Twenty-First Century Bondservant: This World and the One to Come

The following sermon was delivered at Grace Church of Philly on 09-11-2011:

Introduction

1John 2:15 (ESV) Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

In my time as a Christian, I have heard countless sermons on the dangers of loving “the world,” or being “worldly.” Typically, this warning was given in the form of simplistic exhortations such as: “don’t drink; don’t smoke; don’t go to the movies; don’t listen to certain kinds of music; don’t dress a certain way; etc.”

But what does “do not love the world” really mean?

Does it mean less than the short list of behaviors that I just described? Should we have a shorter list?

Does it mean more than that? Should we have a longer list?

Should we even have a list? Is adherence to a list of religious rules really what is being discussed here?

In order to find out the answers to these questions, and in order to find out what this text means for us in our time, we have to dig deeper into what the term “world” actually meant in its original context.

Text

A. The World – 2:15-16

1. Kosmos and Aion

“World” is a translation of the Greek word kosmos (κόσμος). It can refer to the universe (Acts 17:24), the earth as the place of human activity (Matt. 4:8), or it can refer to humanity (2 Cor. 5:19; 1 John 2:2).[1]

But John uses the term here in a different way that points us to the new redemptive reality that Christ has inaugurated.

The world is described as something that stands in opposition to “the love of the Father”[2] and as something that will soon be gone in the age to come (“the world is passing away…” 1 John 2:17).[3]

One scholar has stated: “The kosmos (understood as the world of men) constitutes a uniform subject which opposes God in enmity, resists the redeeming work of the Son, does not believe in him, and indeed hates him.”[4]

John is using “world” (kosmos) here in much the same way that the apostle Paul uses the word aion (αἰων). Depending on the context and Bible version, we can find aion translated either “age” or “world.”

For example, in Gal. 1:4 Paul refers to the “present evil aion.” The KJV translates this as “this present evil world.” The ESV reads: “the present evil age.” The NLT reads: “this evil world.” The AMP reads: “this present wicked age and world order.”

Another example can be found in 2Tim. 4:10:

For Demas, in love with this present world (aion), has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

In 1 Cor. 3:18-19, we see Paul using the two terms in parallel fashion:

1Cor. 3:18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age (aion), let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world (kosmos) is folly with God.

Paul uses the term aion in a way that is analogous to or nearly synonymous with John’s use of kosmos in 1 John 2:15-17.[5]

2. The Overlap of the Ages

In the NT, Paul speaks about this “present evil age” (Gal. 1:4)[6] and also about “the age to come” (Eph. 1:21). These two ages are radically different and are fundamentally opposed to each other.

This “present evil age” (or, this “present evil world”) is characterized by sinful indulgence in fleshly desires and lusts:

1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world – the desires [lust] of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world.

In the “present evil age,” man has enthroned himself as lord and is pursuing all of the self-centered desires that he pleases.

In Eph. 2, Paul talks about those who are “dead” in “trespasses and sins.” These people are described as “following the course and fashion of this world (kosmos) [under the sway and tendency of this present age]” (v. 2, AMP).

But the “age to come” (or, the “world to come”) is characterized by Spirit-empowered obedience to the will and rule of the Father: whoever does the will of God abides forever (2:17; cf. 3:24).

In the “age to come” Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

This “present evil age” is characterized by evil, darkness, wickedness, death, satanic dominion, and rebellion against the law of God.

The “age to come” is characterized by holiness, light, righteousness, life, Messianic triumph, and obedience to the law of God.

The interesting thing that we find in Scripture is that the “age to come” is a present reality for those who believe in Christ as Lord.[7]

Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, those who are “born of God” (1 John 3:9; 4:7; 5:1) presently experience the powers of the age to come, the Spirit in them testifying to this new reality in their life (1 John 3:24; 2 Cor. 5:17). Don’t we find this to be true? Do we not experience new desires following our new birth? These desires (for holiness, righteousness, obedience to the will of God) correspond to the age to come.

In the age to come, all will submit to the Lordship of Christ (1 John 2:3), walk in the light of His rule (1 John 1:7), imitate His way of life (1 John 2:6), and love others as Christ has loved them (1 John 2:7-11).

