The Fatal Incomprehension

Jesus goes on to draw a series of contrasts. His opponents belong to earth, he is from heaven; they are of the world; he is not of the world.

John frequently talks about the world; the word in Greek is kosmos ( Greek #2889 ). He uses it in a way that is all his own.

(i) The kosmos ( Greek #2889 ) is the opposite of heaven. Jesus came from heaven into the world ( John 1:9 ). He was sent by God into the world ( John 3:17 ). He is not of the world; his opponents are of the world ( John 8:23 ). The kosmos ( Greek #2889 )is the changing, transient life that we live; it is all that is human as opposed to all that is divine.

(ii) Yet the kosmos ( Greek #2889 ) is not separated from God. First and foremost, it is God's creation ( John 1:10 ). It was through God's word that his world was made. Different as the world is from heaven, there is yet no unbridgeable gulf between them.

(iii) More than that, the kosmos ( Greek #2889 ) is the object of God's love. God so loved the world that he sent his Son ( John 3:16 ). However different it may be from all that is divine, God has never abandoned it; it is the object of his love and the recipient of his greatest gift.

(iv) But at the same time there is something wrong with the kosmos ( Greek #2889 ). There is a blindness in it; when the Creator came into the world, it did not recognize him ( John 1:10 ). The world cannot receive the Spirit of truth ( John 14:17 ). The world does not know God ( John 17:25 ). There is, too, an hostility to God in the kosmos ( Greek #2889 ) and to his people. The world hates Christ and hates his followers ( John 15:18-19 ). In its hostility Christ's followers can look only for trouble and tribulation ( John 16:33 ).

(v) Here we have a strange sequence of facts. The world is separate from God; and yet between it and God there is no gulf which cannot be spanned. God created the world; God loves it; God sent his Son into it. And yet in it, there is this blindness and hostility to him.

There is only one possible conclusion. G. K. Chesterton once said that there was only one thing certain about man--that man is not what he was meant to be. There is only one thing certain about the kosmos ( Greek #2889 ), it is not what it was meant to be. Something has gone wrong. That something is sin. It is sin which separated the world from God; it is sin which blinds it to God; it is sin which is fundamentally hostile to God.

Into this world which has gone wrong comes Christ; and Christ comes with the cure. He brings forgiveness; he brings cleansing; he brings strength and grace to live as man ought and to make the world what it ought to be. But a man can refuse a cure. A doctor may tell a patient that a certain treatment is able to restore him to health; he may actually tell him that if he does not accept the treatment, death is inevitable. That is precisely what Jesus is saying: "If you will not believe that I am who I am you will die in your sins."

There is something wrong with the world--anyone can see that. Only recognition of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, obedience to his perfect wisdom and acceptance of him as Saviour and Lord can cure the individual soul and cure the world.

We are only too well aware of the disease which haunts and wrecks the world; the cure lies before us. The responsibility is ours if we refuse to accept it.