World

VIEW:16 DATA:01-04-2020

WORLD
1. In OT.—In general it may be said that the normal expression for such conception of the Universe as the Hebrews had reached is ‘the heavens and the earth’ (Gen_1:1, Psa_89:11, 1Ch_16:31), and that ‘world’ is an equivalent expression for ‘earth.’ So far as there is a difference, the ‘world’ is rather the fruitful, habitable earth, e.g., ‘the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein’ (Psa_24:1; cf. Psa_50:12; Psa_90:2, Isa_34:1). The religious sentiments awakened by the contemplation of Nature appear also in references to the heavens and the sea (e.g. Psa_8:1-9; Psa_19:1-14, Job_38:1-41; Job_39:1-30). But of the ethical depreciation of the world, so prominent in some NT writings, there are in the OT few traces. The ‘world’ is to be judged in righteousness (Psa_9:8; Psa_96:13; Psa_98:9), and punished for its evil (Isa_13:11). The transient character of its riches and pleasures, with the consequent folly of absorption in them, is perhaps indicated by another Hebrew word (meaning ‘duration‘; cf. ‘æon’ below) rendered ‘world’ at Psa_17:14 (‘men of the world, whose portion is in this life,’ cf. RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ); also by the same word at Psa_49:1 (see the whole Psalm). A word of similar meaning is rendered ‘world’ in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] at Psa_73:12, Ecc_3:11, but RV [Note: Revised Version.] retains ‘world’ only in the latter passage, and gives quite another turn to the sense.
The ethical aspect of the ‘world’ does not receive any fresh emphasis in the Apocrypha, though in the Book of Wisdom both the scientific interest in regard to the world and the impulses of natural religion are notably quickened (Wis_7:17-22; Wis_9:9; Wis_11:17; Wis_11:22; Wis_13:1-9, cf. Sir_17:1-32; Sir_18:1-33). There is ample contrast between the stability of the righteous and the vanity of ungodly prosperity (e.g. Wis_1:1-16; Wis_2:1-24; Wis_3:1-19; Wis_4:1-20; Wis_5:1-23), but the latter is not identified with the ‘world.’ It is, noticeable that in the Apocrypha the word kosmos, which in the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] means ‘adornment,’ has reached its sense of ‘world,’ conceived as a beautiful order; in the NT this becomes the prevalent word.
2. In NT.—(1) aiôn (¿on), ‘age,’ is used of the world in its time-aspect: human history is conceived as made up of ages, successive and contemporaneous, converging to and consummated in the Christ. These in their sum constitute the ‘world’: God is their Maker (Heb_1:2; Heb_11:3 [AV [Note: Authorized Version.] and RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘worlds,’ but ‘world’ better represents the thought]) and their King (1Ti_1:17 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] , Rev_15:3 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). Hence the phrases ‘since the world began,’ lit. ‘from the age’ (Luk_1:70, Joh_9:32, Act_15:18); and ‘the end of the world,’ lit. the ‘consummation of the age’ (Mat_13:39-40; Mat_13:49; Mat_24:3; Mat_28:20) or ‘of the ages’ (Heb_9:26). All the ‘ends of the world’ so conceived meet in the Christian era (1Co_10:11 [RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘ages’], cf. Heb_11:39-40). Under this time-aspect, also, the NT writers identify their own age with the ‘world,’ and this, as not merely actual but as typical, is set in new lights. As ‘this world,’ ‘this present world,’ it is contrasted explicitly or implicitly with ‘the world to come’ (Mat_12:32, Mar_10:30, Luk_18:30; Luk_20:34-35, Eph_1:21; Eph_2:7, 2Ti_4:10, Tit_2:12, Heb_6:5).
In some of these passages there is implied a moral condemnation of this world; elsewhere this receives deeper emphasis. ‘The cares of the world choke the word’ (Mat_13:22, Mar_4:19): the ‘sons of this world’ are contrasted with the ‘sons of light’ (Luk_16:8; cf. Rom_12:2, Eph_2:2 ‘according to the transient fashion [æon] of this material world [kosmos]’). This world is evil (Gal_1:4), its wisdom is naught (1Co_1:20; 1Co_2:6; 1Co_3:18), its rulers crucified the Lord of glory (1Co_2:8); finally, it is the ‘god of this world’ that has blinded the minds of the unhelieving (2Co_4:4). This ethical use of æon = ‘world’ is not found in the Johannine writings.
