1 John 2:15-17
INTRODUCTION
As I said last week, I chose the title “Crazy Stupid Love” partly because several other commentators chose the best one (“The Love that God Hates”) and I did not want to be a copy-cat, but if you know anything about the plot of the movie by this name is appropriate since it is evidently a story of divorce, adultery, betrayal and broken promises. (So no, I want to be clear that I certainly am not recommending that everyone go and watch it – especially from the pulpit - just for those reasons.) But certainly the type of love described in verses 15 through 17 in 1 John chapter 2 is crazy and stupid. A so-called Christian would be insane to love the world, and if one does, it puts their love for God into doubt. So, let’s do a quick review from last week.
Last week we saw a dual test of love – in verses 3-11 we saw the positive side of love: Loving God and loving people, especially God’s people. In verses 15 through 17 we are going to see the negative side of the love test. John talks about a type of love that is incompatible with the two types of love that exist in the hearts of heaven-bound people that we covered last week. The first is a love of God, which is evidenced by keeping his commandments and walking in the same manner that Jesus walked. The second was love of people, which is an old commandment, with the addition that as members of the body of Christ we will have a special love for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
But if we are to love God with all of our heart, mind, and strength, what does that entail? Well, to use an example, when I got married, part of the vows we made was “forsaking all others”. That did not mean that I was released from loving my neighbor, but it did mean that when I married Donella I was choosing her alone as my wife. Getting the unique benefits of being married to her included not being married to anybody else. Therefore, the vows that I made included some implied negatives. If I was unfaithful, if I moved in with another woman, my vows would be broken. And so would her heart. If I cheated it would destroy my home and the relationship that I had made a solemn commitment to.
Truly, there really is no way that I can say that I love her in the way I need to to be married to her and also express romantic love to any other woman. And, if you think about it, in marrying her I was basically choosing to not marry 2.25 billion other women (based on 1982 population numbers). Only one out of 2.25 billion? Some would say that was a terrible deal. I am dedicating my entire life to 0.00000004 % of available women!? Crazy? NO, not crazy at all. It has been worth the commitment I have made and I haven’t ever regretted it. And if say that we love God, that is measurable in the same way as my marriage is. Since the church is literally called “the Bride of Christ” in the bible, we see that God thinks of our relationship in a similar way. If you look at the Old Testament you will see that this is not new with Christianity. God used the same metaphor in describing his loving relationship with the nation of Israel, and when the nation trusted in other nations rather than in Him or practiced other religions or worshipped other Gods, He accused them of spiritual adultery against Him in sometimes striking imagery.
John now lays out what love for God looks like by talking about what it isn’t.
I This Love is Completely Incompatible (v2:15):
John lays down what love we should not have in verse 15:
1 John 2:15 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.
The wording of this verse is serious – it makes it clear that we have an exclusive choice here – either we love God or we love the world, but we can’t do both. This clearly illuminates and illustrates the previous verses which talk about a love for God. But what does John mean here? Don’t love the world? Are we supposed to hate nature? Or non-believers? Or maybe John is telling us to become ascetics, sleeping on a board in a monastery, eschewing all the pleasurable things to be found in the world, as proof that we love God?
If we want to understand what John is telling us here then we need to first investigate in what way the word “world” is used, especially in the New Testament. There are actually three ways that biblical writers used the term. Sometimes it refers to the physical planet that we live on and the universe that it exists within. Sometimes it refers to the world of men – of unsaved humanity as a whole. And sometimes it refers to a more sinister system, as it does here. So first, let’s look at the word itself:
“World” here is the Greek word “kosmos”. Those of us who are older may remember Carl Sagan’s documentary series “Cosmos” from around 1980, the name of which was based on the first usage of kosmos that we mentioned. The Greek word itself originally meant “an ornament”, and it is actually the origin of our English word “cosmetic”. Later it came to represent the world globe or even the universe, as the ornament of God. It also could mean “that which is well constructed,” “well ordered”, or “beautiful”.[1] Certainly we see a well-ordered beauty in the physical creation about us, from the subatomic level, to the massively complex arrangement inside living cells, up through the form and majesty of the heavens and the stars, planets, and galaxies that populate them. We know that John is not speaking of the form of the universe here because scripture makes it clear that, as King David wrote in Psalm 19, that the heavens are constantly pouring out speech declaring the Glory of God. In the first chapter of Romans the apostle Paul says that the creation reveals God’s “invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature”, making us without excuse when we do not honor God as God.
What about the second meaning of kosmos? Are we to not love humanity? John cannot mean this either, for several reasons. First of all, this would violate the second most important commandment, to love our neighbor as our self. Secondly, what is John’s most famous verse from all of his books in the bible – the one we even see on posters at sporting events?
