AP

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.  For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

When the apostle John uses the term ‘the world’ (in his Gospel and his Letters) he is usually referring to the body of mankind that has a mindset contrary to God and his revealed truth and will – unless the context clearly suggests otherwise.  For instance, in John 1:10 – “He [Christ, the Logos] was in the world [the physical created universe in contrast to the ‘heaven’ where he was ‘in the beginning’ and from which he came], and though the world [the created Universe] was made through him, the world [the body of sinful, anti-God mankind] did not recognize him.”

In today’s verses John is obviously referring to the mindset that rejects God and his ways.  It is interesting that he identifies three things that characterise the wrong (sinful) mindset: “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”.  These were the three things that set us (collectively) on the wrong track in the Garden of Eden in the very beginning: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food [‘lust of the flesh’] and pleasing to the eye [‘lust of the eyes’], and also desirable for gaining wisdom [‘pride of life’], she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Genesis 3:6).  This blatant act of rebellion led to their being cast out of the Garden and cut off from the presence of God and, therefore, the blessing of eternal life.

This is ‘the world’ for which God showed his love: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Even when we have believed [put our trust/faith in]  what God has so graciously done for us, and have therefore received eternal life, the Devil [Satan] who deceived us in the Garden in the first place, continues to want us back under his influence and control, and, unsurprisingly, his three-pronged attack is still the same.  Hence, John’s warning to professing Christians.

It is also interesting that Satan used the same strategy on the One who came to rescue us: “Forget the way of the cross.  Satisfy man’s fleshly desires and ‘turn these stones to bread’ [‘lust of the flesh’], do things that are impressively spectacular like surviving a leap from the highest point of the Temple [‘lust of the eyes’], compromise your claim to be the only Lord and Saviour of mankind and give support to the popular ‘all-roads-lead-to-Rome’ theology, and the common idea that ‘harmless’ sinful ‘pleasures’ don’t really matter; just let everyone go on thinking they are No. 1, can make up their own moral code to suit their own needs and desires, and this way you’ll get a much larger following; certainly don’t insist on this ‘take up your cross and follow me’ approach, it just won’t work [‘pride of life’].

How good it is for us that although the ‘First Adam’ failed every one of these temptations, the ‘Second Adam’ won the victory for us over all of them.  He has given us the the incentive and the power to follow in his steps – have we taken, and are we constantly taking, hold of this opportunity as John challenges us to today?

“O loving wisdom of our God, when all was sin and shame, a Second Adam, to the fight and to the rescue came.  O wisest love! – that flesh and blood which did in Adam fail, should strive afresh against the foe should strive, and should prevail” (John Henry Newman).

– Bruce Christian