What is the spirit of the world?

Out of the heart the mouth speaketh. We have begun with the utterance of the mouth. Now we go on to that which is more in the heart itself. "Whoso is wise and intelligent among you, let him show out of good behavior his works in meekness of wisdom; but if ye have bitter emulation and strife in your hearts, boast not, and lie not against the truth." This is the spirit of the world, and the corruption that is in the world is through lust. It is the fruit of a heart unsatisfied with God, with that which alone can satisfy, and as a consequence there is of necessity a restless seeking of what will do this. The world cannot furnish it, and hence it goes on, only with more and more urgency and bitterness all the time. This is not a wisdom which cometh down from above. It is "earthly, sensual, demoniacal." It is first "earthly." It brings in no motive that is not of earth. The word for "sensual" is one that we have had before as "natural." It is "psychic," soul-led; "sensual" is probably here the best translation we can give to it. The soul is that which, as we have seen, divorced from the spirit, is only bestial. In it are found the instincts and appetites that have to do with the maintenance of life, and nothing more. With the presence of the spirit man has that which penetrates this soul-life, and makes it capable of higher things; but there is nothing of that here. The spirit has not its supreme place, the man is soul-led, soul-governed. This is the kind of wisdom here, which, however, has another and deeper significance still. It is not only "earthly, sensual," but "demoniacal;" Satan being the prince of the world, a more disastrous influence is over man than could be found even in his mere fallen nature. There is a "spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience," the communication of a wisdom in some sense higher than their own, but at the same time only more evil. This, then, alas, is the spirit of the world. Man is not his own master, even while he vainly talks of liberty and means most earnestly to do his own will and nothing else. But these wills among men are various, and in strife with one another. Thus emulation and strife are the necessary accompaniments of all wisdom which comes not from above. There is disorder and every evil thing.

The Spirit of God is presented to us in direct contrast with the spirit of the world. "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." The spirit of the world is one of restless activity and enquiry, either to find out something new, or to invent some remedy against the multiform misery of man. It may take either a speculative or a practical turn, but it never discovers the satisfactory remedy. "Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?" The spirit of the world is ever advancing, but never reaching its end; leading ever to that which is corning, but never yet has come. The Spirit which is of God is the very opposite. The Holy Ghost produces in the saint "the spirit of a sound mind." He leads the soul backward to the past, and forward to the future. He steadies the soul by leading it to repose on the already accomplished work of Christ on the cross; and from thence He animates the soul, by leading it into the glorious prospect set before it - a prospect not of some yet undiscovered panacea for man's misery that is found in the past in the cross of Christ, neither of a vague and ignorant futurity, but that "hidden wisdom of God, concerning things which God' has prepared before the foundation of the world to our glory, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, but which God hath revealed to us by His Spirit." The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of truth, and can never have a higher subject of testimony than He has at present - the sufferings of Christ and the glory which is to follow. He cannot reveal to us higher blessings than He reveals at present; and He Himself is the present earnest in the heart of the believer, because those blessings are so certain, and already secured in Christ. If Caleb needed to have his heart occupied with Canaan to cheer his spirit in the wilderness, we not only need the earnest of the Spirit for the same purpose, but also to keep us from the seductive power of the spirit of the world. And this He does by showing to us the things freely given to us of God as so high and blessed that they have not even been conceived by the daring boldness of man's heart. As the earnest, He leads the soul to long to see Christ as He is, and to be like Him, and thus, too, leads in, the path of fully following the Lord. To be ever with the Lord is the blessing in prospect; but to have Him ever with us now is the consequent earnest. "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." How is this made good by the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost, the other Comforter. Oh that with purpose of heart we might cleave unto the Lord, and say in the midst of sorrowful experience, "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage."

"And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as He said." The Holy Spirit, as the earnest, is the Spirit "of promise;" not only as being Himself the "promise of the Father," but substantiating promises to the soul. As Caleb saw his contemporaries die off day by day, how much he needed the encouragement of the specific promise of the Lord - "The Lord hath kept me alive, as He said." The Holy Ghost is the quickener, He is the earnest, and He is also the Holy Spirit of promise, thus giving special value to the Word, to the Scriptures, bringing it to remembrance, and applying a familiar text with unknown power, because such a promise or such a scripture exactly suits the circumstances of our need. "As He said." How important is this. Subjection of mind to the authority of Scripture no less distinguishes the guidance of the Holy Spirit from the spirit of the world than it distinguishes real spirituality from cloudy mysticism. The Scripture becomes of increasing value in proportion as the spirit of the age advances. As applied by the Spirit of truth, it gives the consciousness of certainty when the spirit of the world, in the freedom of enquiry, is leading into general scepticism. The result of these two conflicting spirits - the spirit of the world and the Spirit which is of God - is, that the one will lead to set the stability of created things against the promise of Christ coming; the other, to throw the soul more entirely on His promise. (2 Peter 3) But the soul needs now establishment and encouragement, and the Holy Ghost, as the earnest, gives such a reality to the promises of God in Scripture, that the soul is enabled to set, "As He says," against all appearances of things or opinions of men.

