What is the World? Part Two: “To Love or not to Love?”, That is the question.

Maybe I should start off with a little background as to why I am exploring this subject of the world.

Over the years I have been exposed to, and in some ways, have adopted, an unhealthy perception of and attitude towards God’s good creation.

I believe that there is much confusion within Christendom when it comes to the difference between the created world and the fallen world and it is just this confusion which causes many unnecessary problems and struggles for those desiring to follow the Lord.

Don’t get me wrong. I am fully aware of the fallen world which permeates the created world, but while these two worlds have obviously been involved in a collision, they are not necessarily one and the same.

Let me try to explain….

In the beginning, all of the creation was confirmed as being ‘good’ by the One True God Himself.

Within this good, created order was a garden and within that garden there were many things.

Even the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil had been deemed as ‘good’ by the All Knowing, as the original creation process was already finished and Yahweh had already entered into His rest by the time we get to the garden story.

You see, what I am trying to reinforce here is the fact that creation itself, all of it, was ‘good’ in God’s eyes prior to “the fall of man”.

Consider Psalm 93:1

“The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.

Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved”.

(Please be reminded that, that passage of scripture is ‘post fall’.)

Please take a few moments and let that last sentence penetrate deep into your mind. After all, it is the word of God.

It is the beauty and wonder of Gods creation, of His world, which speak of His glory and power:

Psalm 95:1‑7

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.

Psalm 148

Praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD from the heavens, praise him in the heights above.

Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his heavenly hosts.

Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars.

Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies.

Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created.

He set them in place forever and ever; he gave a decree that will never pass away.

Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds, kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth, young men and maidens, old men and children.

Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his splendor is above the earth and the heavens. He has raised up for his people a horn, the praise of all his saints, of Israel, the people close to his heart

Praise the LORD!

(Again….‘POST FALL’ scriptures.)

Amen?

I believe that where the confusion comes in is with the actual word; world, itself. It can mean different things, and it does just that when used in different contexts.

The created world around you, the very earth itself, the trees, the rivers and hills, the herbs and vegetables, fruits and plant life, the sun and moon, and the stars of the sky, etc…, it was all made by, through and for Jesus Christ.

This is ‘the world’ in one sense.

Check it alongside your Strong’s concordance (I promise that I’m not leading you astray!!) :

Nature was created by Him and for Him, including mankind. And what to say concerning mankind?

In mankind, we have God’s masterpiece of creation, fashioned after the image of God Himself. It was in His image that He created mankind as male and female.

Observe what the record of Genesis says about all of God’s creation just prior to His Sabbath:

“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day”.

Now of course I know about the fall and sin and the death which follows behind all of that. In fact that is something that the Christian world knows quite thoroughly  (especially if you were raised up Calvinist).

But for the sake of keeping this post more focused on the original subject, I am going to skip all of the details of ‘the fall’. There is much to say about all of that but, for now, let’s just acknowledge the fact that it did indeed  happen and that the effects of it can be summed up in this:

Romans 5:12

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

Since sin was in Adam and his offspring, and his offspring are within the world, and since they are, in fact a part of the created world, we must conclude, therefore, that the world is corrupted by sin (the sin which is in Adam or ‘mankind’). In other words, the world is corrupt, but only because man is corrupt and man is in the world.

I’ll even go so far as to say that even God’s good creation has been corrupted due to Adams original sin. After all, it was man whom was entrusted, originally by God, to have dominion over the created world.

But enough talk of corruption (for now).

What I hope to be communicating here in my own rather scatterbrained way is that the phrase “the world” doesn’t necessarily always mean what we think it does.

It can, and often does, mean more than simply ‘the reality around us’ (while it does sometimes also mean that).

What I am interested in, at the moment is this question:

“What else could it mean?”

For example:

Let’s take two New testament scripture references and decide which ‘world’ the writer (John in both instances) might have in mind in each instance:

John 3:16,17

“For God so loved the world,  that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him”.

I John 2:15

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him“.

Please bear with me now as “I speak as a man”, as I play “devils advocate”:

* Is God the only one allowed to love the world, while insisting that we hate it?

* If we are to ‘partake of the divine nature’, as encouraged by Peter, should we not also love the world just as God does?

* Is the love of the Father not in the Father?

What does ‘the world’ mean in each of the above scripture references and what difference does it make?

I encourage you to give these questions some thought, take them to the Father in prayer, and then…..

let me know what you think.

Just so that you don’t think all of this stuff is original to me, you should check out these links!

Also, as much as I want to keep posting regularly, I don’t know if I will be able to.

My computer is dead, and I’ve been borrowing a friends laptop for the last month.

At the end of the month, I’ll be returning the laptop and will most likely be without a machine for awhile.

Regardless, I will post and respond to comments whenever I can and in the meantime, I will be looking for a good deal on a decent computer.

May the Love of God flood your hearts through Christ Jesus our Lord!

~Your Brother Johnny