Believers do all of these things now, however imperfectly. But when Christ returns, all of these Christian duties will be done with a perfect obedience and a perfect motive, coming from heart kept pure by the power of God.

Born again believers are those who live in the “overlap of the ages.” We live in the overlap of this world (which is evil) and the world to come (which is the kingdom of God in its fullness).

With the coming of Christ into the world, we see the inauguration of the kingdom of God. It is here and it is now. But it is not yet present in its fullness. For that, we await the second coming of our King.

For now, we live in the reality of the “already-not yet.”

This “already-not yet” reality tends to create tension in believers’ lives, due to the fact that we have competing allegiances.

Because we live in this world, we are pulled in its direction all the time. We are constantly pulled around by the desires of our sinful flesh and the lust of our eyes and the pride produced in us by our material possessions.[8]

Because we live in this world, our tendency is to “love” it. By “love,” I mean that we become attached to it; we have intimate fellowship with it and loyal devotion to it.[9]

And in attaching ourselves to this world system, we neglect the spiritual and engorge our sinful heart appetites on the things of this world.

We knowingly pursue things that are openly sinful, and to make matters worse, we make idols and gods out of things that are otherwise morally neutral (family, money, sports, approval, security, success, social status, food, politics, nationality/country, work, leisure, television, hobbies, physical appearance, etc.).

In the dogged pursuit of such lifestyles,[10] we exchange our eternal heavenly citizenship for temporal earthly things.[11]

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he gives a reminder and exhortation to believers caught in the tension of the “overlap of the ages”:

Phil. 3:16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained. 17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. 18 For many…walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly… [their] minds set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ… (emphasis added).

Living in this present evil world, we sometimes forget our true identity in Christ. We forget that we do not belong to this passing age, but the world to come. We forget that “the world does not know us” (1 John 3:1) and is ignorant of our Lord.

We begin to identify with the sons of Adam, the children of this passing age, all the while forgetting that the world indeed “hates” us (1 John 3:13) because we are followers, not of the first Adam, but of the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because of this tendency, we need the exhortation to “hold true” to the identity that we have attained in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:16).

We don’t have to give in to the desires of the flesh (1 John 2:16), for this type of behavior belongs to the person that existed before Christ came into our lives through the new birth by faith.

Rather than allowing the desires of our eyes to pull us back into this world system (1 John 2:16), we need to train ourselves to keep our eyes focused on “those who walk according to the example” of Christ (Phil. 3:17).

Rather than taking pride in and glorying in our worldly possessions (1 John 2:16), we need the reminder that we are citizens of another kingdom that will come in its fullness when our King returns (Phil. 3:20).

Interpretation and Application:

What does it mean to “love the world” and “the things in the world”?

It means to set your mind on earthly things, rather than on heavenly things, where it belongs.

To “love the world” means to live as if the good news of Christ never penetrated your heart with the power of God’s redemptive truth.

To “love the world” means to live according to the ways of this present evil age, not according to the kingdom reality that Christ inaugurated two thousand years ago, and which He will bring with Him in its fullness upon His return.

It is to live as if Christ never came in the flesh.

How about you?

Do you live your life as if Christ never came in the flesh?

Is your life indistinguishable from those who don’t claim Christ as their Lord and Savior?

Do you feel completely at home in this world system?

Do you live as if you belong to this present evil age or as if you belong to another age to come?

Do you pursue and lust after and attach yourself to the same things that unsaved people do?

Do you live as if the gospel hasn’t made all the difference in your life?

B. The World to Come – 2:17

1John 2:17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

How foolish it would be for us to continue to live as if the gospel has made no difference in our lives.

How foolish it would be for us to continue to live as if this present age is all there is.

How foolish it would be for us to live as if this present world order is going to last forever (cf. 2 Pet. 3:1-7).

How foolish it would be for us to live as if we belonged to this fallen and wicked world, and not like redeemed citizens of the heavenly kingdom of Christ.

The Nicene Creed, written at the first Christian council approximately 1,700 years ago speaks of how the kingdom reality of “the world to come” came into existence:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.[12]

By coming in the flesh, living a perfect life of obedience to the Father in every way, dying on the cross for our sin and in our place, rising victoriously over death, and ascending to the right hand of the Father in heaven, Jesus Christ, the Son of David, has inaugurated His kingdom, the “world to come.”