What is the world? Here its underlying principles are analysed for us. They are three. First, the lust of the flesh; that is, the desire after that which gratifies man's fallen nature. Second, the lust of the eyes; not merely the desire for outward shows that appeal to the eyes in our heads, but even more the restless desire of the human mind for the acquisition of knowledge, for probing into things undiscovered as yet. Men wish to see the deep secrets of nature, and it is amazing what they have discovered.

But the love of the world is inconsistent with the love of the Father. There is no element in it which is of Him. It is the great, imposing system which, for all the show it makes, has grown out just of its alienation from God. The things that are in it are "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." These characterize it, — a heart away from God which finds no longer its satisfaction in Him, — seeks it no more there, and as a consequence has to make its riches just of the things that are in its hands, with nothing beyond; the things that pamper fleshly instincts; the things that raise question and incite to how many paths of knowledge in a scene which has so many mysteries for us. There follows with this "the pride of life," the realization of man's place over the world, which, indeed, was given him of God from the beginning, but which he is all the less enjoying when he seems most conscious of it. It is not hard to understand the development here, in days when the desire of knowledge is so great with us, and the sense of acquirement so strong. In all this, the things that attract us have a certain natural and necessary interest. God did not put us here amid the wonders of His own creation without meaning them to be something to us, and He has, indeed, provided in His own Word that which stimulates question, and of a deeper character than mere nature in itself could raise. He has provided in it also the answer to these questions in a way we very little realize, and, if we turned to Him with them, how should we find what, even naturally, our heritage is! But men seek it away from God. They go into it to make it a substitute for Himself. They receive it not from Him, but from the one into whose hands it has fallen through their sin, and into whose hands they have fallen. Thus the most innocent delight can in this way draw the soul away from God. While the gifts are valued, they are not valued as His gifts, nor Himself trusted in. The gifts draw from the Giver.*

Verse 2. "Wherein in time passed ye walked,"etc. They walked in that in which they were already dead. Sin leading irresistibly to death, destruction and misery are in the sinner's ways. The former verse affirmed the universality of the sinful state of man. In the present, we have a picture of the activities of sinful life. "The course of this world" stands opposed in Scripture to "the way of life;" and expresses, in a manner plainly intelligible to faith, the ordinary flow of natural human life, in contradistinction to the way of those who, as partakers of the risen Christ, have ceased to be of the world, though, as strangers and pilgrims, in it still. Reference has been made, in the former chapter, to the present world or age (Kata ton aiona tou kosmou toutou), in connexion with the supremacy which the Spirit claims for Christ, as the appointed Heir of all things (Chap. 1:21). We are now instructed as to the true character of the present world, by a disclosure of the governing energies which regulate its course. That there is corruption in the world through lust, is confessed by all who know the difference between holiness and sin; but the present verse reminds us of a power superior to the human will, and which acts on it tyrannically, though with subtlety, by means of sensible objects or by spiritual hallucinations, in such a manner as to keep it in its natural condition of ignorance and sin. The doctrine of this verse deserves much more attention than it usually receives in the current evangelical teaching of the day.

They could do nothing for themselves. Their state was one of spiritual death, and their walk according to the course of this world, the only way they naturally knew. It was also according to the prince of the power of the air for Satan has usurped authority and has so completely corrupted people's minds by sin that they can see nothing else because they are sons of disobedience (v.2): their nature has been formed in that way. Therefore it is natural for even the world's "best" characters to have no living relationship to God. The expression "prince of the power of the air" indicates that the very atmosphere of mankind's existence has been polluted through giving in to Satan, as was true of Adam and Eve. Satan's evil influence has corrupted every area of human life.

Our state is set forth in Ephesians 2:1, as "dead in trespasses and sins." The next verse remarkably enough goes on to speak of walking in those trespasses and sins; but that is because the death there spoken of is death towards God. Those who are dead Godward are very much alive to "the course of this world," and "the prince of the power of the air," who operates in the "children of disobedience." To be dead towards God is entirely consistent with being alive towards the world and the devil: indeed the one springs out of the other.

Verses 1-3. The Gentiles were by sin morally there where Christ actually and outwardly placed Himself for sin; they were dead in their trespasses and in their sins. There they were walking according to the course of this world, floating with the stream according to the powerful and universal influence of Satan, who penetrates everywhere and reigns over everything, like the air, which is his seat; they were walking according to this spirit which is now working in the children of disobedience, in those who still continue far off from the deliverance wrought by the Lord.

In this sense the world is looked at as a gigantic organization, opposed to God and to all who are born of God. Its management is unseen, but carried out with all the far-reaching subtlety of a master of deception. Its course is according to influences set in motion by its "prince" and "god" - "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph.2:2). Its character is marked by determined hostility to Christ. When He came into it, He found hatred for His love; He was rejected from His inheritance, and crucified between two thieves (1 Cor.2:8).

Of what is Satan the Prince? Of this world. And how? By the lusts of this world. Where the object of the heart is the grandeur of the world, or prosperity in this world, the character of it is to obliterate that which shows what man is. The spirit of the world hides from man the secret of man's departure from God. I must keep myself from it. The saint has to be kept out of the spirit of the world. Whatever has not the character of the word of God is of the world, and Satan is the prince of it, and I cannot have Satan's prosperity without having Satan's idols.