Anchor My Faith

World

Scripture: John 3:16

In lesson 114, we listed eight key words of John 3:16 (ESV): “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Those key words are: God, loved, world, gave, Son, whoever, believes, and life. In the previous lesson we covered the word “God”. The next word in the list is “love”, but we will leave that word until last and devote several lessons to it. We will move on to the next word, which is “world”. World is that which God loved, but what does the world represent?

The word “world” is used 272 times in the Bible and can have several different meanings. In the explanation of the parable of the weeds, Jesus told his disciples that the field in which the weeds were found is the world (Matthew 13:38). In John 1:10a (ESV): “[Jesus] was in the world, and the world was made through him.” From verses like these, world means the round planet we call earth on which man has his existence. The devil is described to be the god of this world in 2 Corinthians 4:4. It is where he is active.

John 1:10 (ESV) reads: “[Jesus] was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.” The last phrase of the verse gives us a second usage of world and refers to those who inhabit the earth. The world of mankind is the world God loves in John 3:16, but world also is used to refer to a segment of these people “who do not know him.” Ephesians 4:18 refers to those who “are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” It is this segment of people who are hostile to Jesus Christ and his followers (John 15:18). It is this segment of people, that have not been born from above, who do not know him, that the devil and his demons will use to accomplish their wicked deeds.

There is another category of usage that is important and is seen in the following verses. In 1 John 2:15 we find “the things of the world;” in 1 John 3:17 we find “the world’s goods;” in 1 Corinthians 3:19 we find “the wisdom of this world is folly with God;” in 1 Corinthians 2:12 is found “the spirit of the world;” in 1 Corinthians 7:31 is “the form of this world is passing away;” in 2 Peter 1:4 is “the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire;” and in 2 Peter 2:20 we find “the defilements (or pollutions, or wickedness) of the world.” There are many other verses we could list that show various usages of world.

In our context the world in which God loves, represents the mass of fallen humanity that is spiritually dead and in need of salvation. It is this countless number of perishing people that God loves and is giving his Son for.

Prayer

Father, when I think of the evil, people devise against one another and the suffering that results and when I think of the intense hate people have toward you, I can’t understand the depth of your love for the world. When I think of my own life I wonder why you would love me so much, but the more I experience your love and the more I know about you the closer I want to be to you and the more I want to be like your Son.