What in the "world"?

by Dan Phillips

In my review of the new EEC volume on the letters of John, I remarked on the author's selective lack of curiosity as to John's meaning in using "world" (kosmos) in 1 John 2:2. I noted that Derickson was forced to admit and consider other senses in later passages, though he had treated 2:2 as if the term could only be univocal, and only naked and baseless dogmatism could ever move one to another view.

My aim here is not to solve the difficulties in understanding 1 John 2:2 (on which I've shared a thought or two in the past). Rather, it is to open some minds — pause, to allow gales of laughter and tear-wiping to die down — of those who imagine that Bible readers who affirm Scripture's teachings about God's sovereignty in grace (i.e. "Calvinists") simply make up the notion that "world" could ever mean anything other than "every last man, woman and child who ever has been born or ever will be born."

I'd just like to observe that it is not only impossible to imagine that the word always has that meaning — it is, in fact, questionable whether it ever has that meaning.

My favorite example is John 1:10, which saith: "He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him."

Can we say, "World just means world," and be saying anything meaningful about that passage?

That is, is John really saying, "In the incarnation, the Logos was in the presence of every last man, woman and child who ever has been born or ever will be born, and every last man, woman and child who ever has been born or ever will be born was made through him, yet every last man, woman and child who ever has been born or ever will be born did not know him"?

Unlikely.

Rather, is not John saying "Jesus came to be in the society of mankind [Sense 1], and though the entire physical universe [Sense 2] had been made through him [cf. v. 3], yet the anti-God Satanic system within it [Sense 3] did not know him"? If so, then, do we not have three senses of the same word, kosmos, in a single verse?

Or how about John 3:17, the verse after the Arminians' favorite (imagined) trump-card verse? It reads, "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." Again, a threefold use of kosmos. Does John really mean, "For God did not send his Son in the Incarnation to every last man, woman and child who ever has been born or ever will be born to condemn every last man, woman and child who ever has been born or ever will be born but in order that every last man, woman and child who ever has been born or ever will be born will be saved through him"? If so, how come most of the world never got a glimpse of Jesus or heard a word He said (and still haven't), and how come so many people are in fact and will in fact remain lost?


Or take 1 John 5:19, which has virtually the same wording as 2:2 — "We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one." So, really? Is John actually saying that "every last man, woman and child who ever has been born or ever will be born lies in the power of the evil one"? What about John himself, and the believers to whom he wrote? John certainly didn't think they all lay under the power of Satan (cf. 2:13-14). As for Paul, he thought he was (and we are) "in Christ," not in the evil one.

We shall come to real misery when we try to apply this to John 17:9, where our Lord prays, "I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours." Is He saying, " I am praying for them. I am not praying for every last man, woman and child who ever has been born or ever will be born but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours." But aren't "those whom you have given me" people who have been born?

I could easily go on, and on, and on and on and on. Of course, no human power can dislodge dogma from the grips of its worshipers, but one may dare to hope that all fair-minded readers will grant the one point I'm making: the word kosmos is not univocal, and it does not "just mean 'world,' period." It means different things in different contexts.

What that specific meaning is must be determined by serious exegesis, and not by bilious assertion and airy, impatient dismissal.

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