food for thought: June 2005 Archives

Recently I’ve wondered if there is a correlation between a superficial understanding of worldliness and an incomplete understanding of the significance and applicability of the gospel. In other words, I have wondered if the view that thinks of worldliness primarily in external terms (i.e. where you go; what you do; etc) is due, in some measure, to a failure to understand the breadth and depth of the gospel. It seems to me that there is a very strong correlation between the two, but before we consider the precise nature of it let’s briefly consider the biblical presentation of worldliness.

Key Text: “[15] Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. [16] For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. [17] And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17).

Key Question: Does John think of worldliness primarily in terms of that which is external?

First Things First: Identifying the Logical Connection between 1 John 2:15-17 and 1 John 5:21

John deals with three major themes in his first epistle: (1) walking in the light (holiness); (2) walking in love; and (3) walking in the truth. After clearly articulating what walking in holiness, love, and truth looks like, John closes his epistle with these words: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). This final statement is the first time that John specifically refers to idolatry. So either the exhortation to avoid idols is just one among the many others in 1 John tacked on the end because of its perceived importance, or it somehow functions as the umbrella command over every other command in the epistle. I’m convinced that it functions as the one command under which every other command in 1 John is to be understood and obeyed.

So what is the logical connection between 1 John 2:15-17 with 1 John 5:21? Notice, first, that in 1 John 2 John describes worldliness in terms of love and desire not in terms of that which is external. “Love not the world…for all that is in the world—the desires…the desires…and the world is passing away along with its desires.” His description of worldliness is not in terms of where we go or what we do, but in terms of what we love and desire. Is there an external dimension to worldliness? Yes, of course there is. But the external dimension is merely the outgrowth of love and desire. At the heart of worldliness is loving and desiring what is in the world above God. Consider Tim Keller’s insightful commentary on 1 John 2:15-17.

"Worldliness" is apparent whenever we take the good things of God and use them in ways he never intended them to be used. It is this misuse that John has in mind when he speaks of the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does. The problem of worldliness occurs when we don’t receive God’s gifts with thanksgiving and enjoy them in the context he intended. If the gift of wine is used for drunkenness, the gift of material objects becomes extravagance, the gift of sexuality used for adultery, the gift of work used to gain power, then we have misused good things to sinful ends. Worldliness does not just take place in Times Square, but in our hearts. In fact, both James and Jesus indict their hearers for the worldliness seen in their prayer lives. Wise Christians will be aware of how subtle and insidious the world can be in its ability to infect them, their thinking and their actions (Small Group Study on 1 John).

Notice, second, that idolatry is essentially “loving and desiring what is in the world above God.” This is the 10 Commandments perspective on idolatry which places it at the very center of all sin. The 1st commandment is the prohibition against worshipping anyone or anything other than God (“You shall have no other gods before me” – Exodus 20:3). The 2nd commandment is a prohibition against worshipping God idolatrously, that is, as we want Him to be. Put positively, the first two commandments call for us to love God as He actually is with all of our heart, soul, and might (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Now why does the 10 Commandments begin this way? Martin Luther believed it was because we never break commandments 3-10 unless we first break commandments 1-2. When children fail to obey their parents, it is because they had another god before their eyes. In other words, children disobey their parents because they love and desire something in the world (i.e. the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life) more than they love and desire God. The same could be said of each prohibition listed in the 10 Commandments. Every sin we commit is due to the fact that we love and desire something in the world more than we love and desire God.

It is critical that we see that idolatry is at the root of all sin and worldliness. This is how Paul explains the presence of sin from Romans 1. In verse 18, Paul states that the wrath of God is against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. He then proceeds to reveal what is at the very root of all sin as he sums up humanity’s “fall” into sin, namely, idolatry. Verse 21 indicates that man was created to honor God as God and to give Him thanks but he chose not to. In verse 23, Paul says that man exchanged the glory of God for created things. In other words, man’s sin was an exalting the creature above the Creator. We were created first to worship and serve God, and then to exercise dominion over all created things (Genesis 1:26-28), but man chose not even to acknowledge God (Romans 1:28). Paul too speaks of sin in terms of idolatry.