(2) But the most frequent term for ‘world’ is kosmos, which is sometimes extended in meaning to the material universe, as in the phrases ‘from the beginning (‘foundation,’ ‘creation’) of the world’ (e.g. Mat_24:21; Mat_25:34, Heb_4:6, Rom_1:20; for the implied thought of Divine creation cf. Act_14:17; Act_17:24). More commonly, however, the word is used of the earth, and especially the earth as the abode of man. To ‘gain the whole world’ is to become possessed of all possible material wealth and earthly power (Mat_16:26, Mar_8:36, Luk_9:25). Because ‘sin entered into the world’ (Rom_5:12), it is become the scene of the Incarnation and the object of Redemption (2Co_5:19, 1Ti_1:15, Heb_10:5, Joh_1:9-10; Joh_1:29; Joh_3:16-17; Joh_12:47), the scene also, alien but inevitable, of the Christian disciple’s life and discipline, mission and victory (Mat_5:14; Mat_13:38; Mat_26:13, Joh_17:16, Rom_1:8, 1Co_3:22; 1Co_4:9; 1Co_5:10; 1Co_7:31, 2Co_1:12, Php_2:16, Col_1:8, 1Pe_5:9, Rev_11:15). From this virtual identification of the ‘world’ with mankind, and mankind as separated from and hostile to God, there comes the ethical signification of the word specially developed in the writings of St. Paul and St. John.
(a) The Epp. of St. Paul. To the Galatians St. Paul describes the pre-Christian life as slavery to ‘the rudiments of the world’ (Gal_4:3, cf. Gal_4:9); through Christ the world is crucified to him and he to the world (Gal_6:14). Both thoughts recur in Colossians (Gal_2:8; Gal_2:20). In writing to the Corinthians he condemns the wisdom, the passing fashion, the care, the sorrow of the world (1Co_1:20-21; 1Co_3:19; 1Co_7:31; 1Co_7:33-34, 2Co_7:10; cf. aiôn above), and declares the Divine choice to rest upon all that the world least esteems (1Co_1:27-28, cf. Jam_2:5). This perception of the true worth of things is granted to those who ‘received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God’ (1Co_2:12); hence ‘the saints shall judge the world’ (1Co_6:2; cf. 1Co_11:32). In the argument of Romans the thought of the Divine judgment of the ‘world’ has incidental place, but in the climax St. Paul conceives of the ‘fall’ of Israel as leading to ‘the riches of the world,’ and of the ‘casting away’ of them as the ‘reconciling of the world’ (1Co_11:12; 1Co_11:16; cf. 1Co_11:32 and 1Co_5:12-13). What. St. Paul condemns, then, is hardly the world as essentially evil, but the world-spirit which leads to evil by its neglect of the unseen and eternal, and by its blindness to the true scale of values revealed in the gospel of Christ crucified.
