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Thoughts of a saint and slave
by Sam Isaacson
In the next part of John's letter we hit a concept which Jesus introduced back in John 12:25. This clearly stuck with John, and finds its way into our study:
'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. 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. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.' (1 John 2:15-17)
Loving the world
At first glance, this passage genuinely confuses me. I don’t think that God would command us to do something he would not do, yet surely this opening command does exactly that! Compare ‘do not love the world’ to perhaps the most quoted verse in the Bible: ‘God so loved the world…’ (John 3:16)! So should we love the world or not? The answer comes in the next verse.
Desires and pride
If we pop over to 2 Timothy 4:10 we see a warning: ‘Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica’. This is Paul writing, rather than John, but he includes a key word which highlights the confusion: ‘present’. John’s reference to ‘the desires of the flesh’ underlines the real issue here. John wants to warn us against loving this temporary, present world. He says we will have desires for ‘stuff’, but that it will inevitably run out! This life is temporary, so our joy in possessions and desire will always be short-lived.
The problem is that temptation will always attack us. John admits freely that we have desires, but our responsibility as Christians is to literally hate those desires. They are not from God and are sinful; if we have any pure desire it must be to hate the world!
Eternal perspective
Now, this all sounds quite judgmental, doesn’t it? I’m even conjuring up images in my own mind of myself screaming from a pulpit: ‘You must HATE! Hate your car! Hate your house! Hate your wife! God is a God of HATE!’ I realise that this is thoroughly unbiblical, and John quickly corrects us: ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8). How can we possibly reconcile a loving God with hate for the world? Allow me to quote from CS Lewis:
‘…Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.’ (The Weight of Glory)
God hates that the world tries to turn us into an ignorant child. He HATES it! If you’re a parent, surely you can agree. God offers his children everlasting joy, and the world offers his children everlasting doom but dresses it up as real joy – God is well within his rights to hate it, and so should we.
Listen: I HATE sin. Sin distracts me, and you, from true joy. The world tempts us with temporary folly, and we leap on it, we become like ignorant children. God, however, promises us everlasting joy and peace. He’s such a good God. Please, join with me in obeying John; let’s not love this world, let’s throw ourselves upon the mercy of God, and enjoy him forever.
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