So to “love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15), in John’s mind, is to commit idolatry (1 John 5:21). That is the logical connection between those two texts. John knows that if we fail to walk in light, love, and truth, it is because we have put another god before our eyes, that is, we have loved and desired something in the world more than God Himself. Therefore, he closes his epistle by saying, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Defining “worldliness”

John uses “world” in 1 John 2:17 (“and the world is passing away”) to refer to the world system as it is enslaved to idolatry. I want to argue that in John’s mind worldliness is any behavior, thought, or emotion that is controlled by something other than God. Thus, worldliness is not so much an external thing as it is an internal thing. Worldliness is not as external and visible as we would like to believe. I admit that life would be much less complicated if worldliness were, but it is not. If we fail to see that worldliness is essentially a matter of the heart, we will be tempted to call certain behaviors worldly when in reality they are not because the individual is not violating any specific commandment of Scripture and is acting in faith giving thanks to God.

Now obviously this does not apply to that which Scripture expressly forbids (i.e. fornication, adultery, murder, stealing, etc.). We have Scriptural warrant to call those behaviors absolutely worldly. This is clear. But, if a man enjoys the God-instituted marriage bed with his wife but does not do it with thanksgiving in his heart to God, is not that man being worldly? He absolutely is. His enjoyment of a very good thing is being controlled either by the idol of pleasure, power, or another idol. If a man enjoys Classical music while driving home from work in his car but does not do it with thanksgiving in his heart to God, is not that man being worldly? Yes. We are worldly whenever we do not do something, whether it’s eating or drinking or working or playing, to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31), that is, we are worldly whenever we are not being governed by love and desire for God. To be worldly is to exalt something within God’s creation to a place of ultimacy. Whenever we do this, we eating or drinking or working or playing to the glory of that created thing whatever it may be. Glenn Tinder states it like this:

Our need for hope is so urgent, and our concern with transcendence so weak and erring, that hope readily becomes concentrated upon visible, worldly objects. When that happens, what is good becomes evil by being put in the place of God. A finite value is treated as though it were infinite, which is idolatry. In other words, we take things good in themselves, as elements in God’s universe, and try to incorporate them in a universe we ourselves have made and can control. This is what is meant by worldliness. We are all of us spontaneously idolatrous and worldly (The Fabric of Hope: An Essay, 41).

When we identify the logical connection between 1 John 2:15-17 and 1 John 5:21, we learn that John sees the problem of idolatry as the problem of inordinate desire, or to put it another way, the problem of over-desire. We are not just guilty of idolatry when we desire that which is forbidden, but also when we over-desire that which is good. To over-desire a good finite object is essentially to treat it as if it were an infinite good. This, I believe, is the essence of worldliness. David Naugle asks:

Could it not be true that “worldliness” rests not so much in personal temptations to debauchery, but instead lies in “an interpretation of reality that essentially excludes the reality of God from the business of life” (Worldview: The History of a Concept, 278-279)?

In his book, The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It's Tempting to Live As If God Doesn't Exist, Craig Gay argues that:

“The world” that Christians are called to be in but not of is, in effect, an interpretation of the realm of human affairs that places far too much emphasis upon human agency and far too little (if any) upon God’s…The most insidious temptations to “worldliness” today do not necessarily come in the form of enticements to sexual dissipation…but rather in the form of the suggestion that it is possible—and indeed “normal” and expedient—to go about our daily business in the world without giving much thought to God. Under modern, and now “postmodern” conditions…“the world” is an interpretation of human life that is largely void of the living God, and “worldliness” is characterized by practical atheism (The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It's Tempting to Live As If God Doesn't Exist, 4-5).

According to Paul, one of the clearest evidences of idolatry, and therefore worldliness, is the failure to give thanks to God. In his discussion of the idolatry of men, Paul states that although men “knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him” (Romans 1:21). If you recall, I asked the following question a few paragraphs ago: “If a man enjoys the God-instituted marriage bed with his wife but does not do it with thanksgiving in his heart to God, is not that man being worldly?” The clear answer, according to Paul, is a strong “Yes!” Do you ever drink coffee, golf, read a novel, eat potato chips, surf the internet, watch The Lord of the Rings, play with your kids, or enjoy an ice cream cone without thanksgiving in your heart to God? What we need to recognize is how deeply and profoundly worldliness permeates our lives.