(b) The Gospel and First Ep. of St. John. In these two writings occur more than half the NT instances of the word we are considering. That is, the term kosmos is characteristic of St. John, and, setting aside his frequent use of it in the non-ethical sense, especially as the sphere of the incarnation and saving work of Christ, we find an ethical conception of the ‘world’ deeper in its shadows than that of St. Paul. It is true that Jesus is the Light of the world (Joh_1:9; Joh_3:19; Joh_8:12; Joh_9:5; Joh_12:46), its Life-giver (Joh_6:33; Joh_6:51), its Saviour (Joh_3:17, Joh_4:42, Joh_12:47); yet ‘the world knew him not’ (Joh_1:10), and the Fourth Gospel sets out its story of His persistent rejection by the world, in language which at times seems to pass beyond a mere record of contemporary unbelief, and almost to assert an essential dualism of good and evil (Joh_7:7, Joh_8:23, Joh_9:39, Joh_12:31, Joh_14:17; Joh_14:30, Joh_16:11; Joh_16:20). Here the ‘world’ is not simply the worldly spirit, but the great mass of mankind in deadly hostility to Christ and His teaching. In contrast stand His disciples, his own which were in the world’ (Joh_13:1), chosen out of the world (Joh_15:18, cf. Joh_17:6), but not of it, and therefore hated as He was hated (Joh_15:18-19, Joh_17:14; Joh_17:16). For them He intercedes as He does not for the world (Joh_17:8). In the 1st Ep. of St. John the same sharp contrasts meet us. The world lies within the scope of God’s redemptive purpose in Jesus Christ (Joh_2:2, Joh_4:14), yet it stands opposed to His followers as a thing wholly evil, with which they may hold no traffic (Joh_2:15-17, cf. Jam_4:4), knowing them not and hating them (Jam_3:1; Jam_3:13). It is conceived as under the sway of a power essentially hostile to God,—the antichrist (Jam_2:18; Jam_2:22, Jam_4:3; cf. ‘the prince of this world’ Joh_12:31; Joh_14:30; Joh_16:11)—and is therefore not to be entreated and persuaded, but fought and overcome by the ‘greater one’ who is in the disciple of Christ (Joh_4:4, Joh_5:4-5). Faith ‘overcometh the world,’ but St. John reserves for his closing words his darkest expression of a persistent dualism of good and evil, light and darkness: ‘We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one’ (Joh_5:19).
The idiomatic uses of the term ‘world’ in Joh_7:4; Joh_12:19, 1Jn_3:17 are sufficiently obvious. For the difficult expression ‘the world of iniquity’ applied to the tongue (Jam_3:6), see the Commentaries.
S. W. Green.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

In the Bible, as in ordinary speech, ‘the world’ may refer to the physical world of God’s creation or to the people who inhabit that world (Psa_90:2; Psa_98:7; Psa_98:9; Mat_25:34; Joh_3:16; Rom_10:18). Because of sin, the world has become a place where Satan rules in people’s lives (Joh_12:31; Rom_5:12; 2Co_4:4; 1Jn_5:19). Therefore, the Bible frequently speaks of the present world, or present age, as something that is evil and that is opposed to God (Joh_7:7; Joh_17:25; Jam_4:4; 1Jn_2:15). The world in this sense is the subject of the present article – the world of sinful human beings along with all the wrong attitudes that characterize them.
Living in the world
Chief among the characteristics of the ordinary (unbelieving) people of the world are covetousness and pride. Their lives are governed according to what they want to get or want to do, without any regard for God (1Jn_2:16). This is worldliness, and it is an evil that the Bible warns Christians against. The lives of Christians are to be governed by an attitude that trusts in God, not in personal possessions or ambitions. To be constantly worried about such things is the attitude of unbelievers, not of Christians (Mat_6:31-32).
The temptation to worldliness may not lie in the more obviously sinful things of life. It may lie in those everyday things that are not sinful in themselves at all, such as food, work, possessions and concern for the future. These things can become wrong when people have wrong attitudes towards them (cf. Rom_1:25).
If Christians cannot see the relation that these things have to the life of faith in God, their attitude to them can readily become worldly. Ambition can very easily become selfish ambition, wisdom become worldly wisdom, and thoughts for the future become faithless anxiety (Mat_6:33-34; 1Co_1:20; 1Co_2:7-8; 1Co_2:12; 1Co_3:19; Jam_3:13-17; Jam_4:13-17).
Worldly people are those whose values in life are determined by what they understand of the world they see around them. Godly people are those whose values are determined by what they understand of God (2Co_4:18; 2Co_5:7; 1Jn_2:17). This does not mean that the godly must rid themselves of all possessions, power and status. But it does mean that they will not pursue those things at all costs, and will even sacrifice them when they conflict with their commitment to Jesus Christ (Mat_19:29; Gal_2:20; Gal_6:14; Php_3:7-8).
