Lust, Sin Nature, and Kosmic System; 1 John 2:16-17
It is possible for the
believer to stay in spiritual infancy because not only is he continuing to walk
on the basis of his sin nature but he continues to let the unsaved, unbelieving
world culture around him dictate his value systems, his priorities, how he
spends his time, how he spends his money, and what his values are. That is the
person who loves the world and John says if he continues in that state the love
of the Father is not in him. Earlier he said that if we love the Father, if we
come to love the Father we know Him, and if we love Him then we keep His
commandments. So the person who doesn’t love the Father doesn’t keep His
commandments and the reason he doesn’t keep His commandments is because he is
letting the cosmic system distract him.
James says almost the same
thing in James 4:4 NASB “You adulteresses, do you not know that
friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to
be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” The word “adultery”
often has a deeper meaning, i.e. not a physical act of sexual adultery but the
root idea is unfaithfulness, covenant disloyalty. Again and again the word is
applied to those who are spiritual adulterers. They are in spiritual adultery
because they are unfaithful to God who has saved them. They have entered into a
relationship with God but now they are unfaithful to Him. It is either one or
the other. You are either hostile towards God or you are hostile to the world;
you can’t be both, you can’t have one foot in each camp and just be a little
bit attracted to cosmic thinking, priorities and value systems and then the
next day try to be a little bit more in love with the Lord, they are mutually
exclusive. The reason so many believers are failures in the spiritual life is
because they don’t want to disengage from the cosmic system, because that
involves thinking, it involves self-analysis in the realm thought, and that
means taking in the Word of God. Romans 12:2 NASB “And do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so
that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable
and perfect.”
A key verse on this is 2
Corinthians 10:3 NASB “For though we walk [metaphor for lifestyle]
in the flesh…” We are believers are living in the body. “… we
do not war according to the flesh [sin nature].” The sin nature is motivated by
lust patterns. It has an area of strength that produces human good and an area of
weakness that produces personal sins. One aspect of human good is
problems-solving techniques in life, ways to handle problems in life, apart
from the Word of God. They work to some degree, they make people functional, they do good things for some people, at least in a temporary
manner. That is all human good and those are ways that we live our life
“according to the flesh.” That is what Paul is saying. We are not engage in the
spiritual life, in spiritual combat, according to the techniques of the flesh.
A right thing done in a wrong way is wrong. We don’t fight the battle with the
wrong tools, the wrong methodology, the wrong
techniques. We have to do things God’s way. We just don’t go out on the basis
of experience and try to defeat Satan or defeat the sin nature and have success
in the spiritual life. God tells us exactly how to do it. [4] “for the weapons
of our warfare are not of the flesh [sin nature], but divinely powerful for the
destruction of fortresses.” Paul is using a metaphor here; this is not some
kind of special spiritual term. What are these fortresses? What are these
fortifications? We all have fortifications in our thinking; we have all erected
walls around certain aspects of our thinking that we think are impregnable to
assaults by God because we are really comfortable with that type of thinking.
That type of thinking has to be destroyed and that is what Paul is says in
verse 5: “{We are} destroying speculations and every
lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and {we are} taking every
thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Whatever is raised up against a knowledge of God has to be comparable. It is also a form
of thought; it is knowledge. We are destroying one type of knowledge that is
raised up in antithesis to the knowledge of [about] God, i.e. Bible doctrine.
What is our response? We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of
Christ. That means everything we think, all of our values, our priorities, the
way in which we think, how we think; all of that has to be under the authority
of Scripture, so we have to completely transform our thinking. The only way we
can do that is to become continuously exposed to the teaching of God’s Word day
in and day out so that we can re-educate ourselves according to biblical
thought and not the thinking of the world.
1 John
1 John 2:16 NASB
“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
In contrast to this the
one who does the will of God abides forever. This is talking about the next
stage, of spiritual adulthood. They had come to know Him and are abiding with
Him and so John is saying that if they are going to make it beyond spiritual
adolescence they have to get past the cosmic system and then they will hit that
stage where they are abiding continuously with the Lord. That doesn’t mean
never getting out of fellowship but when they do they bounce back quickly. They
will stay in fellowship most of the time and will be characterised by a love
for God that motivates them to obedience to God. They will have happiness and
stability in life no matter how horrible the circumstances are. They will live
above and beyond their circumstances because of their orientation to eternity
and to God. The one who is continuously in fellowship does the will of God—application
of doctrine.