The kingdom of God is here, and the kingdom of God is now. In the divine Son of God, the power of the age to come has invaded this present evil world and is, even now, reconciling it to Himself.

2Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

In the new birth, we are not only given a new nature, but we are also transferred from being citizens of this present evil age to being citizens of the perfect kingdom to come. We begin to realize that we no longer belong here. We begin to realize that we are citizens of another realm, another age.

2 Cor. 5:18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself….

Although we don’t yet experience it in its fullness, and will not until Christ’s return, the kingdom of God is advancing throughout the world as the good news of Christ spreads and souls are saved.

The gospel announces that the King has come and He has overcome the world, bringing forgiveness of sins and peace with God.

John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world (kosmos).

If you belong to the King, through Him you too have overcome the world:

1John 5:4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

If it is a reality that, as a child of God by faith in Christ, you have overcome this present evil world and you properly belong to the perfect world to come, how can you continue acting like this is not true by pursuing the things that those who oppose Christ pursue?

John states that, if this is the case, then the message of Christ has not yet transformed your heart, and the “love of the Father” is not in you (1 John 2:15).

If you belong to King Jesus (John calls this “abiding in” Christ in 2:6, 10, 27; 3:6, 9, 24, etc.), you will have a God-given appetite and strong desire for things that the world simply does not: the knowledge of God, obedience to God’s commands, compassion for others (even for those whom the world considers “unworthy” or undesirable),[13] and a readiness to repent from sin due to a deep love for God in Christ.

This is what it looks like to have “the love of the Father” in you (1 John 2:15).

This is what it looks like to “love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” (2:15, KJV).

This is what it looks like to live as if the message of the gospel has transformed your heart and mind.

This is what it looks like to live as if this present evil age “is passing away along with its desires” (1 John 2:17).

This is what it looks like to live as a citizen of the kingdom of God, which will abide forever.

How do we keep ourselves from loving the world? By remembering the gospel! And by preaching it to ourselves every day.

Questions and Application:

What about you?

Does your life bear any evidence of the “love of the Father” in you? Do you possess the Spirit of God? Does He possess you? Do you want to know God in a deeper way out of an intense love for Him and for what He has done for you in Christ?

Do you love the world and the things in the world? Are your desires and your mind constantly set on things that are carnal and world-centered, rather than on things that are spiritual and God-centered?

Do you act like a citizen of Christ’s kingdom for a few hours on Sunday, but like the world during the rest of the week?

Do you live as if the powerful gospel of salvation is just one message among many others in the world?

Do your everyday desires line up with those who don’t submit to Christ as Lord?

Do you live as if it makes no difference that Christ came in the flesh?

Notice that I’m not asking you whether or not you attend church every week. Notice that I’m not asking how religious you are, or how often you pray, or if you were baptized, or how many times you participated in the Lord’s Supper in church.

I’m asking you to honestly evaluate the desires and cravings of your inner person.

Where your affections lie indicates the state of your soul: whether it is regenerate, possessing the life of Christ and living in the light of His kingdom, or whether it is still dead in sin, filled with merely carnal and earthly desires.

Your affections indicate whether you belong to the world or whether you belong to the Father in heaven (1 John 2:15).[14]

If you’ve never been delivered from the darkness of this world and the things in it through the new birth by faith in Christ, your greatest need is to turn from your sin and believe the gospel message, submitting to Christ in your heart of hearts.

Religion cannot save you. A trust in your own righteousness will not save you, for in God’s sight you have none (cf. Is. 64:6; Rom. 7:18). The only righteousness that can save is the righteousness that comes by faith in the Son of God.

Rom. 10:9 If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified [declared to be righteous in God’s sight], and with the mouth one confesses and is saved…. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

For those of us who have escaped the defilements of this world and have been born again through the power of the gospel (cf. 2 Pet. 2:20; Rom. 1:16), we need to walk in the light of this reality.

Col. 1:13 He [the Father] has delivered us from the domain of darkness [this age] and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son [the age to come].

If we’ve been raised with Christ, we’ve been transferred from this present evil age into the light of the age to come. We need to live in the indicative of this reality (cf. Col. 3:1; 1 John 2:10).