Overcoming the world
Some Christians build a set of laws for themselves to live by, hoping that the laws will prevent them from doing what they believe to be worldly. But the very act of making laws to live by is worldly. Such people refuse to trust in the indwelling Spirit to direct their enjoyment of the freedom God has given them. Instead they trust in the methods of those who still ‘belong to the world’, who still live ‘in the flesh’ (Gal_3:3; Gal_4:9-11; Gal_5:1; Col_2:20-23; see FLESH). The Christians’ liberty does not mean they are free to commit sin (Rom_6:1-2; Rom_6:12; Gal_5:13; 1Jn_3:4-6), but neither do human laws enable them to overcome sin (Col_2:23; see FREEDOM).
Christians cannot overcome the temptations of the world by using the methods of the world. They can overcome them only by trusting in the power of Christ, who has conquered Satan, the prince of the world (Joh_12:31; Joh_14:30; Joh_16:11; Joh_16:33; 1Jn_5:4-5; see TEMPTATION). One day this same Christ will return, to free the world completely from Satan’s power (Rev_19:16; Rev_20:2-3; Rev_20:10).
Meanwhile Christians have to live in an evil world, while not joining in the sins of the world. They may find that, as a result, the people of the world will hate them (Joh_15:18; Joh_17:14-17). But they must remain faithful to Christ and keep themselves from being corrupted by the world’s evil. Only in this way can they properly carry out their function of delivering people from the corruption of sin (Mat_5:13-16; Joh_17:18; Jam_1:27).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.


is the English term by which our translators have rendered four Hebrew words (in addition to the general term אֶרֶוֹ, erits, "earth"):
1. חֶדֶל, chedel, which is erroneously supposed by some to have arisen by transposition of letters from חלד, comes from a root which signifies "to rest," to "discontinue," and hence "to cease from life," "to be at rest;" and as a noun, "the place of rest," "the grave." 'The word occurs in the complaint uttered by Hezekiah, when in prospect of dissolution, and when he contemplates his state among the inhabitants, not of the upper, but the lower world (Isa_38:11); thus combining with many other passages to show that the Hebrews, probably borrowing the idea from the Egyptian tombs, had a vague conception of some shadowy state where the manes of their departed friends lay at rest in their ashes, retaining only an indefinable personality in a land of darkness and "the shadow of death" (Job_10:21-22).
2. חֶלֶד, cheled (Psalm 42:14), means "to conceal," and derivatively "any hidden thing," hence "age," "antiquity," "remote and hidden ages;" also "the world," as the hidden or unknown thing (Psa_49:1).
3. עוֹלָם, 'olam (in the New Test. αἰών), the root-signification of which is "to hide," denotes a very remote, indefinite, and therefore unknown period in time past or time to come, which metaphysicians call eternity a parte ante, and eternity a, parte post (Ecc_3:11). In Psa_73:12, it is rendered "world;" but in this and in the previous instance it may be questioned whether the natural creation is really meant, and not rather "the world" in our metaphorical use of the term, as denoting the intelligent world, the rational inhabitants of the earth, and still more specifically that portion of them with which we are immediately concerned.
4. תֵּבֵל, tebel (the usual word so rendered the Greek κόσμος), comes from a root that signifies "to flow," and as water is the unfailing cause of fertility in the East, it denotes "to be productive," "to bear fruit;" and as a noun, "the fruit-bearer," that is, the earth. This word is frequently rendered "world" in the common version, but if more was intended than the earth on which we dwell, it may be doubted if the passages in which it occurs will justify the translators. In truth, the Hebrews had no word which comprised the entire visible universe. When they wanted to speak comprehensively of God's creation, they joined two words together and used the phrase "heaven and earth" (Gen_1:1). We have already seen that they had an idea of an under world; the meaning of their ordinary term for earth,
אֶרֶוֹ, which signifies the "lower," shows that they also regarded the earth as beneath the sun; while the term for heaven, שָׁמִיַם, denoting "what is elevated," indicates that their view was that the heavens, or the heights, were above. Above, below, and under these three relations of space comprehend their conception of the world. SEE EARTH; SEE HEAVEN.