John 3:16 For God so loved the world [the kosmos], that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Jesus did not die for the Milky Way galaxy, He died for people. As the hymn says “O the love that drew salvation’s plan, o the grace that brought it down to man.” And remember the verses that we quoted last week: “we love because He first loved us” and “but God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
So we are left with the third option, which Ian Hamilton describes as the “organized system that hates and openly defies God and his Son.”[2] If we turn to the book of James, we see a similar warning from him, where he writes:
James 4:4 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.
So what is it about this contrary world, this kosmos, that is so incompatible with loving God? First of all, the world is broken. Since the fall of Adam the world has been under a curse from God because of sin, which was proclaimed back in the garden of Eden. Death has reigned over all life on earth since then, as evident in the first genealogies in Genesis, where every “begat” ends with a death. As Paul wrote in the great 8th chapter of Romans: “The anxious longing of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God, For the creation was subjected to futility…” and “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” (Rom 8:18-20a,22) While the original creation was spotless and perfect, and the current creation still shows the signs of a magnificent creator, it is not as it was meant to be. In this way, we can see both good and evil at work and evaluate their fruits. One saying that struck me long ago when I heard it says this: “This world is as close to heaven as an unredeemed sinner will ever get, and as close to hell as a redeemed believer will ever get.” Loving this world is settling for a distant second-best and is so much less than the blessing that God has prepared for his children.
Secondly, our citizenship is elsewhere. We have been saved out of this world and are now citizens of heaven. Paul wrote that we “once walked, following the course of this world” but that we were saved and raised up with Him, seated with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and are of God’s own household. (ref Eph 2 vss 2,5,6,19) Jesus said that his kingdom is not of this world (Jn 17:16). He said that his people “are not of the world, just has [He] is not of the world.” John writes in I John 3 that we are children of God so the world does now know us – because it does not know Him. (1 Jn 3:1) Paul wrote to the Philippians that we should “be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world”. (Phil 2:15) We do not belong here and we should have our eyes set higher. Ephesians 1:3 points us there: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ”. We should not love the world because it is ultimately not our home.
Thirdly, this world has nothing eternal to offer us. Regarding lasting benefits, we read in 1 Timothy 6:7 that “we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.” In John 14 and 16 Jesus says that He will give us peace, but “not as the world gives”, and that the world instead will give us “tribulation”. Jesus frequently warned that Christians would be hated by the world because “it hated me before it hated you.” (Jn 15:18) Now, Paul writes, by the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ “the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” (Gal 6:14) Jesus gave a very sober warning to those who prefer this world: "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37) If we can bring none of this world’s goods with us, we are foolish to love the things of this world. As Jesus said:
Matthew 6:19-21, 24 19 "Do not store up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves
break in and steal. 20 "But store up for yourselves treasures
in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break
in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also. ... 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.
Fourthly, this world is under evil management. Paul labels the spirit that is now at work here as “the prince of the power of the air”, whose course we followed before we were saved. Jesus plainly taught that the ruler of this world is judged, and that this ruler, who is the enemy of Christ, will be cast out. When this ruler was coming at the time to bring his death, Jesus said “He has no claim on me”. Paul writes that “we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God…” (1 Cor 2:2). John writes later in this very letter that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one”, and that the spirit from the world is “the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:3, 5:19) When Jesus was tempted by Satan at the beginning of his earthly ministry, the devil offered Him all of the kingdoms of the world – for the small price of worshipping him. So this world is enemy territory.
Fiftly, this world is corrupt and foolish. Paul taunts in this way: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor 1:20) We are also warned “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Col 2:8) Elsewhere we read “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds, as we tear down speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:4-5) Proverbs, the biblical book of wisdom, teaches us that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” and “the beginning of wisdom (Pro 1:7, 9:10)
So as we look at the description that scripture gives us of this kosmos, I think we are getting a pretty clear picture of why John is warning us against loving it. But still we are left with a wide focus. This world, as I have said, still bears the imprint of our wonderful Creator, and He has filled it will many blessings which He specifically made for our enjoyment. We are also warned in scripture against false teachers coming to “forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good…” (1 Timothy 4:3-4a) So we ought to be clear that it is not things that are evil and that, as James M. Boice puts it, John is not thinking so much of materialism as he is of the attitudes that lie behind it. “For he knows, as we should all know, that a person without worldly goods can be just as materialistic as a person who has many of them; and, conversely, a rich person can be quite free from this and any other form of worldliness.” [3]
So how do we determine exactly what John is warning us about when he says not to love the world or the things in the world? Well, there are three things to remember. First, remember that we are talking about a hierarchy here. The first commandment is that God is to be supreme in our hearts. NOTHING, not love of money, or pleasure, or friends, or family, or even life can have a place higher than God in our hearts. Some of the things on this list we are also commanded to love, like other people (whether friend or enemy). But God is first. We can easily understand this concept in our own relationships. We aren’t (or shouldn’t be) happy if our spouse decides to spend half of their time with a boyfriend or girlfriend on the side. As Paul reveals in Romans 1, God has revealed his great and eternal wrath from heaven against men who do what? They “worship and serve the creature rather than the creator.”
