Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.

The Apostle John must be wrong. Surely there are things in the world that we should love. Husbands should love their wives. Parents should love their children. Love is an important part of the world we live in. Why tell us that love for things in the world and love for the Father are mutually exclusive? Can’t we have both? Indeed, did not Jesus Himself say that the first commandment is to love the Father and the second is to love our neighbors as ourselves? (Matthew 22:37-39).

It all depends on how you understand John’s use of the word “world” in this passage. If you understand it as referring to the good world God created, then we would only love the Father and not anything else in the world at all. This interpretation, however, leads to contradictions with other passages of Scripture.

If you understand John’s use of the word “world” as referring to the culture as it is dominated and captured by sin, then the contradictions are avoided. For John, as it is for much of the New Testament, “world” often refers to the culture dominated by the “lust of the flesh,” the “lust of the eyes,” the “pride of life,” and the like (1 John 2:16). “World” refers to the views and passions that oppose God. If we love these things, then love for the Father must not be in us.

It is futile and meaningless to love the things of the world. As John goes on to say in his letter, “The world and its desires pass away,” (1 John 2:17). The good world God created, will not pass away, for it will turn into the glorious new earth spoken of in Revelation 21. Rather, the world dominated by sin will pass away. The world captured by lust and pride will pass away.

Since it will pass away, why love it? It will be better to love He who will never pass away.

By John Huisman, Friend of Bible League International