Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 John 2:15

He is dealing with believers who have a large experience of the grace of Christ, and on this fact he proceeds to base an appeal, a call to further advancement and higher attainment: “Love not the world”. Yet God “loved the world” (John 3:16). Observe that the Apostle does not say that the world is evil. It is God's world, and “God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). His meaning is: “The things in the world are transient. Do not set your affection on them, else you will sustain a bitter disappointment. The world is a good and beautiful gift of God, to be used with joy and gratitude; but it is not the supreme end, it is not the home of our souls”. “Let the Spirit of God be in thee,” says St. Augustine, “that thou mayest see that all these things are good; but woe to thee if thou love created things and forsake the Creator!… If a bridegroom made a ring for his bride and, when she got it, she were fonder of the ring than of the bridegroom who made the ring for her, would not an adulterous spirit be detected in the very gift of the bridegroom, however she might love what the bridegroom gave?… God gave thee all those things: love Him who made them. There is more which He would fain give thee, to wit, Himself who made these things”. Again: “There are two loves of the world and of God. If the love of the world inhabit, there is no way for the love of God to enter. Let the love of the world retire and that of God inhabit, let the better get room.… Shut out the evil love of the world, that thou mayest be filled by the love of God. Thou art a vessel, but thou art still full; pour out what thou hast, that thou mayest get what thou hast not”. ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Πατρός, like ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ (1 John 2:5), either (1) “love for the Father,” in antithesis to ἀγαπᾷ τὸν κόσμον, or (2) “the love which the Father feels for us”. In fact the one implies the other. The sense of the Father's love for us awakens in us an answering love for Him. Cf. 1 John 4:19.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 John 2:15

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