1 John 2:15-17

The love of the world: renounced in the Fellowship of the Father. This exhortation is addressed to all, the tone of contrast being now again resumed.

1 John 2:15. 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. Fellowship with God, and walking in darkness, were diametrical opposites in chap. 1; the same is now said of the love of God and fellowship with the world. Here is an exhortation, and the reason for it. The emphasis is in this verse on the ‘love,' which only in this passage is used both of God and the world: elsewhere we have ‘friendship with the world' (James 4:4), ‘minding earthly things' (Philippians 3:19); but the strong word love, the giving up of the whole being, mind, and heart, and will, we have only here. That in the nature of things, and by the evangelical law, must be reserved for God alone; two contradictory perfect loves cannot be in the same soul; therefore, he who thus loves the world cannot have the love of the Father. This reason assigned explains the exhortation. The ‘world' is interpreted by it, just as mammon is interpreted by the impossibility of double service: ‘ye cannot serve God and mammon.' The world is the sphere of the unregenerate life, governed by another god, fallen from God, and consequently swayed by self, which is separation from God. It is not therefore the whole economy of things; which man cannot love, though he may make it his god. It is not for the same reason the earth as the abode of man. It is not the aggregate of mankind, whom we must love as ‘God loved the world.' But it is the whole sum of evil which makes up the principle of opposition to the holiness of God, the ‘world which lieth in the wicked one.' In distinction from this universal sphere of sin, which has the whole heart of the unconverted, ‘the things that are in the world' define the particular directions which alienation from God may take, and the special objects which self may convert into objects of love.

1 John 2:16. 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. Now, the apostle defines the nature of the world, more particularly in its utter contrariety to the nature of God. The world is a sphere of life; it has a unity, and ‘the whole that is in it,' as it is occupied by man, may be distributed into a trinity. First, ‘the lust of the flesh:' in its more limited sense, the living to gratify the desires of the fleshly nature; in its deeper meaning, the gratification of the fallen nature generally in opposition to the Spirit, for St. John, like St. Paul, defines ‘that which is born of the flesh' as ‘flesh.' Then ‘the lust of the eyes;' all the manifold desires that are awakened by the eye as their instrument, or that connect the flesh with the outer world. This also has its profounder meaning: the desire of the world's eye rests upon the sum of things phenomenal, or the ‘things that are seen;' and its sin is the universal sin of dependence on the creature, and not beholding, rejoicing in, and being satisfied with the Creator and invisible realities. Thirdly, ‘the vainglory of life:' life being here the way or means of physical existence, and not the life which is the glory of this Epistle; the vainglory is the pride and pomp that exults in itself, and gives not the glory to God. This trinity is a tri-unity, making up the ‘whole' that is in the world of mans estrangement from Divine things. And, with reference to this whole, the apostle says, twice repeating ‘is,' that it springs not from God. It is not of that new life which is ‘from God;' but is its perfect opposite. It cannot love God, because it is not of His nature; it cannot go to God, because it came not from Him. Whence then came it originally and comes it now? The apostle does not say from sin, nor from Satan. He is thinking and about to speak of its emptiness and transitoriness: he could not therefore say that ‘it cometh of evil,' or of sin, or of Satan; for these do not pass away. But he limits his words, ‘it is of the world,' the emphasis being on this, that ‘it is not of the Father,' the Father of that Son in whom we have eternal love and eternal life.

1 John 2:17. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. The world as a system of desires contrary to the Divine will, governed by its one ‘lust' that makes it what it is, is even now in the act of passing. Its sinners will remain, and the consequences of its sin; but as a complex ‘world of iniquity,' ordered in its disorder, it will pass away, it is even now passing. Then there is a change to the personal individual, who knows no lust, but only the one will: abjuring the lust of the flesh, he doeth that will which is his sanctification; renouncing the sight of his eyes, he walks before Him who is invisible; and forsaking all glorying in self, he gives glory to God supremely and alone. He shall, like God, and with God, and in God, abide for ever.