I John 4 v 7 – 21 – The world (2)

The Scripture references that some Christians use to support the idea of the obliteration of planet earth refer to ‘mountains being levelled’, ‘islands being removed’, ‘earthquakes’, ‘fire being poured down’, ‘stars falling to earth’ and so on. But all of these are metaphors that point to aspects of the collapse of present orderly systems in the world as well as those in the unseen realm of the heavens. These metaphors point to the collapse of government administrations, the failing of economic infrastructures and world markets, the removal or failure of monarchs and leaders in the world, as well as the removal of rebellious messengers in the heavenly realm. They do not describe the literal destruction of planet earth.

The rule of Jesus the Messiah as King of kings who will rule with an iron rod to judge the nations will be inaugurated with pouring out of God’s wrath on the Promised Land, Israel and it leaders. The Hebrew Prophets refer to this as the ‘Day of YHVH’ or the ‘Day of the Lord’. Taking into consideration what I have been saying in the last few posts, look at what Peter has to say. ‘But the ‘Day of the Lord’ will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass by with a great rushing noise, then fundamental elements will be unleashed, burning with great heat and the earth/land and the activities done in it will be discovered. 11 Of what kind ought you to be – all these things being untied and loosened in this way? Within pure and godly behaviour, 12 waiting for and urging on the nearness of God through which the heavens will burn and be released, and the orderly arrangement, burning with heat, will melt away. 13 However, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth/land in keeping with His promise, in which righteousness dwells’ (II Peter 3 v 10 – 13).

In the Book of Revelation we read of the ‘New Jerusalem’ coming down from out of the heavenly realm. The ‘New Jerusalem’ will be the new orderly system of divinely delegated rule and authority on earth – the locus of this delegated authority on earth being the literal Jerusalem in the Promised Land. The delegated rulers will be those selected by God and redeemed through the Messiah – thoroughly washed, transformed and incorruptible – a royal priesthood prepared and made ready to serve God both in the heavenly realms and on earth – since heaven and earth will draw nearer to one another. (This is one reason why flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom). In due course all opposing authorities and powers – all rebellion and the ‘restless sea’ of discontented ungodly people opposing God will be picked out and separated away, such that there will be no more ‘sea’.

I John 4 v 7 – 21 – Back to the core theme of assurance

‘We know that we are remaining within Him and He within us within this: because from out of His breath that He is placing within us 14 we also perceive and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son, saviour of the orderly arrangement of the world’ (I John 4 v 13, 14). It is from out of the breath that God continues to place within the Christians heart that they are enabled to perceive and carry faithful testimony to two things:

First, the Father has sent His Son. John has already explained that in terms of our own fleshly constitution and natural strength and ability, we cannot bear this testimony or be persuaded of this. Neither can any arrangement or organization in the world engender this heartfelt testimony and persuasion. Heartfelt acknowledgement and persuasion leading a person to bear witness and testify that the Father has sent His Son is a distinctive quality that is unique to Christians who have the breath of God.

Second, His Son is the saviour or deliverer of the orderly arrangement of the world. There is a popular perspective among some Christians that Jesus came into the world to be the saviour of Christians. This view states that Jesus came to be the deliverer of those whom God selected before the foundation of the world, such that the rest of humanity is left to face a justly deserved eternity in Hell where they will endure the everlasting punishment that their sins have earned. Some variations within this perspective propose that the world – by which they mean planet earth – will be fully destroyed and eradicated, such that what is left is a ‘Final State’ where Christians are delivered and placed in the incorporeal realm of heaven whilst ‘outsiders’ are condemned and placed in the incorporeal realm of hell for all eternity.

I consider that Jesus and his Apostles did not say this at all, and John does not present that kind of proposal here. Rather, John says that God’s plan is for the reconciliation and deliverance of the orderly arrangement of the world (Verse 14). Let’s spend a moment to analyse what the end of verse 14 is saying. First it says that Christians perceive and bear testimony to Jesus as being the saviour or deliverer. The Greek word is ‘sótér’ meaning ‘deliverer’ and this is from the word ‘sozō’ which itself is from ‘sōs’ which means ‘safe, rescued’. The word ‘sozō’ therefore properly means to ‘deliver and rescue out of danger and into safety’. Sometimes this is expanded so that it means to ‘make well, heal, restore to health’; to ‘make whole’. The word ‘Saviour’ occurs only here in John’s letter, and in John’s gospel it occurs only in John 4 v 42. Elsewhere in Scripture the word ‘saviour’ is applied both to God, (I Timothy 1 v 1; I Timothy 2 v 3; Titus 1 v 3; Titus 2 v 10; Titus 3 v 4; Jude 1 v 25), as well as to Jesus, His anointed deliverer, (Luke 2 v 11; Acts 5 v 31; Acts 13 v 23; II Timothy 1 v 10; Titus 1 v 4, Ephesians 5 v 23; Philippians 3 v 20). The word is not found in Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, or Thessalonians.