The second and third reasons are given clearly in the next two verses, so let’s move on to verse sixteen:
II The Objects of This Love (v16):
1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life--is not from the Father but is from the world.
When John says in verse 15 “all that is in the world”, we find what he is referring to specifically in this verse: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life” (NASB). Commentator Robert Yarbrough describes this as “an unholy trinity” and a “toxic mix [that] poisons and destroys.” He translates this phrase as “what the body hankers for and the eyes itch to see and what people toil to acquire”.
These three temptations are, as
John points out, from the world, from the kosmos. We cannot escape them while we live in this
half-way world, in our old bodies. Even
with a new nature, a “new creation” inside us, we find the constant pull of
these three things and cry out with Paul as he cries with exasperation in
Romans chapter 7: “who will set me free
from this body of death?” This is part
of the “groaning” that he says in chapter 8 that we endure while awaiting the
redemption of our bodies. But what are
each of these three objects of false devotion that we must beware of? Yarbrough has given us a start, let’s look at
each in turn.
The first two items in the list have to do with illicit desires. The word translated desire or lust is the Greek word epithymia, a word that generally refers to strong desires for forbidden or sinful things. The apostle Peter warns in 1 Peter 2:11: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the epithymia of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” and in 4:2 “live … in the flesh no longer for human epithymia but for the will of God.” Again it is presented as a clear choice – one or the other but not both. The word is also used to translate the word covetousness, which is the sin of desiring what does not belong to us.
The first of these that John mentions is the lust of the flesh. The term flesh, or sarx, is most often used in the New Testament to denote the sensuous or animal nature of man, apart from divine influence, therefore prone to sin and opposed to God. Christians are presented with a dichotomy between living by the flesh or by the spirit. The problem with human desires is that they do not have a conscience. Even outside of spiritual considerations, part of being human is developing self-control. Without it, we would eat ourselves to death, as some people have done. People who have learned to take certain mind-altering drugs for fun can reach the point where they have no ambition other than to keep injecting the drug until they die from hunger. An author named Larry Niven, in his science-fiction universe, created one advanced alien race that had a sort of ultimate weapon called a “tasp”. The Tasp had the ability to directly overstimulate all of the pleasure centers of an opponent’s brain. If one of the aliens hit even the most fierce enemy with this weapon they would fall to the ground in a semi-coherent state, totally helpless. Most people hit with a tasp more than once would become a total slave to the keeper of the weapon and would betray everything for just one more application of the device. In that series the tasp was one of the most feared weapons in the known universe, for good reason.
Now the lust of the flesh in this verse does not necessarily refer to things that are evil in themselves, but to things that we allow to keep us from God or draw us into sin. It is not enjoying good cooking in the maintaining of a healthy body. It is rather eating until our health breaks. It is not the enjoyment of the marriage bed, which is blessed by God, but adultery and fornication and giving in to illicit desires and practices that God forbids. It is not enjoying a relaxing time on the patio sipping a cool iced tea after a hard day’s work, but idleness and lazyness. It is not enjoying a good book that educates or expands our understanding, but binge watching shows that mock God and sin. It is being controlled by drugs and alcohol rather than the spirit of God. Paul writes in Philippians about supposed believers who “walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.” He says that “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” He goes on to say
Philippians 3:20-21 20
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious
body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
The second item is “the lust of the eyes”. Unlike the stomach, the eye can keep consuming the objects of fleshly lusts as long as we can keep them open. Solomon observed in Ecclesiastes 1:8b that “The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing.” The eye sees, and the heart desires. Why is pornography so dangerous? Why is “window shopping” a recreational activity? Why did Jesus say that “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28)? Consider what Jesus said in Matthew 6 immediately after He said that wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also”, and right before “No one can serve two masters”:
Matthew 6:22-23 "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Lack of control of the eye is
often the first step to destruction. The
children’s hymn has it right:
Oh,
be careful, little eyes, what you see,
Oh, be careful, little eyes, what you see.
There’s a Father up above looking down in tender love,
Oh, be careful, little eyes, what you see.
