Solution
to Kosmic Thinking; 1 John 2:15
The doctrine of the cosmic system (cont.)
7.
It is an autonomous way of thinking that produces a
lifestyle of autonomy, i.e. a lifestyle which is independent from God and
develops its values and ideas independent from God. There is a lifestyle that
is consistent with cosmic thinking and it might be religious and ethical. For
example, the legalistic lifestyle of the Pharisees was just as worldly as the
antinomian sinful lifestyle of the Corinthians. So this worldly way of thinking
can be religious, ethical, and moral. You can’t just squeeze cosmic thinking
into one box, it has many different dimensions to it.
8.
Cosmic thinking is completely antagonistic to God, His plan,
His principles, and His procedures. It is mutually exclusive to love for God.
You are either one or the other: either operating on God’s divine viewpoint or
on man’s human viewpoint; you can’t do both. James 4:4 NASB “You
adulteresses,” i.e. they spiritually unfaithful to the God who saved them, “do
you not know that friendship [attraction to] with the world is hostility toward
God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an
enemy of God.” If you are a believer operating on worldly concepts of thought,
then you are an enemy of God and there will never be any success, and advance
in the spiritual life. The cosmic system is 180 degrees antithetical to Bible
doctrine.
9.
Therefore the believer is to extricate himself from the
morass of cosmic thinking in the soul. The cosmic assumptions that are
dominating the soul have to be surgically removed. Romans 12:1, 2 NASB
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies
a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, {which is} your spiritual
service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind [renovation of thinking], so that you may prove
[demonstrate] what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and
perfect.” James 1:27 NASB “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight
of {our} God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress
[doctrinal application], {and} to keep oneself unstained by the world. [4:5, 6]
Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires
the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace.
Therefore {it} says, ‘GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE’.” The issue
is cosmic thinking, arrogant thinking, the thinking of Satan and the demons,
and God has given us the Holy Spirit who indwells us and who is going to help
us to understand His Word, but we have to humble ourselves under the teaching
of the pastor-teacher who communicates the Word.
10.
Cosmic thinking, then, is the thinking of arrogance, the
same kind of thinking that characterises the thought of Satan and the demons,
that in independence from God we can make life work. James 3:13-15 NASB
“Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his
deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish
ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and {so} lie against the truth. This
wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural,
demonic.”
11.
When the believer is thinking divine viewpoint then the
world is going to be opposed to the Christian. The problem is seen in John
15:18, 19 NASB “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated
Me before {it hated} you. If you were of the world, the world would love its
own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
because of this the world hates you.” The solution is found in John 17:14 where
Jesus says to the Father in His high-priestly prayer NASB “I have
given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world.” The way to avoid worldly thinking is the
Word and reliance upon the Lord Jesus Christ and the precedent of the spiritual
life established by Him for living the Christian life on the basis of the
filling of the Holy Spirit.