As Christians, we are called to love the world for that is the way with God. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son”. We love because God first loved us. In 1 John 4:7-8, we are told, “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God”. There are many commands in the Scripture to love one another, even to our enemies. Because we have been transformed by the Gospel, our love is to be self-originating, not prompted by the loveliness of the loved. In fact, that is how the world knows that we are Christians. Now, the same apostle who wrote the Gospel of John, in his second letter to the early Christians commands ‘Do Not love the world’. This seems like two contradictory teachings.
Especially, in the culture we are living today, the overwhelming majority hold that God in the Bible is a loving being who loves everybody unconditionally. Sometimes we even hear this statement comes from church pulpits. That is what makes the task of the Christian witness so daunting. So, the expectation from the Christians from the world is to love others and their ideologies and their practices unconditionally. We live in a society in which many biblical truths about God are widely disbelieved.
How can a Christian, be against love because God is love and they are called to love? How can a Christian stand in the way of any two people who love each other intimately? Especially, in the context of same-sex marriage where two people are allowed to express their love for each other, how could you call that love ‘sinful’?
In this text, John gives several instances where love can be sinful.
- When love is directed at the wrong object – v15
God says, ‘Do not love the world or anything in the world.’ In the New Testament ‘world’ comes from the Greek word ‘kosmos’ and has several meanings. The Bible regularly uses kosmos to refer to the sum of all creation – the universe (John 1:10) or the dwelling place of man – the earth (John 3:19). It also refers to the fallen human life which is an object of God’s love (John 3:16). Also, ‘Kosmos’ refers to the fallen creation made up of the man-centered, Satan-directed system of this world which is hostile to God, Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Christian (John 12:31). It is this definition that John is referring to when he writes “Do not love the world or anything in the world.” It’s not talking about the earth or anything physical. It refers to all man-made values and ideologies, traditions, lifestyles, ethics, morals, philosophies, and the institutions of the world established apart from God and opposed to God.
This world is our mission field. The people in this fallen world are to be loved. We are accountable to God as stewards of the creation (Gen 2:15). God has clearly made us responsible for caring for His glorious creation. But, evil systems, affairs, philosophies, and ideas in this fallen world must be rejected. Believers are under the reign of Christ and they are not to associate with worldly systems that are under the control of Satan, who is the arch-enemy of God. In our salvation, God has taken us out of this worldly system and placed us into His kingdom; we have transferred kingdoms and our allegiances. We are in this world but not of this world. Now, Jesus is sending us to this world not to establish friendship with the world, but to call for repentance and to rescue people from their captivity to the evil worldly system.
Friendship with the world means enmity against God (James 4:4). James addresses people who attach themselves to Christianity, but with their consuming love for the world, give themselves to the world as adulteresses. Believers are the bride of Christ. Being unfaithful to God is to commit spiritual adultery. Unfortunately, many Christians are guilty of loving the world system that is anti-God and rebellion against His kingdom. That is a sinful love.
- When love rises from the wrong source – v16
It is God who gives us the capacity to love God. To love the things of this world does not come from the Father but from the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are the three gateways to which the world system finds its way into the fallen heart and generates sin. The lust of the flesh refers to the desires outside of God’s law – any attitude, any thought, any word, any action that God forbids. Nothing wrong with having normal healthy desires but all desires outside of God’s limits are sinful. “The deeds of the flesh are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (Gal 5:19).
The lust of the eyes is the lure of the outward appearance. What a blessing to be able to see the beauty of God’s creation, to love and appreciate the beauty of a sunset, to see the people that you know and love, and all the wonders of life – art, music, etc in this world. But, what God gave us to appreciate His beauty can come to a point of sinful pursuit. Instead of loving the beauty of a sunset, or a God’s created thing, I start worshiping them; I start worshiping the creature rather than the creator. They suddenly become the means to satisfying my lustful desires rather than glorifying God. That is sinful.
The pride of life refers to the boasting. The boastful pride of life is the desire to be better than everyone else -this is at the heart of all sin. With love, I can share my testimony to lead someone to Christ, but with pride, I can exaggerate myself, my achievements, and my credentials to elevate myself. I want to have a life that’s on display, I want to show off my life. It is dominated by self-pleasure which is sinful.
- When love produces bad fruits – v17The love directed to wrong objects and the love rising from wrong sources do not honor or glorify God but produces destructive results. “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight” (James 4:1-2). The external conflicts are the manifestation of the internal war going on in the man’s sinful heart. Sinful passions are at war within them. The seeds of self-destruction are built right in the love of the world. “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy (Rom. 1:29-31). The dishonorable passions of the world produce bad fruits, and they will receive the due penalty for their error. The love for the world leads to death, but love for God leads to eternal life.
Love has its limits
Love is not without boundaries; God has clearly defined its limits. Love is not always righteous, godly, or acceptable in God’s sight. There are kinds of love that God hates. Any love that is directed at the wrong object, arising from the wrong source, and producing bad fruits is to be rejected and hated. We are called to love, but we are also called not to love. We must take a stand against the worldly system and come under the authority of God. God is a God who loves as well as hates. “Hate evil, you who love the Lord.” That sets the standard. We love the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates. “I esteem all Your precepts, and I hate every false way” (Psalm 119:128).
God is a God of love, which necessitates that He hates anything that is in contradistinction to those things He loves. The absolute love of God demands an absolute hate of the things that God cannot love. We are to love our God with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds, and all our strengths. That love will lead us to life that is everlasting.
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