1 John 2:15

2:15-17 The things of the world may be desired and possessed for the uses and purposes which God intended, and they are to be used by his grace, and to his glory; but believers must not seek or value them for those purposes to which sin abuses them. The world draws the heart from God; and the more the love of the world prevails, the more the love of God decays. The things of the world are classed according to the three ruling inclinations of depraved nature. 1. The lust of the flesh, of the body: wrong desires of the heart, the appetite of indulging all things that excite and inflame sensual pleasures. 2. The lust of the eyes: the eyes are delighted with riches and rich possessions; this is the lust of covetousness. 3. The pride of life: a vain man craves the grandeur and pomp of a vain-glorious life; this includes thirst after honour and applause. The things of the world quickly fade and die away; desire itself will ere long fail and cease, but holy affection is not like the lust that passes away. The love of God shall never fail. Many vain efforts have been made to evade the force of this passage by limitations, distinctions, or exceptions. Many have tried to show how far we may be carnally-minded, and love the world; but the plain meaning of these verses cannot easily be mistaken. Unless this victory over the world is begun in the heart, a man has no root in himself, but will fall away, or at most remain an unfruitful professor.

{14} Love not the {l} world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the {m} love of the Father is not in him. (14) The world which is full of wicked desires, lusts or pleasures, and pride, is utterly hated by our heavenly Father. Therefore the Father and the world cannot be loved together: and this admonition is very necessary for young and growing youth. (l) He speaks of the world, as it agrees not with the will of God, for otherwise God is said to love the world with an infinite love, Joh 3:16 that is to say, those whom he chose out of the world. (m) Wherewith the Father is loved.

1 John 2:15 . He is dealing with believers who have a large experience of the grace of Christ, and on this fact he proceeds to base an appeal, a call to further advancement and higher attainment: “Love not the world”. Yet God “loved the world” ( John 3:16 ). Observe that the Apostle does not say that the world is evil. It is God’s world, and “God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good” ( Genesis 1:31 ). His meaning is: “The things in the world are transient. Do not set your affection on them, else you will sustain a bitter disappointment. The world is a good and beautiful gift of God, to be used with joy and gratitude; but it is not the supreme end, it is not the home of our souls”. “Let the Spirit of God be in thee,” says St. Augustine, “that thou mayest see that all these things are good; but woe to thee if thou love created things and forsake the Creator!… If a bridegroom made a ring for his bride and, when she got it, she were fonder of the ring than of the bridegroom who made the ring for her, would not an adulterous spirit be detected in the very gift of the bridegroom, however she might love what the bridegroom gave?… God gave thee all those things: love Him who made them. There is more which He would fain give thee, to wit, Himself who made these things”. Again: “There are two loves—of the world and of God. If the love of the world inhabit, there is no way for the love of God to enter.

Let the love of the world retire and that of God inhabit, let the better get room.… Shut out the evil love of the world, that thou mayest be filled by the love of God. Thou art a vessel, but thou art still full; pour out what thou hast, that thou mayest get what thou hast not”. ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Πατρός , like ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ ( 1 John 2:5 ), either (1) “love for the Father,” in antithesis to ἀγαπᾷ τὸν κόσμον , or (2) “the love which the Father feels for us”. In fact the one implies the other. The sense of the Father’s love for us awakens in us an answering love for Him. Cf. 1 John 4:19 .

What he here means by the forbidden object of our love, must be gathered from his own explication, 1Jo 2:16 . The love itself forbidden, in reference thereto, is that excess thereof, whereby any adhere to terrene things, as their best good; wherewith, as he adds, any sincere love to God is inconsistent, as Matthew 6:24 Luke 14:3 : a consideration so awful and tremendous, that it is not strange the precept it enforces should have so solemn and urgent an introduction.