Jesus is sent by the Father as His chosen and anointed deliverer – as saviour – to deliver and rescue out of danger and to place into safety, to make safe and well, to heal and restore…but to rescue and restore what and/or who? Jesus has been chosen and anointed by God to deliver, rescue, and restore to health the orderly arrangement of the world, the organized system of the world. This deliverance and restoration is part of God’s plan of reconciliation. The Greek word usually translated into English as ‘world’ is ‘kósmos’, which literally means ‘something ordered’ – an ‘ordered system’. In Greek writings since Homer it means an apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, or ordered arrangement or system. Thus the word ‘kosmos’ tends to include the aggregate of social, political, religious and economic organizations, structures and institutions in the world. ‘Kósmos’ is possibly from the base word ‘komizo’ meaning ‘orderly arrangement’. We get the English word ‘cosmetics’ from this and thus there is the sense of the organized, ordered decoration and adorning of values, organizations and systems of the world.

I John 4 v 7 – 21 – The Love of God brought to completion (2)

How do we reconcile the unpleasant events and behaviours that are happening in the world with the love of God? In what way can God be described as ‘Love’? How exactly is the love of God revealed? How does God’s love sit alongside His Justice? How does God love the world? John goes on to tell us.

‘The love of God continues to be revealed among us within this – that God has sent His one and only Son to penetrate into the orderly system of the world in order that we live through him. 10 Love is within this – not that we loved God but that He loved us and set apart His Son as a sacrifice appeasing His anger with full regard to our self-forfeiture and missing the mark’ (I John 4 v 9, 10). The love of God is not revealed at present by means of the existence of an idyllic world. It is certainly not revealed in the behaviours of those enslaved to the impulses and raw energies of their fleshly constitution. Those actions lead to death, divine disapproval and condemnation. It is clear that God does not love the orderly system of the world in the sense of making present day circumstances and situations pleasant, refreshing, harmonious and fair for ‘outsiders’ or Christians. Rather, God is angry with the ordered system of the world although at this present time He is holding back and restraining the full extent of His judicial anger so that people come to turn around from their divinely disapproved-of behaviours and turn to Him.

In parallel to God’s judicial anger and condemnation, the love of God continues to be revealed to the worlds and especially to Christians. Christians are enabled to perceive and be persuaded that God has sent His only son into the orderly arrangement of the world, in the likeness of physical flesh. Those whom God selects by way of His free gift are made alive to these realities and they continue to live through him. But Christians are not people who came to love God through their own ability, such that then, as result, God decided to deliver them from judicial condemnation. All Christians were once ‘outsiders’ who were blind and deaf to God, their hearts hardened in insensitive opposition to Him such that they had no ability or strength within themselves to turn and come to Him. Like everyone else they were enslaved to the impulses and raw passions of their fleshly constitution – their body of death. It was a body of death because whilst they were in this state of insensitivity and opposition to God – blind, deaf and in error because of their faulty reasoning and impulses that were leading them in a vicious circle of self-forfeiture. Because their divinely disapproved-of behaviour was aggravating their ignorance, insensitivity and opposition. It was whilst they were in this condition that God showed practical, beneficial love towards them, brought them forth and reconciled them to Himself through His chosen and anointed deliverer, His only son, Jesus. This work of reconciliation was brought about from out of God’s love and working energy at a time when those whom God had selected were in a powerless condition. Furthermore, the deliverance that He secured by no means simply dismissed, overlooked or ignored His righteous judicial condemnation. Rather, His righteous judicial anger was appeased or satisfied by means of His set apart anointed Son submitting himself as a sacrifice in order to pay the redemption price, the price to buy them back, as required by God’s Justice, purity and cleanliness. The precious life-blood of the sacrificial Lamb of God – Jesus – constitutes the life-giving substitute price that is required to be paid to remove their self-forfeiture and deliver them from out of divine judicial condemnation. This is how the love of God and His Messiah is revealed to the world.

But ‘outsiders’ continue to fail to perceive this or fail to be persuaded to the point of obedience – to the point of repentance and entrustment in the Messiah. Instead of looking to the Messiah they look instead at the suffering and injustice in the world and then they blame or dismiss God. Instead of looking to the Messiah they look instead at the failings and errors of Christians and their leaders and as a result they dismiss them as deluded hypocrites, rejecting the Messiah along with them. This happens even with the wisest and cleverest ‘outsiders’ – with teachers, academics, scholars and the philosophers of the world. The inner ‘wisdom’ of human nature and the education, philosophies and values of the orderly arrangement of the world do not lead people to the light of truth of Jesus.

I John 4 v 7 – 21 – The Love of God brought to completion (1)

‘Beloved, we should be loving one another because love is from out of God and everyone loving has been brought forth from out of God and knows and recognizes God. 8 The one not loving has not known and recognized God because God is love’ (I John 4 v 7, 8). The polarizing difference of perception and orientation between Christians and ‘outsiders’ with regards to the Messiah serves to provide motivation for Christians to show beneficial, practical love to one another. This is because Christians belong together as members of the Kingdom all of whom know and recognize God and His Messiah. Every Christian shares this illuminated knowledge, recognition and perception.

