The ancient Greek word kosmos, translated “world” in our New Testament, refers not to the natural world but to the man-made system of things, the World Order. Christians love God’s Creation but reject the world system, which is intrinsically hostile to God. The inspired writers of the New Testament emphasize that we cannot love both the world system and the Father.
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the things of the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” (1 John 2:15, 16)
“…Do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” (James 4:4)
Jesus told his disciples they were “in the world” but that they were not “of the world.” He was saying that their origin was no longer the world they had been born into but one that was spiritual and from which they had been “born again” (John 3:7; 17:11, 16). The “world” Jesus warned against is the collective sum of opinions, ideas, traditions and superstitions that unsaved people accept. The world system – the way it does things – forms the unconscious attitude of non-Christians, and it is this that prompts their behaviour.
William Barclay, the Christian theologian, wrote, “The world always suspects nonconformity. The world likes a pattern; it likes to be able to label a person and to classify him and to put him into a pigeon-hole. And anyone who does not conform to the pattern will certainly meet trouble.” (The Gospel of John, Vol. 2, p. 217)
Zeitgeist is a German word, and means “spirit of the age”. It refers to a period of time during which certain influences change a nation, a continent, or the world as a whole. For example, the spirit of the 1960s was the Beatles, Indian gurus, mind-bending drugs, free ‘love’, and “It feels so right it can’t be wrong” situational ethics did that and more. The first half of George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” repeats “hallelujah” many times, but its latter part repeats “hare krishna” as many times. The sweet, inductive tune draws those who love it from an expression of praise to the true God into a chant to a pagan one.
A video on YouTube entitled Zeitgeist purports to prove that Jesus Christ is no more than a later version of a number of ancient pagan god-figures. The video leaves out a lot of information about various pagan gods that would not fit its theory. It is unclear what zeitgeist means in the context of the video; perhaps it is trying to make a case for Jesus Christ being a remnant of a fading zeitgeist which it sees as irrelevant to the 21st century.
Many young people would view organized religion as fitting that description. But those who have the Spirit of God know that the Lord does not change and that Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) Those who do not have the Spirit of God do not belong to Him (Romans 8:9). The New Testament makes it quite clear that we cannot love God and also love the Zeitgeist of this (or any other) age. God is the Eternal, and as such is not to be compared to any worldly concept, any age, any system devised by Man.
Some helpful stats: the Greek word kosmos is translated “world” seventy-nine times in the Gospel of John. To appeciate how concerned Jesus was about the influence of the world system on his disciples, we need only count the number of times he mentions “world” in the chapters leading up to his arrest. In John 14,”world” occurs six times; in John 15, six times; in John 16, eight times; and in John 17, nineteen times!
The Lord’s concern for his disciples intensified as the time of his death drew near. His final prayer in John, chapter 17, refers to “the world” many times – and the entire chapter repeats it nineteen times in just twenty-six verses. John 18 has only four references – an indication that the great burden Jesus had carried lifted from him when he “prayed through” the temptation to live, into his Father’s will for him to die.
In contrast to the frequent use of “world” the phrase “prince of this world” – the Devil – is used only twice. How many Christians do you know who are more concerned about the world than the Devil? Of course, the Devil uses the world to try to snare Christians, just as he used its attractions to tempt Jesus. But Christians who would never dream of serving Satan serve the system without as much as a thought. That’s why John’s Gospel stresses that we cannot love the world and love God at the same time.
“Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” and “Whosoever is born of God overcomes the world.” (I John 5:1, 4) Every believer is born to overcome! “Who is he that overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (I John 5:5) Our faith gives us the victory over the world; through faith, those who are “born from above” are world-beaters!
The world is rapidly approaching Zero Hour, and when Jesus appears the whole system will be strewn like a pack of cards in a gust of wind. The present zeitgeist of sport, greed, lust, and ‘film-star’ idolatry will be swept into judgement.
This ought to be sobering for those who think that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is no longer relevant to our present age. They either don’t know or have forgotten that the first coming of Jesus occurred after 400 years of prophetic silence. “He came to his own but his own did not receive him.”
But Paul writes that he came “in the fullness of time” –at a point in time expected by only those who were ready and waiting. I hope and pray that you will be ready and waiting for the next and final time, which current events indicate could be at any moment.