The third thing in this triad of worldly pitfalls is translated several different ways: “the pride of life”, “the boastful pride of life”, or even “the pride of possessions”, or “the arrogance of life”, or Yarbrough’s “what people toil to acquire”. In the end, it is both general and specific, but perhaps the best interpretation would refer to the temptation to spend life’s effort in just the acquisition of things. The “self-made man”. The rich tycoon. The guy with the coolest muscle car. The idea that “I have made it in life” after we are able to by a nice house with a nice yard or after we have a successful business year. Jesus told a parable about a businessman who built up his property and sat back to enjoy it and then was told by God “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:20-21) The parable was preceded by this warning from Jesus: “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15)
These three attack points make up the main arsenal of the kosmos in its attempts to keep a soul from the pure love of God. We can see them used by the devil himself in more than one instance. Even in the garden of Eden we can see these three elements in the temptation from the Serpent to Eve. When he had argued with her about obeying God’s command not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, sin began to take hold of her soul. In the light of John’s warning here the verse becomes very interesting:
Genesis 3:6 So 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 to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she
also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Note the steps: “good for food” – lust of the flesh. “delight to the eyes” – lust of the eyes. “desired to make one wise” – pride of life. The same steps are seen in the temptation of Jesus by Satan in Luke 4. First, seeing that Jesus was hungry, Satan said that Jesus should make himself a delicious snack by using his power to turn stones into bread – lust of the flesh. Then he showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and said “I’ll give them to you if you worship me” – lust of the eyes. Then he took him to the pinnacle of the temple and told Him He should jump off and force God to send angels to save Him, which to me sounds like sort of a short-cut to being accepted as Messiah and skipping the pain of the cross. Jesus’ reply is “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test”, connecting this temptation to the pride of life.
We should take John’s warning seriously. How are we doing against these three attacks from “the world”. Do they draw us away from God? Do they leave us with no time or desire to study scripture or pray or minister to other believers?
III The Futility of This Love (v17):
Finally, in verse 17 we see the
final reason not to love the world. It
is completely pointless. As the saying
goes, there is no future in it. It is
the path to ruin and gives us no future assurance. John finishes this three-verse sermon thusly:
1 John 2:17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
I remember one time that Donella got back from grocery shopping and I went out to help her unload the bags from the car. Since there is a limited amount of space in our freezer, some things are put in the fridge in the garage and some go inside. I often leave some things next to the garage fridge when they look like things that might not go into the kitchen and this time she had brought home a bunch of delicious meat that she had gotten a good deal on which made me really look forward to dinners over the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately a day or two later something started seeming off out in the garage, and after investigating, we found that I had dropped the bag of meat into a place where she had not seen it and it had never been put into the refrigerator. It was a lot of meat, representing a decent monetary investment, and it was all ruined. Dropping that bag of steaks, ribs, and other delights into the outside trash can was heart-breaking. But it came to my mind last night vividly as I contemplated this verse. All of the money spent for the meat, and all of my anticipation of the pleasures it would bring, were vanity in the end.
The world is full of pleasures and wonders. But these pleasures were made so that we would love and give glory to the giver, not to the gift. And this current world, as we have already said, is temporary. Because of sin it is ruined, and every pleasure is only momentary. In the end, we balance between the eternal and the temporal. We can love God, or we can while away our time here on earth and go to eternity unprepared. We can love God, or we can love this world. We can “go for the gusto” as the old beer commercials say, because “you only go around once in life”. But eventually the fun runs out. This broken universe will get replaced with a new heavens, a new earth, and a heavenly city where God is the light. The apostle Peter begs us to take this into consideration:
2 Peter 3:10-13 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens
will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense
heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are
to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy
conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God,
because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements
will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for
new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
Someday “the ruler of this world” will be judged. Then we will hear the announcement recorded in the book of Revelation (and in Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus)
Rev 11:15b "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and
of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."
And remember that John is not only saying that the world is passing away. He also says that the world’s lusts are going to pass away. The only thing that is eternal, besides God, is “the one who does the will of God”. In Psalm 16, the sweet psalmist of Israel, King David, banks on God for eternal joy. If we love God rather than the world, this is a beautiful picture of our hope:
Psalm 16:8-11 I have set the LORD always
before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole
being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul
to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of
life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are
pleasures forevermore.
Don’t settle for the world’s cheap imitation which is a poor copy of the real thing and which will leave you hungry and thirsty and wishing for the real thing. Don’t let love for the world ruin your love for God.
Conclusion
To conclude, I would like to read just a few lines from a longer poem written by British missionary C.T. Studd over 100 years ago which a previous pastor here used to quote the chorus of:
