man who left the world, is called the friend of God (2: 23). Peter speaks both of the

"corruptions" and "pollutions" of the world, the last word being the "miasma" plague

spreading filth, showing the awful condition of the world before God (II Pet. 1: 4; 2: 20).

The first epistles of John uses the word twenty-four times in its five chapters, while

the prison epistles use it only seven times in all. We cannot stay to consider all these

references but just mention one or two. I John 2: 15 commands us to "love not the

world", declaring that "if any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him",

moreover verse 16 supplies us with an insight into the "things that are in the world"--the

desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. Verse 17 echoes

I Cor. 7: 31, the world knows neither the believer, nor his Lord (3: 1). It hates him,

even as Cain hated Abel (3: 12, 13). The words of 3: 17 should be read with 2: 16,

for the words translated "life" and "goods" are the same. Every one who has been

begotten of God, and who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, overcomes the world.

The last reference is in 5: 19, "the whole world lieth in wickedness"; this may possibly

mean "in the wicked one". Such is the Scriptural statement. What fellowship hath light

with darkness, death with life, Christ with Belial? The great complexity--the world,

stands on one side, Christ stand on the other. God loved the world and sent His Son into

it to save sinners from their sins, but He came not to repair or renovate the world that

must pass away. It has been weighed in the balances and found wanting; its politics are

fore-doomed, its culture is unsanctified and Christless; its civilization goes in the way of

Just Lot, vexing his righteous soul, is a picture of the believer who has not learned the

Scriptural character of the world, Abraham, outside the city, the picture of the man of

God. Once the believer formed a part of that great system, the world; nothing but death

and burial with Christ can make it possible for such to become "dead to the world"; the

believer severed from the world, its advantages and its snares, finds his all in Christ. To

some this may sound a hard saying, but the Scripture teaching seems clear. To walk

"according to the age of this world" is the exact opposite to having died to sin. To walk

according to man is the denial of spirituality, so self-evident is this that the apostle asks

those who died with Christ from the elements of the world, "why, AS THOUGH LIVING

in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" This also is his thought in Eph. 2: There,

the believer is viewed as dead to sin, quickened, risen, and seated with Christ, the other

side of that grave lies the "times past", and with it the walk according to the "age of this