More than this, Christians also know and appreciate in experience that love comes from out of God. Indeed, John says that God is love. Love is the primary quality or characteristic of the relationship between God and His creation. It can be reasonably argued that God is so Transcendent as to have no attributes – God is not this or that – God Transcends such delimiting boundaries and categories. This means that what many Christians tend to think of as being God’s attributes are really descriptors of the relationship between Transcendent Infinite God and His finite creation. It’s a technical point, but whether attribute or relationship descriptor, the meaning is clear. As God is the Source of Light, so in the same way He is the Source of Love.

‘Outsiders’ often look around at the world around them and see the poverty, suffering, exploitation, illness and violence and so they ask, ‘How can a God of love allow all this pain and suffering?’ What they fail to see in the darkness of ignorance is that God is handing people over to their fleshly desires and to their erroneous and futile thinking, as Paul tells us in Romans chapter one. They fail to see that in general terms, this suffering, illness, self-serving violence, greed, permissiveness and its consequences, together with adverse situations and circumstances such as so-called ‘natural disasters’, all constitute part of the judgement of God that is already being revealed and that can clearly be seen. God’s Love does not negate or bypass His Purity, Cleanliness and Judgment.

But faced with the adversity, inequality and suffering in the world, ‘outsiders’ dismiss the idea that ‘God is Love’ and ridicule this concept or often angrily protest against it to the point of denying that God exists. Instead of being humbled they set their faces against God and harden their hearts.

I John 2 v 17 – The present world order is passing away

Having introduced loving and embracing the orderly system of the world that is not from the Father as being behaviour that negates or works against a Christian’s confident anticipation of salvation, John then anticipates and counters a concern that some Christians have, namely that the orderly arrangement of the world seems to be fairly permanent and well established. John says that ‘The world order with its eager passion is passing away, but that manufacturing the will of God is remaining into the age’, (I John 2 v 17).

The successful work by Jesus of securing deliverance through his sacrificial death and the shedding of his blood as the Lamb of God means that now that he is both resurrected and honoured above every name within the heavenly realm. The prophets declare that at the end of the present gospel age the Messiah will take up the mantle of kingship, becoming King of kings, and as such he will judge the nations and bring all powers and authorities, both in the orderly arrangement of the world and in the orderly system in the heavenly realms, under his rule. Thus John agrees when he says that the present orderly system of the world is passing away. Despite what some may see as appearances to the contrary, the present orderly system and arrangement of the world, with its eager passion, is not permanent. Rather it is passing away.

It is clear however that the existing world order is clearly not wilting away into a gradual decline and decay. If we look back over the last 2000 years or more we do not see a gradual diminishing of the worldly arrangement and its eager, passionate desires. Nevertheless, the world order is passing away. God’s plan of deliverance and the establishment of a new order is underway and the means of deliverance has been secured by the Messiah at Calvary. People are being effectively summoned to deliverance by God and being placed in God’s household, into a royal priesthood.

The second half of this verse is slightly awkward to translate from the Greek, but I consider that the correct translation is – ‘but that manufacturing the will of God is remaining into the age’. Many translations introduce the idea of Christians in this part of the verse, as if the contrast is between the ‘world order’ on one hand and ‘Christians’ on the other. But I propose that the contrast is between two ‘orders’, ‘arrangements’ or ‘systems’, namely the ‘present world order’ on one hand, and ‘the age’ on the other hand. The axe has been laid to the root of the present world order – it is perishing, but the manufacture or construction of the will and purpose of God remains and penetrates into ‘the age’.

Once again, John agrees with the other Apostles, because Paul says the same. Constructing the passionate desires of the flesh and embracing the values and behaviours of the world leads to loss and decay because the worldly order is perishing. That which is constructed will be lost, it will earn no benefit, but rather condemnation. By contrast, constructing the purposes of God has permanence that remains and penetrates into ‘the age’. This ‘age’ will take the form of the Millennium Reign when the Messiah will take up the mantle of kingship, becoming King of kings. Such constructions will earn the reward of a portion of the allotted inheritance. That which constructs the will of God will penetrate into the Millennium Age.

The Millennium Reign will be inaugurated when the full number of Gentiles have been summoned. The Prophets declare that its inauguration will be evidenced by a generation-long ungodly rebellion, by civil war within Israel that will that will lead to its defeat. This will constitute part of the pouring out of God’s passionate wrath in what the Hebrew prophets call the ‘Day of the Lord’. Since the division of the Jewish people into two kingdoms and their subsequent overthrow by Assyria and Babylon, God has given up His chosen people, the Jews, to their own passions, desires and wayward thoughts. This period of darkness for Jews continues down to this day and has seen them reject their promised Messiah. But the Hebrew Prophets who speak of this dark period also speak of a time of restoration and reconciliation. The Millennium Reign will see the restoration of the remnant of Jews from out of their darkness of ignorance, such that they will be established in the Promised Land that will become the focal point of the Messiah’s sovereign governance on earth. As King of kings, Jesus will rule with an iron rod, judging the nations. This means that the present gospel age constitutes the last age, the last days or last season before Jesus takes up his role as King.