We do not live in a neutral environment. On the contrary, our habitat is highly polarized. This means that in the spiritual and moral sectors of our lives God is not our only choice. There are alternative attractions which seek to allure all of us. We must realize that should we be beguiled by these attractions, we have turned our backs on God!
This highly dangerous situation prevails no matter where we live on the earth. Every believer in God knows that it is God himself who has placed us in this precarious situation. At times all of us have wondered why God would allow anti-God attractions to be present in our surroundings which can compete for our love and loyalty, very possibly drawing our affections away from our Creator. The answer is, God wants us to be faced with powerful and enticing alternatives so that if we serve him, we serve him by choice, not because our environment offers no other possibility.
While the anti-God seductions all of us must face may take innumerable forms, essentially they belong to only three categories. To be victorious in our attempts to be faithful to God we must know what these elemental temptations are. Christ’s Apostle John, in his short, first general epistle, gives us invaluable insight into these perilous fascinations of the world. By the Spirit of God he wrote: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passseth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (1 John 2:15-17 ASV)
Here we are told to “love not the world.” In the writings of Christ’s apostles, which we call the New Testament, the word ‘world’ has been used with various meanings. Sometimes it refers to the planet earth as in John’s gospel 17:5. Sometimes it used to refer to the people who inhabit the planet. It is used in this way in the famous verse which tells us, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 ASV) However, in many passages it is used, as it is in the passage we are studying, in an ethical sense referring to the anti-God social and moral standards of society.
“Love not the world” is a universal prohibition. We know this because it is addressed to “any man”. It means that any person, whoever he may be, who loves the world does not love God. The anti-God counter-culture of the world may present itself in very attractive and seductive forms. This may cause any of us to let down his guard and be drawn into sin’s orbit.
No matter what form the blandishments of the world may take, they are only variations of three fundamental concepts: (1) the “lust of the flesh” (2) the “lust of the eyes” and (3) “the vainglory of life.”
The “lust of the flesh” refers to the mental and or physical indulgence of illicit sensual desires. It is an indulgence which gives to the satisfaction of physical cravings a place of importance which dares to violate the limits and controls which God has placed on them. In this category come fornication, adultery, the use of hallucinogens or other stimulants which induce ecstatic experiences.
The expression “lust of the eyes” refers to greed, to the uncontrolled acquisitive desire which seeks its gratification in possessions or in domination.
“The vainglory of life” refers to seeking after “honors, titles and pedigrees; boasting of ancestry, family connections, great offices, honorable acquaintances, and the like.” [Clarke]
All three of these motivations are wrong. They do not come from God or lead one to God. They deprive the mind of righteous thoughts and purposes.
Such motivation, “is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Here, as throughout all Scripture, God is called ‘the Father’ because he is the one who has given us life, because he is the one who cares for us and because he is the one who seeks to guide us into the truth.
On the contrary, the source of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life is not God the Father. These anti-God enticements originate in and from ‘the world,’ which is a collective name for the social, political, and personal thought systems which make man’s pleasure, man’s vanity, man’s desires and man’s goals supreme rather than making God supreme. The ‘world’ is, then, a false god. It is a god which wants our loyalty and our obedience.
Obviously, the true God will not allow any false god to survive. Ultimately every false god will be brought to ruin and destruction. Therefore, “the world passseth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (Verse 17)
But the false god which the true God calls ‘the world’ is appealing and seductive. None of us is powerful enough within himself to be triumphant over this powerful idolatry. Only Christ who triumphed over every temptation can change our personalities so ‘the world’ becomes repugnant to us. Only Christ can fill us with moral and spiritual power so we may live victoriously in the midst of those who yield to the enticements of ‘the world.’ If we join those who do “the will of God,” we will “abide for ever.”