23 - 1Jn 2:17
Καὶ ὁ κόσμος παράγεται, καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία αὐτοῦ· ὁ δὲ ποιῶν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. The thought is assuredly carried onward by the introduction of a newelementin1Jn 2:17; but it is questionable whether the idea of1Jn 2:16or that of1Jn 2:15is developed further. If that of1Jn 2:16then ’Ye have here a second reason given for1Jn 2:15: the love of God and the loveofthe world cannot agree together, because, first(1Jn 2:16), their origin is diametricallyopposite; because,secondly(1Jn 2:17), their end isequallydiverse. Nevertheless, it seems more appropriate to regard itasdeveloping1Jn 2:15:love not the world(1Jn 2:15a) ; for, first (1Jn 2:15-16), the love of the world is incompatible with the love of God; and,secondly(1Jn 2:17), ye would, loving it, perish with the world, while obedience towards God brings eternal life as its result. The παράγεσθαι [“pass away”], which is here asserted concerning the world, is not absolutely identical with that which in 1Jn 2:8 is predicated of the σκοτία [“darkness”], although κόσμος [“world”] and σκοτία [“darkness”] are, as we have seen, equivalent ideas. It was said in that verse that in the present state the darkness is, in virtue of the appearance of the true light, in process of passing away; this, therefore, is a fact stated. But here it is asserted that the world in itself pertains to transitoriness, and this denotes an internal quality or characteristic. That which turns away from the light is I on that account devoted to inevitable ruin; for only the φῶς [“light”] is the ζωὴ τῶν ἀνθρώπων [“life of humankind” cf. Joh 1:4]. But this germ of death, existing in it potentially from the beginning, comes into actuality when the light strikes upon it with its full power; for, as it produces life where the germs of life are, so it produces death where they are not. And with the world passes away also its essential nature, ἡ ἐπιθυμία αὐτοῦ [“its desire”]. This, in harmony with the connection, does not mean the desire towards the world, but the desire resting or abiding in the world, and constituting its signature and mark. How it is in very deed the nature of the world appears most clearly from the antithesis, the ποιεῖντὸ θέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ [“do the will of God”]. The lust here is the life creaturely which makes itself independent. According to the original divine ordinance, there should be no individual desire personal to self, no knowledge or will of our own, but only a will responsive to what God wills. Hence the idea, θέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ [“will of God”], does not by any means enter here without introduction; it is the necessary antithesis of the ἐπιθυμία[“desire”] after the creaturely life which would constitute itself independent. But with the world its own desire must cease. That is precisely the condemnation, that the possibility of sinning ceases because the material of its activity is taken away from sin; and so, the θέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ [“will of God”] not being the power of life in the man, his existence becomes a fearful waste, devoid of all substantial contents. But it is far otherwise if the divine will has become my will; because the willing of God is infinite, an inexhaustible spring of ever new invigoration and confirmation of life, consequently to the life of the man who makes God’s will his own there is given an infinite matter, a never-ceasing series of aims and problems; and therefore he μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα [“abides forever”]. There is hardly another example of the transformation of Greek ideas by Christianity equally suggestive with that given by the word αἰών [“forever”]. While the Hebrew עוֹלָם, [“forever”] translated, as is well known, by this αἰών [“forever”], signifies at least, in its proper original meaning, the dark futurity, lost in the distance, αἰών [“forever”] originally referred simply to the limited and definitely measured continuance of a certain period (acvum). The New Testament has not only given it the meaning of a long continuance,—a meaning it had obtained also in classical Greek,—but it has used it to express the idea of timelessness. As in the previous section of the Epistle, 1Jn 2:3-11, the apostle adopts the course of starting from altogether general ideas (at αἱ ἐντολαὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ [“the commandments of God”]), and then lighting on the specific commandment of brotherly love, so also it is here. In what immediately precedes he has treated of the κόσμος [“world”] as the opposite generally to the kingdom of light; he now passes over to the development and potentiality which the κόσμος [“world”] has received in consequence of the appearance of the φῶςἀληθινόν [“true light”],—that is to say, he proceeds to the expression of anti-Christianity. For most certainly the light has, according to 1Jn 2:8, the power to bring about the passing away of darkness; but that takes place only through the fact that first of all the κόσμος [“world”] developes its enmity to the light to the utmost extreme, and reveals itself as perfectly dark. As sin becomes through the law exceeding sinful, or sin in reality, so the darkness becomes truly dark through the contrast to the perfect light. It is precisely through its own internal development and energizing that the darkness in very truth puts an end to itself.