1 John 2:15-17 . To you all, whether fathers, young men, or little children, I say, Love not the world — Pursue your victory by overcoming the world, and all the temptations which may assault you from it, whether from prosperity or adversity, from riches or poverty, honour or reproach, pleasure or pain, life or death; from the persons of the world, or from the things that are in the world — Whether they assault you through the medium of your senses, or your appetites and passions. If any man love the world — Esteem, desire, or pursue it, or any thing in it, inordinately, so as to place his happiness in the enjoyment of it; the love of the Father is not in him — There being a real inconsistency between the love of the world and the love of God; between being carnally minded, esteeming, desiring, and pursuing immoderately visible and temporal things, which is death, and being spiritually minded, having our thoughts and affections set on invisible and heavenly things, which is life and peace, Romans 8:6 .

For all that is in the world — That is tempting and alluring; the lust — Επιθυμια , the desire; of the flesh — The pleasure arising from gratifying the outward senses, whether of the taste, smell, or touch, or the bodily appetites; the desire of the eyes — Those things, which, being seen by the eyes, are earnestly desired and sought after, and which they take pleasure in beholding, especially riches, including also the pleasures of imagination, (to which the eye chiefly is subservient,) of that internal sense whereby we relish whatever is grand, new, or beautiful; and the pride of life — Those things wherein men are wont to take the greatest pride, and which chiefly feed pride of heart; all that pomp in clothes, houses, furniture, equipage, manner of living, things which generally procure honour from the bulk of mankind, and so gratify pride and vanity. It therefore directly includes the desire of praise, and, remotely, covetousness. All these desires are not of the Father, but of the world — That is, from the prince of this world, or from that corruption of nature that prevails in worldly men.

The world (τὸν κόσμον) See on John 1:9. The love of the Father (ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ πατρὸς) The phrase occurs only here in the New Testament. It means love towards the Father, yet as generated by the Father's love to man. Compare 1 John 3:1. See on love of God, 1 John 2:5. Is not in him This means more than that he does not love God: rather that the love of God does not dwell in him as the ruling principle of his life. Westcott cites a parallel from Philo: "It is impossible for love to the world to coexist with love to God, as it is impossible for light and darkness to coexist." Compare Plato. "Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonist to good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the earthly nature, and this mortal sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to become holy and just and wise" ("Theaetetus," 176).

1 John 2:15 . Μὴ ἀγαπᾶτε τὸν κόσμον , love not the world ) This has special reference to you, young men. Follow up your victory against the wicked one , in whom the world lies: ch. 1 John 5:19 .— οὐκ ἔστιν , is not ) Contraries do not exist together.— ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Πατρὸς ) the love of the Father towards His children, and filial love [of the children] towards the Father.

Verses 15-17. - Secondly, walking in the light excludes all love of the world. This is another form of darkness. Verse 15. - Love not the world. Obviously, both "love" and "the world" are used in a different sense in John 3:16 , where it is said that "God loved the world." The one love is selfish, the other unselfish. In the one case "the world" means the sinful elements of human life, in the other the human race. It is most important to distinguish the different meanings of κόσμος in the New Testament. Connected with κόμειν and comere , it means (1) ornament ( 1 Peter 3:3 ); (2) the ordered universe, mundus ( Romans 1:20 ); (3) the earth ( John 1:9 ); (4) the inhabitants of the earth ( John 3:16 ); (5) all that is alienated from God , as here and frequently in St. John's writings. The things of the world are not those things in the world which may become objects of sinful affection, such as wealth or honour, still less such as scenery or physical objects. St. John is not condemning a love of those material advantages which are God's gifts, nor of nature, which is God's work. He is forbidding those things the love of which rivals and excludes the love of God - all those immoral tendencies and pursuits which give the world its evil character. The world κόσμος is order; the things in the world are the elements of disorder - those things which arise from each man making himself the center of the world, or of some little world of his own creation.

These rival centers clash with one another, and also with the one true Center. All this St. John forbids. With τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ , cf. τί η΅ν ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ( John 2:25 ). Note the μηδέ (not μήτε ), nor yet: "Love not the world; no, nor any of its ways." As so often, St. John goes on to enforce his words by a negative statement of similar but not identical import. Love of the world absolutely excludes the love of the Father. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Some important authorities have τοῦ Θεοῦ for τοῦ Πατρός ; the balance is decidedly for the latter. 1 John 2:15