The Christian and the World

“I’m on top of the world!”

“Money makes the world go around.”

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”

“He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders”

“The world is my oyster.”

If you had to sit down and write what each of these catch phrases meant, could you do it? What about when Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie wrote “We are the World” back in ’85 and a host of artists sang it to raise famine relief money for Ethiopia? In each of these instances, what is meant by the word “world”?

John the apostle used this term “world” (Greek, kosmos) over 100 times in his Gospel and letters – far more than any other New Testament writer. In our passage this week, he instructed his readers “Do not love the world or anything in the world” (1 John 2:15). Just prior to this, he wrote that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, and not ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (2:2). And John records Jesus telling Nicodemus that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son (John 3:16). What does “world” mean in these sentences and why does God love the world and provide Jesus as a propitiation for it, but we, His people, are not supposed to love it? Hold on tight! It’s time to do some biblical theology.

In our Sunday School class, we did a good exercise to help us out. Taking all the instances of the use of this word in John’s writings and listing the verses, we set out distinguish the meanings within the context of each. We applied three possible meanings of “world” (or, “earth”) gathered from biblical passages outside John: 1) the physical planet God created including all forms of life, but distinguished from heaven (Gen. 1:1); 2) the whole of humanity that lives in this creation (Isaiah 52:10 “ends of the earth shall see”); and 3) the corrupt spiritual environment inhabited by sinners and influenced by evil spiritual forces that leads to death (Rom. 5:12; 2 Cor. 4:4). Citing just a few verses, here are our findings:

John 1:9-10 – “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.” – The first instances of “world” appear right in the opening chapter which teaches us such high theology about the Person of Christ, or “the Word”. The first three uses of “world” clearly speaks of all creation, noting that Jesus, though one with the Divine, came into His own creation and became part of it. The last use speaks of the world as not knowing something which is a term only used with the human element of creation. And for that human element not to recognize its Maker for who He was must also have a corrupt spiritual blindness. Hmm … it seems we can have two of our meanings overlap in one usage of the word. This could be trickier than we thought.

John 1:29 – John the Baptist declares upon seeing Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” – Now Jesus’ death on the cross did not remove the environment of sin from the planet, but it did remove the guilt of sin from those who would believe in Him. So, “world” here takes on a segment of humanity who would follow Jesus by faith.

John 3:16-17 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” – Here we must conclude that all humanity is in view and that God sent His Son the first time to join that humanity in a effort to save and not condemn. Salvation is open to all humankind even if only a few will receive it. This reflects what we see in 1 John 2:2 which I referenced above.

John 8:23, 26 – Jesus says to [the Jews], “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. … he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” – In context these Jews are very critical and antagonistic towards Jesus. So, Jesus makes this distinction. It is almost as if He pits two regimes against each other: the world which is a realm of evil against God and Jesus’ eternal place of origin in heaven with the Father, where God’s will is done perfectly. And Jesus is keeping that perfect will by doing what He was sent for: to proclaim to humanity (3^rd use of “world” here) what is true. Humanity then has to decide what to do with this truth, even as it is influenced by the evil realm in which it lives.

John 15:18-19 – Jesus speaks to His disciples in the Upper Room just before His arrest, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” – These are critical verses that tell of the relationship we can expect to have with the world when we commit to following Jesus. 1) We don’t belong to the world. 2) We have been chosen out of the world (once, we did belong). 3) The world hates us for switching sides as it hates Christ.

John 17:15 – In light of the above saying of Jesus, He prays this about His disciples, “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” – Though we are hated by the evil regime, we have a job to do that requires us to stay in it while not being of it. Jesus asks His Father to protect us from the prince of the world (see 12:31-32). 1 John 5:19 tells us that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

John 18:36-37 – In a conversation between Jesus and Pilate, Jesus claims His kingdom is not of this world or His servants would be fighting for Him. Pilate is surprised to learn that Jesus admits to being a king. And Jesus replies, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” – To say His kingdom was not of the world, means that it is not a physical kingdom though it certainly involves human subjects. But there is deep meaning when Jesus says that He came into the world to bear witness to the truth. All three meaning converge. He came into the physical environment. He bore witness to humanity. But He also did what Paul describes to the Colossians as triumphing over spiritual powers and authorities by the cross (Col. 2:15). In this sense He bore witness to an evil regime as well, rubbing it in their faces.

When we get to first John, the theology of “the world” developed in the Gospel of John in Jesus’ own words is further developed and we find a much more theological use of the word as John is instructing this next generation of believers. “Do not love the world” is a reminder that we are in the world but not of it. We have been removed from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of the Son. It is not fitting for us to pursue things obviously opposed to the Son and we must be ever watchful not to be deceived because of where we still live. In that sense, we don’t really want to sing “We are the World”, however Jackson & Richie probably meant simply the humanity aspect of the term. And God has shown that He loves humanity, interested in reconciling the world to Himself through Christ (2 Cor. 5:19-20). We are His ambassadors representing all He is to a broken world. Not so confusing to bring those things together after you study it well, right?