The following Greek words are also translated "world:"
1. κσόμος, kosmos, the world, universe (Mat_13:35; Mat_24:21; Luk_11:50; Joh_17:5; Joh_17:24; Act_17:24; Rom_1:20); the inhabitants thereof (1Co_4:9); also the earth, as the abode of man (Mat_13:38; Mar_16:15; Joh_1:9; Joh_3:19; Joh_6:14; Joh_16:21; Joh_16:28; Joh_21:25; Heb_10:5; Mat_4:8; Rom_1:8); the inhabitants of the earth (Mat_5:14; Joh_1:29; Joh_3:16; Joh_17:14; Joh_17:25; Rom_3:6; Rom_3:19; Heb_11:7; 2Pe_2:5; 1Jn_2:2); the multitude, as we say "everybody" (Joh_7:4; Joh_12:19; Joh_14:22; Joh_18:20; 2Co_1:12; 2Pe_2:5); also the heathen world (Rom_11:12; Rom_11:15). It likewise designates the state of the world, as opposed to the kingdom of Christ (Mat_16:26; Mar_8:36; Joh_18:36; 1Co_3:22; 1Co_5:10; Eph_2:2; Gal_6:14; Jam_4:4) and men of the world, worldlings (Joh_12:31; 1Co_1:2; 1Co_3:19; 2Co_7:10; Php_2:15); also the Jewish dispensation, founded on Sinai and ended on Calvary (Eph_1:4; 1Pe_1:20; Heb_9:26)
2. Οἰκουμένη, Oikounene, the inhabited earth, the world as known to the ancients (Mat_4:8; Mat_24:14; Luk_4:5; Rom_10:18; Heb_1:6; Rev_16:14); the inhabitants of the earth (Act_17:31; Act_19:27; Rev_3:10; Rev_12:9); the Roman empire (Act_17:6; Act_24:5); Palestine and the adjacent countries (Luk_2:1; Act_11:28).
3. Αἰών, Aihn, the world, or age, the present time, or the future, as implying duration (Mat_12:32; Mar_10:50; Mar_3:28-29; Luk_18:30); the present world or age, with its cares, temptations, evils, etc. (Mat_13:22; Luk_16:8; Luk_20:34; Rom_12:2; 1Co_1:20; 1Co_2:6; 1Co_2:8; 2Co_4:4; 2Ti_4:10; Tit_1:12; Gal_1:4); and men of the world, wicked generation (Eph_2:2; Luk_16:8; Luk_20:34); also the world itself, as an object of creation and existence (Mat_13:40; Mat_24:3; Heb_1:2; Heb_11:3). This term also denotes the age or world before the Messiah, i.e., the Jewish dispensation (1Co_10:11; Heb_9:26); also, after the Messiah, i.e., the Gospel dispensation (Heb_2:5; Heb_6:5). SEE COSMOGONY.
In popular Christian phraseology, the world is taken also for a secular life, the present state of existence, and the pleasures and interests which steal away the soul from God. The love of the world does not consist in the use and enjoyment of the comforts God gives us, but in an inordinate attachment to the things of time and sense. We love the world too much
(1) when, for the sake of any profit or pleasure, we wilfully, knowingly, and deliberately transgress the commands of God;
(2) when we take more pains about the present life than the next;
(3) when we cannot be contented, patient, or resigned, under low and inconvenient circumstances;
(4) when we cannot part with anything we possess to those who want, deserve, and have a right to it;
(5) when we envy those who are more fortunate and more favored by the world than we are;
(6) when we honor and esteem and favor persons purely according to their birth, fortunes, and success, measuring our judgment and approbation by their outward appearance and situation in life;
(7) when worldly prosperity makes us proud and vain and arrogant;
(8) when we omit no opportunity of enjoying the good things of this life; when our great and chief business is to divert ourselves till we contract an indifference for rational and manly occupations, deceiving ourselves, and fancying that we are not in a bad condition because others are worse than we (Jortin, Sermons, volume 3, ser. 9). See Hopkins, On the Vanity of the World; Stennet, Sermon on Conformity to the World;. More, On Education, volume 2, chapter 9; Walker, Sermons, volume 4, ser. 20.



CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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