We are citizens of another age, another world (Phil. 3:20). We are citizens of a kingdom that is unseen at the present time. However, we still remain in this world for now.

And while Christians yet live in this world, we experience its pull and temptations. This can cause us to stumble and fall into sin at various times. If our hearts and minds are not properly oriented, this grind can grow very wearisome. Which is why the Spirit tells us in:

2Cor. 4:16 …Do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

1John 2:17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Let us pray.

[1] J. Guhrt, “κόσμος,” in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), Version 3.0, Accordance Bible Software 8.4.7 (Oak Tree Software, Inc., 2010).

[2] J. Guhrt, “κόσμος.”

[3] Cf. John Matthew Leone, “Union With Christ and the Overlap of the Ages,” Twenty-First Century Bondservant (2 April 2011), http://slaveofjesus.blogspot.com/2011/04/union-with-christ-and-overlap-of-ages.html (Accessed 12 Aug 2011).

[4] J. Guhrt, “κόσμος.”

[5] J. Guhrt: “The course of this world is determined by man, through whose fall death came into the world and rules over it…. The kosmos is…also the whole creation subject to futility. This understanding of the world primarily finds verbal expression where Paul speaks of this world (ho kosmos houtos) analogously to this age (ho aion houtos, cf. 1 Cor. 3:19; 5:10; Eph. 2:2)” (“κόσμος”).

[6] J. Guhrt states that Paul “uses the word aion to designate the course of the world apart from Christ and under the control of sin. Satan is admittedly the god of this age (2 Cor. 4:4, and the present world is dominated by evil demonic powers. But against the power of darkness is ranged the victorious kingdom of Christ” (“αἰών,” in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986], Version 3.0, Accordance Bible Software 8.4.7 [Oak Tree Software, Inc., 2010]).

[7] Cf. Rom. 8:1 on justification as a present reality for the believer. Through union with Christ, the believer has already experienced final judgment in His death on the cross.

[8] Composite translation of 1 John 2:16 from ESV, NASB, NET.

[9] Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of James, Epistles of John, Peter, and Jude, in New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1986), 270.

[10] “[John] tells them to stop loving the world and to desist from pursuing their worldly interests. He is not talking about a single incident but about a lifestyle” (Kistemaker, 270).

[11] In such pursuits, we also commit spiritual adultery against God. Jam. 4:4 states, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

[12] The full Nicene Creed can be read on the Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics website here: http://www.reformed.org/documents/nicene.html (Accessed 13 August 2011).

[13] Cf. John Matthew Leone, “Loving Others With the Love of Christ,” Twenty-First Century Bondservant (12 June 2011), http://slaveofjesus.blogspot.com/2011/06/loving-others-with-love-of-christ.html (Accessed 12 August 2011).

[14] F. F. Bruce: “Worldliness, it must be emphasized in the face of much superficial thought and language on the subject, does not lie in things we do or in places we frequent; it lies in the human heart, in the set of human affections and attitudes. It may manifest itself in petty but soul-stunting ambitions like ‘keeping up with the Joneses’; it may manifest itself in unthinking acquiescence in current policies of monstrous malignity, as when too many Christians in Nazi Germany found it possible to go along with (or close their eyes to) their government’s genocidal treatment of the Jews. Worldliness of the latter sort is not that which has usually been denounced by popular pietism; our Saviour’s remark about the gnat and the camel may come to mind in this connection. If, in a world where the richer nations tend to become richer and the poorer to become poorer, the administration of a richer nation makes further increases in economic prosperity a major plank in its platform, the Christian – especially, perhaps, the Christian who prefers to remain as detached as possible from political responsibility – must be constantly vigilant lest his own life reflect the unadmitted assumptions underlying such a policy. To share political, social or economic presuppositions which are inconsistent with the Father’s love is one form of worldliness…. Another form of worldliness, highly relevant to the situation in which John wrote, is the adaptation of the gospel to some contemporary tendency or philosophy or spirit of the age. It used to be said by acute foreign observers that Christians in this country had difficulty in distinguishing the interests of the kingdom of God from those of the British Empire; nowadays this tendency to confuse the gospel with national or imperial ideals may be more clearly manifested in equal and opposite degree in other parts of the world.” (The Epistles of John: Introduction, Exposition and Notes [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 60-62).