Idolatry, Worldliness, and Identity

The purpose of this extended discussion on idolatry and worldliness is to demonstrate that both are a matter of the heart. We must be very careful not to associate worldliness primarily with external behaviors such as going to movies, drinking beer, or listening to rhythm dominant music. This is not to say that most who go to movies, drink beer, and listen to rhythm dominant music are not being worldly. I think we would all agree that most people who engage in these activities are probably doing so in worldliness, but we err if we forget that the biblical worldview says that we cannot single out any part of life whether “sacred activity” or “secular activity” and call the first holy and the second profane. Rather, we must recognize that sin has touched all of life (including church going and milk drinking) and aggressively discern the idols of our hearts regardless of whether we are engaging in “sacred” or “secular” activities. Scripture’s teaching on idolatry and inordinate desire will not allow us to say (1) that all movie going, beer drinking, and listening to rhythm dominant music is worldly, and (2) that all church going and milking drinking is not. Why not? Because worldliness is primarily a matter of the heart, and our idols are not respecters of activities. This biblical understanding of the internal nature of idolatry and worldliness should prevent us (1) from labeling someone worldly just because the individual is involved in an activity that we consider worldly, and (2) from calling any activity not explicitly forbidden in Scripture worldly just because we personally associate it with worldliness.

When we think of worldliness primarily in terms of externals, we most often fail to see how faithfully serving in the church, or being a family man, or engaging in acts of mercy can be shot through with a worldly mindset. Our mindset can be said to be worldly whenever we are getting a sense of identity from something other than God in Christ. For example, would your sense of identity be intact if you were no longer allowed to serve in the church? Would your sense of identity be intact if your children went wayward? Would your sense of identity be intact if you no longer had the physical ability to engage in acts of mercy and because of that became dependent upon the mercy-acts of others? A true sense of identity does not come from what we do no matter how noble our intentions and actions are. It can only be found in what God has done for us in Christ. Whenever we seek our identity in something other than God, we are being worldly.

Seeking our identity in something other than God is essentially what idolatry is. If you read Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians with this relationship between identity and idolatry in mind, you will find that the Corinthians’ many problems stem from seeking their identity outside what God has given them in Christ. Before Paul begins to address the specific sins of which they are guilty, Paul reminds the Corinthians that God is the source of their “life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). The Corinthians were operating functionally from an identity that found its source in the world rather than from the identity they had already been given in Christ. Victor Paul Furnish writes:

Here, as throughout the excursus, Paul means the crucified Christ who is “God’s wisdom and God’s power.” Because they are in Christ, their relationship to the world has changed…Although they remain in this present, passing age, it can no longer claim them as its own. Their identity is now established in their belonging to Christ, their lives are now marked by the sign of the cross (Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians, Victor Paul Furnish, 43).

The Corinthians had functionally adopted an identity offered to them in the world over the identity already provided for them in Jesus. This is idolatry.

Consider what Paul writes in Galatians 6:14. “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Tim Keller comments:

In vv.13b-14, Paul says that the heart of your religion is what you boast in. In other words, what, at bottom, is the reason that you are in a right relationship with God? If the cross is just a help but you have to complete your salvation with good works, it is really your works which make the difference between your being in God or out of God. Therefore, you “boast about your flesh” (v.13b), your own efforts. But if you understand the gospel, you “boast” exclusively and only in the cross. Here we come very close to the modern category of self-image and to the idea of basing your identity in Christ. Our identity is based on what gives us a sense of dignity and significance--what we boast in. Religion leads us to boast in something about us. The gospel leads us to boast in the cross of Jesus. That means our identity in Jesus is confident and secure--we do "boast!”--yet humbly based in a profound sense of our flaws and neediness (Small group study on Galatians).

Concerning “by which the world has been crucified to me,” Keller states:

[Paul] is not talking only of what the people of the world think, though that is certainly involved. He is saying that there is nothing in the world now that has any power over me. Notice he does not say that the world is dead, but that it is dead to him. The gospel destroys its power. Why? As we have been saying all along, if nothing in the world is my righteousness or salvation, if there is nothing in the world that I boast in, then there is nothing in the world that controls me—nothing that I MUST have (Ibid.).

To find our identity in anything other than in what God has provided for us in Jesus is to be both worldly and idolatrous. Why? Because it exalts what is temporal or finite to the place of ultimate value. Identity replacement (replacing our God-given identity for an identity offered to us in the world) is essentially God replacement, which is idolatry (Consider the golden calf incident: Exodus 32).

