This is my Father's World

IS THE WORLD OUR ENEMY?

Draft commentary on 1 John 2:15 from the upcoming Commonwealth of Israel Study Bible. https://www.commonwealthofisrael.org/

Verse 15 is paralleled in James 4:4 "Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." Because Gnostic and dualistic philosophies have influenced religious thought from the time of the Classical Academy we must distinguish between a sinful, inordinate attraction to the glamours of the fallen world and a functional appreciation of the world of God's creation. "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen 1:31a). We have been taught to think of the world, the flesh, and the devil as the enemies of our soul. They are indeed three sources of temptation: "There are three things which tempt us, the flesh, the world, and the devil." - Peter Abelard, Epositiones. But just as "no one ever hated his own flesh," (Eph 5:29) the body and the world are not our enemies per se. A godly appreciation for the glories of nature is expressed throughout the Psalms. Eventually the world in its present form, as well as our natural bodies, will pass away (1Cor 7:31). In the meantime we are intended to "bloom where we are planted." "Then God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it...'" (Gen 1:28). "Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it" (Gen 2:15). Through sin, man has forfeited his authority to subdue the earth; and, until now, the Devil is "the ruler of world" (John 14:30). But God is not finished with this world nor with man's place in this world. “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet'... But now we do not yet see all things put under him" (Heb 2:6-8). "Not yet" demands a future fulfillment of man's proper authority over the earth and its creatures. Thus, all creation awaits the "restoration of all things" (Acts 3:21; Rom 8: 20-23). The world that "God so loved" and will restore is not our enemy. Such a Gnostic notion must be recognized for its element of eastern dualism that would pit man against God's own creation.

"This is my Father's World" - by Glad https://youtu.be/wldtsPet6yQ

See also: The Rise of Western Lawlessness https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Western-Lawlessness-Exposing-Ideologies-ebook/dp/B0795D9ZWG