How does this strong command and warning follow from the previous passage about who were now are in Christ? Well, it looks like there were people in the churches that John was writing to who were claiming the new life in Christ but were harboring hate for others and were continuing to pursue the things of the world and were trying to claim that they really loved God. In other words, though they claimed to believed all the truths about God that John has been discussing, they were not living as if these truths were true. Like someone who visits the doctor, believes in this doctor's great ability to heal, writes down all that the doctor commands, and yet goes away and does none of it. John insists that what Jesus has done, is reality and it affects real change. It is not possible to go on living as before because that is to live a lie, an unreality.
We already talked about the passage on hating your brother so I won't go back to that one now. Why is it that we cannot love the world and have the love of the Father in us? Well, to have the love of the Father in us is to know who we are and where our life really comes from. To know the love of the Father is to know that we are His children--really, truly His sons and daughters. That is not just a new label to add to all the rest, it is the reality that all roles, labels, thoughts about ourselves must conform to. We are His sons and daughters and God is making this reality more and more manifest--someday it will swallow up all the brokenness that still distorts the truth and there will be no doubt as to our true selves. God is our life, not just the origin of our biological life but the only source of true life. The Greek word for eternal life is zoe. It is not just bios, biological life going on forever and ever. It is life from God--real life, the only source of life. It goes beyond the biological and yet of course includes it, because God is the author of all life. The life God gives us in Christ is a life that is removing and destroying all the brokenness, evil and twistedness of sin. It is the life that comes from the very heart of the triune God--full of love, joy, peace, and hope.
To love the world is to still be seeking for our life and identity in it, to still believe that there is something out there that is going to give us our meaning, purpose, identity, life. Obviously, John is not speaking here of enjoying the earth and the beauty of God's creation. He is not speaking against music and art that can be enjoyed and reflected upon. And, he has already told us that to love God is to love our brothers and sisters.
He says in verse 16 that what is in the world that he is warning his readers about is "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life." Lust is a desire for possession and control of some object, person, or circumstance. Why does one lust? Because he/she is not trusting that whole, rich life is only found in God. Because he/she is not satisfied, is restless and looking for fulfillment of these lusts to make that insatiable longing be satisfied. A lustful person is not convinced that what God is giving is truly enough.
The pride of life refers I think at least partly to the ever present concern on this world with how we appear to others. It is a concern for power (not just positional power), a desire to have influence, to be well thought of by others. Again this means that someone caught up in the pride of life is not trusting that they are already empowered by God, loved by God and "famous" with God (CS Lewis), so they seek these things elsewhere.
John wants to uncover for his readers what is really going on when we love the things of this world and indulge ourselves with them. The desire to love and pursue these things means that this person is not living in the love of the Father. We cannot receive God's life when we are looking for life somewhere else. We cannot live in His love and peace. In fact, what the world offers, is as John put it earlier, darkness. It twists and breaks us. What the world offers is what God is healing us from so that we can receive His life. And John ends this section by telling us "And the world passes away, and the lust of it." These other things we are tempted to pursue to give us life and identity, John says, are not real--they will pass away. It is not like there really are two places to find life--God and the world, but that God is a little better. The world will pass away. It is a shadow, a empty promise that cannot fulfill itself. Real life, life that lasts is in God alone.
But aren't we all still struggling at times with loving the world and the things of the world? Does this mean that God is not abiding in us? Well, I think if we go back to the 1st chapter, we see that John has already said that yes, we still sin. In fact, he says we need to keep admitting that truth and handing it over to the One who can and does forgive us and who is destroying that sin in us. God will remind us over and over of the emptiness of the world's promises. Our participation in God's work in our lives is to agree with God that our lives and true identities are only to be found in Him and to not place ourselves in temptation's way. We need reminding when we are indulging ourselves or tempted to indulge ourselves that we are seeking a very poor imitation of the life God has for us. And our obedience to what we know is right, to what we sense God is calling us to should come out of a trust that God is the only source of life and so I trust that as I take His path I will see the fruits of this over time. God does desire that we trust Him and live as if He is who He reveals Himself to be--to our ultimate joy and life. As we struggle to live in this world and not be of it, we can place our hope in God, to finish His work in us and to lovingly continue to show us the emptiness of all other "sources" of life.
This passage reminded me of a quote by C.S. Lewis that you have probably all heard before, but I am going to include it here because it fits so well:
"When he said, 'Be perfect," He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder--in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad..."
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