1 John 2:17

The Greek word is kósmos. Its basic sense is an orderly arrangement, and so it can mean adornment, as when Peter uses this very word for the outward “adorning” of plaited hair, gold and fine apparel (1 Peter 3:3). From there it came to mean the world, in a wide or a narrow sense, its people included, and it can be used literally or in a moral sense. Here John uses it in the moral sense, for human society organized apart from God, governed by sin and set against his truth. It takes in the values, ideas and ways of life that push God aside and put self-sufficiency, possessions and pride in his place. John defines it himself in the next verse by what fills it: “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16).

This is why the same apostle who forbids loving the world could also write, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). God loves the world he made and the people in it. The earth, nature and humanity made in his image remain his good work, and what John warns against is the fallen order of life that has turned away from him.

“Love not” is a command, and its negative is mḗ, the one Greek uses with commands. The verb for love, agapáō, speaks here of the heart’s committed affection and devotion, and the command forbids an ongoing love of that kind, a settled attachment to the world in its godless sense. “Neither the things that are in the world” carries the command from the world as a whole to everything it is made of: the particular desires, pursuits and values that compete for our affection, which John lists in the next verse.

The second half of the verse gives the consequence. “If any man love the world” opens with eán, “if”, and tìs, “any man”, which takes in anyone at all. Then comes the verdict: “the love of the Father is not in him.” Love for the world and the love of the Father exclude each other, so a heart has room for only one of them as its deepest love. Jesus said the same thing: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). James is just as plain: “know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:4). It is the great command of the law, “thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:4–5), applied to the pull of the world.

The word for love in “the love of the Father” is the noun agápē, and “Father” is patḗr, the ordinary word for a father. Believers differ on how to read the phrase. Some take it as the Father’s love for us, living and at work in a person, and others take it as our love for the Father. Both readings arrive at the same place. Where the world holds a person’s deepest affection, the love between the Father and his children is absent from that heart, or at the least it is kept from doing its work of reshaping that person’s priorities and desires.

Paul gives the same call in his own words: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Jesus told his disciples that he had chosen them out of the world, so that they are “not of the world” (John 15:19). Those who belong to him are set apart for God’s purposes.

“For all that is in the world” gives the reason for the command and names what the world is made of, in three parts.

The word for lust, epithymía, means desire or longing, especially lust for what is forbidden. It comes from the verb epithymeō, to long for something, rightfully or otherwise, so the word takes its bad sense from what it desires and from its setting. Here the setting settles it, because these desires belong to the world.

“The lust of the flesh” is desire that rises from our fallen nature and works through the body’s appetites and instincts, when they are followed in an ungodly, excessive or forbidden way. It includes the craving for physical pleasure, gluttony, sexual immorality and sloth, all of them driven by self-gratification where there should be self-control.

“The lust of the eyes” is desire stirred by what we see. It covers covetousness, envy and the love of possessions, along with the longing for status or experiences that look attractive and harm the soul. It is the pull to acquire and pile up things for their outward appearance and for what the world says they are worth.

“The pride of life” translates alazoneía, which means boasting or braggadocio, a self-confidence built on an inflated sense of one’s own importance, achievements or possessions. It carries the idea of empty pretense, a show put on to win recognition and glory from others. “Life” here means one’s living: possessions, livelihood and standing in society. This pride puts self in the place of humble dependence on God and disregards his authority.

All three, John says, are “not of the Father, but is of the world.” They have their source in the world and are contrary to God’s holy character, his will and his kingdom. James traces the path such a desire takes inside a person: “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:14–15).

“And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof” is the final reason for the command. The verb, paragetai, is in the present tense, so the world is already passing away as John writes, as well as heading toward its end. It is folly to invest a life in something that is perishing. The desires the world stirs up pass along with it, and because everything they reach for is temporary, they are unfulfilling in the end. Paul says the same: “the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Corinthians 7:31). Jesus told us where to put our treasure instead: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:19–21).

“But he that doeth the will of God” turns to the other side. The will of God, his thélēma, is what he has revealed that he desires and commands, and doing it is active obedience, an ongoing commitment that brings our choices, actions and whole purpose in life into line with it.

“Abideth” is ménō, which means to stay, whether in a place, a state, a relationship or an expectation. It speaks of permanence and continuing, set directly against the world’s passing. The letter to the Hebrews uses this same verb for the “continuing” city we lack here: “For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Hebrews 13:14). “For ever” is eis aiṓn, an age without end. The one who does God’s will lives for ever, and his abiding is more than endless existence. He remains in a settled, lasting relationship with the eternal God and shares in his everlasting kingdom and purposes.

The letter has already called believers to walk in the light as God is in the light (1 John 1:5–7). In this chapter John has shown that keeping God’s commandments is the evidence that we know him (1 John 2:3–6) and that loving one another is the sign of walking in the light (1 John 2:7–11). He has addressed the little children, the young men and the fathers of the church, assuring them that they are forgiven and have overcome the wicked one (1 John 2:12–14). With these verses he turns from life inside the fellowship to the battle outside it. Right after them he warns against antichrists and false teachers (1 John 2:18–27) and reminds believers of the anointing they have received, which lets them tell truth from falsehood and remain in Christ.

John most likely wrote this letter in Ephesus toward the end of the first century. The cities of Asia were full of idols, open immorality and philosophies that encouraged self-indulgence or intellectual pride. Early forms of Gnostic teaching denied that Christ truly became man and looked down on the material world, which led some to harsh self-denial and others to moral license. The society around the churches prized wealth, status, sensual pleasure and human achievement, and believers were pressed to fit in, to join the pagan festivals and to adopt the thinking of their neighbours. John calls Christians to a distinct life, with their allegiance given to God alone.

Jesus lived in the world and gave his whole love and obedience to the Father. “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34). He is the one who perfectly did the will of God. In the wilderness he met each of the three temptations. He answered the lust of the flesh with “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). He turned away the offer of all the kingdoms of the world with “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matthew 4:8–10), for his kingdom is “not of this world” (John 18:36). And he overturned the pride of life by humbling himself, taking the form of a servant and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5–8).

He also set us free. He “gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4), and his death broke the world’s hold on those who believe. His word to his disciples still stands: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Through his Spirit we walk “not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:4), and John writes later in this letter, “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).

While the world passes away, Christ is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). Doing the will of God is bound up with abiding in him, as he said, “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4), and through him we receive eternal life (John 3:16). So the love of the Father truly is in the one who loves not the world, because it comes to us through the Son. Our abiding for ever is a gift of grace, secured by Christ’s eternal life and his perfect obedience to the Father, and we share in it by faith.

These verses ask each of us where our deepest love lies. Loving the world can be quiet as well as open: a craving for possessions, a hunger for status or approval, a preoccupation with passing pleasures, or an easy acceptance of whatever the culture around us holds, even where it contradicts God’s word. The three names John gives, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, help us recognize that pull for what it is.

John’s answer to it is a greater love. As the love of the Father grows in us, it turns our hearts from the world toward the eternal things of his kingdom. And the reason he gives is a hopeful one. Everything the world offers is already passing, so we can hold it loosely, and the life given to the will of God is the one that remains. Knowing this frees us from the constant pressure to acquire and to keep up, and it gives us contentment and a hope that outlasts the decay of everything temporary.