The First Epistle Of John

John now proceeds to exhibit that general contrariety, between the direction towards God and that towards the world, under three separate forms in which the love of the world manifests itself; and this he does in such a manner, that the particular appears as the confirmation of the more general. "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." When the Apostle here represents the world as opposed to the Father, that which is of the world to that which is of the Father; he does not mean the world in itself, which he regards as the work of God, but in a moral view, as connected in his mind with that tendency of the soul which cleaves to the world, seeking therein its own highest good. and sundering it from connection with God. "The world" here designates the ruling tendency of the spirit towards the world, the entire amalgamation of the spirit with it. So also, in particular, it is not the things of the world in themselves of which he speaks, but only as that general direction of the spirit attaches itself to them, manifests itself in them, identifies itself with them. This, therefore, is his meaning: all those single forms of worldly-mindedness, with whatever objects of the world they may stand connected, proceed from the same radical tendency, the amalgamation of the spirit with the world, and are opposed to that tendency which proceeds from the heavenly Father

He now adduces three such forms, in which at that time the worldly spirit chiefly manifested itself, and against which christians needed to be put on their guard. First, he mentions the fleshly appetites; then whatever is an object of sensual pleasure to the eye. By the latter, many such sinful pleasures might be understood; as, at that time, especially the prevailing passion for heathen spectacles, with which even christians by intercourse with the heathen world were liable to be infected, as shown by examples in the second and third centuries. Many interpreters have regarded it as referring to avarice, inasmuch as the avaricious feeds his eye on the mere sight of his gold. What the Apostle here says is true, indeed, of him who makes of mammon his highest good. But this particular reference is so little suited to the words, that we are by no means justified in assuming it as the Apostle's meaning. Thirdly he mentions vanity, ostentation as exhibited in the life, state and pomp in worldly things, show and splendor as a means of gaining consequence. He means therefore that union of the spirit with the world, as manifested in the three forms of sensual appetite, of pleasure-seeking and frivolity, a vain love pomp and show. In the sense thus intended by the Apostle, we are to apply his language to all the appetites and passions which make this world their object, and of which he here gives only these three characteristic forms.