We must be very careful not to associate worldliness primarily with that which is external. It is clear in Scripture that idolatry is not primarily an external matter. It is primarily a matter of the heart (Ezekiel 20:16; 36-37). The internal existence of idolatry is present long before its external manifestation.

How Do We Keep Ourselves from Idolatry?

What is John’s solution to the cosmic problem of idolatry and worldliness? What hope is there for those who are often “spontaneously idolatrous and worldly”? In other words, is there any encouragement for those who have “idol factory” hearts? Consider the first two verses of chapter 2:

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. [2] He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

To us who are often “spontaneously idolatrous and worldly” John speaks of a reality that is of infinite value. John calls us who will continue to struggle, sometimes fiercely, with the problem of idolatry to look outside of ourselves to the one who has become righteousness for us. Whenever God’s grace brings us to face the painful reality of our idolatrous desires it also reminds us that “we [are having] an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” In commenting on 1 John 2:2, Tim Keller writes:

John is a realist. He knows he and his readers will sin. Having mentioned that we should not sin, he immediately goes on to tell us what recourse we have when we do sin. What is the recourse? Applying the gospel to yourself through faith and repentance. John points to those burdened by sin back to the basic truth of justification by faith. By an act of free grace, God pardons our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight on the basis of what Christ has done on the cross. Through no effort of our own, we are made children of God whom he loves and in whom he delights” (Small group study on 1 John, Tim Keller).

John’s solution to idolatry is found in the one who is our Advocate before the Father, Jesus the Righteous. It is his blood that cleanses us from all iniquity and therefore idolatry (1 John 1:7, 9). It is his righteousness that is the basis for our full acceptance before the Father (idolaters though we be). When John refers to Jesus as “the righteous,” he is saying, in part, that idolatry never found an entrance into Jesus’ heart. When he was tempted by the devil to be idolatrous, Jesus responded, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve’” (Luke 4:8). Jesus never failed to worship and serve the Lord his God. He never failed to find his identity solely in his relationship with the Father. The primary term by which Jesus addressed God the Father was Father. He always lived in the tender and profound awareness of God the Father as his Father. Jesus lived functionally out of “the communion of love” that he enjoyed with the Father and the Spirit. T.F. Torrance writes:

In the Fourth Gospel the teaching of Jesus centers throughout on his intimate relation as the incarnate Son to the Father which he described in terms of their existing and dwelling in one another and of their seeing, knowing and loving of one another. “As the Father knows me, so I know the Father…I and my Father are one…the Father is in me and I am in him” (The Christian Doctrine of God, 164).

The great miracle of the gospel is that because of the work of the God-Man in his incarnate being, living, and dying for us, we are given the right to be called the children of God and are brought to share in the eternal communion of the Godhead’s love. Because of Jesus “the one eternal God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is our God and our Father” (Ibid., 140). Where Adam and Israel failed and we fail to live functionally out of the love of God, Jesus, the God-Man, did not. And in and through his incarnate Person and Work the Son brings us to share in and enjoy his fellowship with the Father (1 John 1:1-4).

When we remember that we are having “an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” at least two things happen. First, we are emboldened to confess and repent of our idolatry knowing with full confidence that our fellowship with God will be restored. Second, we are sanctifyingly reminded afresh of the priceless identity that Jesus is for us before the Father. When we consider the fact that Jesus is our identity before the Father, it’s not that Jesus has successfully offered himself to God the Father as our identity but that God the Father Himself has made Jesus to be our identity. This means that the Father’s disposition toward us is no different than the Son’s disposition toward us. As a matter of fact, they share the same disposition toward us. The Father was not coerced to welcome us into the fellowship of the Trinity. No, the Father Himself is the very source of the life that we have “in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:30). It is through this sanctifying remembrance of the gospel that the attractiveness of idolatry loses its power.

It is only the gospel of our Righteous Advocate with the Father that cuts at the roots of idolatry in our hearts sanctifyingly showing us (1) the futility of seeking to establish our own identity in the world apart from God’s gift in Christ, and (2) the superiority of the identity God has already provided for us in Christ. I am convinced that the view that thinks of worldliness primarily in external terms is due to the failure to understand the breadth and depth of the gospel. It is due to the failure to see that the gospel penetrates to the very center of what is wrong with us as fallen creatures and unbelievably sets things right. The Bible teaches that we are idolaters at the very core of our being. And only the gospel of God is able to restore such a profoundly idolatrous people to a right relationship with God both in position and experience.