasure, lustful and lax in morals, selfish in the use of possessions, heedless of all the spiritual values and extravagant in the gratification of material desires.”
· “The desire of the eyes” is, as Professor Barclay describes it, “the spirit which can see nothing without wishing to acquire it and which, having acquired it, flaunts it.”
· “The pride in riches” is a particularly rich mother lode of sinful behavior. The Greek word translated “pride” here is alazoneia. When you read “pride” in the New Testament, it is often the word kauchēsis, which is also translated “boasting.” This word, alazoneia, is only used here by John and one time by James. It means “arrogance.” To be clear, we are not talking about “pride” in any positive sense, as in “I am proud of my grandchildren.” The Greek word derives from alazon, which is a braggart, someone with pretentious egotism. Braggarts are people who claim possessions and achievements which do not belong to them in order to exalt themselves. Pretentious egotists are people whose whole lives are spent attempting to impress everyone they meet with their non-existent importance.
All these desires, attitudes, and behaviors originate not in the Father, not in anything good which will set you apart and make you holy, says the elder. Rather, they originate in the kosmos, the world apart from God.
Furthermore, these desires are all temporary anyway:
And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever. (1 John 2:17, NRSV)
They are passing from the scene. God’s kingdom was inaugurated in the coming of Jesus. As that kingdom comes more fully into being, these kosmos things are doomed.
The Greek word translated “live” here is meno. This is the same word used 32 times in the Gospel of John, where it is often translated as “abide,” such as:
Abide (GREEK: meno) in me as I abide (GREEK: meno) in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides (GREEK: meno) in the vine, neither can you unless you abide (GREEK: meno) in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide (GREEK: meno) in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5, NRSV)
Only that which is aligned with God’s will abides in him forever.
APPLY
“Shiny object philosophies du jour” are still with us. If I “go with the flow,” if I don’t critically reflect on what I am doing in light of my faith in Christ but just pick up habits of mind and behavior from those around me, chances are I will become “friends” with “the world” and not abide in Christ Jesus.
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, you said, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” That is my desire. Help me to recognize and steer clear of the “shiny object philosophies du jour” and stay connected to you as the vine. Some of those “shiny objects” are even found in the Church. In Christ. Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What is the Greek word translated as “world” here? What does it NOT mean? What does it mean?
2. What danger is John the elder addressing? Where does that danger originate?
3. What does “holy” mean? Why did it get difficult to be holy for people in the church to which the elder is writing? Why is it difficult today?
4. What does the elder mean by each of the three sins he warns about – desire of the flesh, desire of the eyes, and the pride in riches? How do those apply today?
How can you apply these insights in your life?