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What Does the Bible Mean by “The World”?

What does the Bible mean by ‘the world’?

What does the Bible mean by ‘the world’? In my previous post I compared a convenience store with its shelves lined with candy to our world and its temptations toward evil.

I quoted an important Scripture that raises many questions: “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19).

So, according to the Bible, what is “the world”?

Who is the evil one? Does Satan really exist? If so, in what sense does Satan have power over the whole world?

What should your attitude be toward the world?

Let’s begin with the first question.

What is the world?

The Bible uses the word world in several different senses.

First, world can refer to the physical earth. The world is what God created in Genesis 1, and he pronounced it good. Since God is perfectly good, and he made the world, then the world is good.

Second, the Bible uses the word world to refer to humanity in general without having good or evil in view.

We see this in the well-known Scripture John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Third, the Bible uses the word world to refer to what is anti-God in humanity and human culture. What do humans create and do that is anti-God? What systems do humans create that reject God’s commandments?

This is the sense in James 4:4: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

Examples

Here are three examples corresponding to the three senses of the word world described above.

  1. You go to a forest preserve and feel refreshed by the beauty of nature. On the way home, you stop at your favorite restaurant and order your favorite meal.
  2. You attend a high school basketball game along with several members of your family to watch your sibling, who plays guard for the home team. Afterward you enjoy a family meal.
  3. You join with some new friends to go to a club where there is abundant opportunity to engage in lust, sexual relations with someone who is not your spouse, profanity, drunkenness, drugs, and even violence.

Based on these distinctions, it is the third sense of the word world that is used in 1 John 5:19: “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” It is the people, organizations, cities, states, nations, and cultures that reject and oppose God and his commandments who lie in the power of the evil one.

The next post

In my next post we will examine these questions:

Who is the evil one?

Does Satan really exist?

If so, in what sense does Satan have power over the whole world?

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A Necessary Shift in World-View

shift in world-view

When I was a kid, I lived two blocks from a small, independent grocery store. It was one of my favorite places to go. I did not pedal my bike there several times a week to buy groceries, though. My interest centered on the shelves facing the cash register, lined with candy.

My favorites were Snickers bars, Hershey’s chocolate bars, Baby Ruth bars, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I liked the various flavors of Wrigley’s gum and the Hostess chocolate cupcakes and Twinkies and dabbled in licorice, jawbreakers, and hard candies. I enjoyed Pixy Stix, which were paper straws filled with flavored sugar. There was a freezer filled with popsicles, frozen fudge bars, ice cream bars, and ice cream sandwiches.

I ate this assortment daily. When I remember this now, I cringe. I shudder to think how much sugar I consumed between ages five and twelve. We knew then that sugar was bad for your teeth, but now we know many other harmful effects of excess sugar on the body.

I don’t eat candy anymore. Today if I walk into a convenience store, I have a completely different attitude regarding what I will find on the shelves compared to my childhood delight in the nearby store.

A Christian’s shift in world-view

When we become true disciples of Jesus, we have a similar transformation in our attitude toward the world. Yes, there are good and beautiful things in our world, just as my candy store sold healthy food in aisle two and quality meat in the butcher’s market in the rear. But Christians soon learn our world has things that displease God.

While non-Christians know there are evils in the world, the world and its pleasures are typically their life and hope. They cannot agree with what the Holy Scriptures say, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19).

That may sound to you like an extreme or outdated worldview. Let’s talk more about the shift in world-view that every true disciple of Jesus needs in upcoming posts.

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2026 New Year’s Newsletter

Happy New Year!

God has been faithful for another year, providing faith and understanding into his Word, family times together, friendships, work, food, money, health, energy, and more!

James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” I thank the Lord for everything.

I continue to serve with joy as full-time pastor of Lake Shore Church in Chicago. What a privilege! I love the people God has given us and the work of making disciples who make disciples, the work of evangelism and preaching.

My wife Nancy remains healthy and vigorous and loves helping family. I thank God for her, and for all my sons, their wives, and our six grandchildren. (Missing from this photo are Brian and his family)

Much of my study and reading in Scripture this year has been in Psalms and in the Gospel of Luke because I have been preaching through both on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. This has been a spiritual feast. I love God’s Word, by which I fellowship with him and know him.

You can listen to my recent message from Luke titled “A Beautiful Mind.” For other audio recordings of sermons on Luke, see here.

Scripture memorization has an increasing role in my devotional time. It facilitates Bible meditation, prayer, and worship, and renews my mind. It increases my faith. Among other Scriptures, this year I have focused persistent efforts in memorizing Isaiah 58, which has been challenging, but rich and edifying.

The highlights of my reading this year have been the following books: The Gospel According to Jesus: What Is Authentic Faith, by John MacArthur; Gospel Assurance and Warnings, by Paul Washer; The Barbell Prescription, by Jonathon Sullivan and Andy Baker.

Nancy and I are both training with barbells several times a week.

This year was my best ever in evangelism on the sidewalk. I went out 41 times and proclaimed a hopeful, three-sentence gospel message to 5,774 passers-by, of whom 1,524 took gospel pamphlets. The three sentences are: “God raised Jesus from the dead. So there is hope for everyone who follows him. In a world of death and evil, there is hope in the Son of God.” (The pamphlet I hand out is an abbreviation of the article Four Things You Need to Know about God, by Ray Comfort.)

I am thrilled to have created an email book titled Nice Is Not Enough: 15 Marks of Faith According to Jesus. It’s a free book delivered one chapter per week by email. I am now at work turning it into a paperback to be self-published on Amazon. To get the email book for free starting today, sign up here.

My prayer for you is the prayer of the apostle John: “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.” (3 John 1:2 ESV)

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The Ultimate Sonship of Jesus

Jesus is the ultimate Son, perfect and multi-faceted in sonship.

Isaiah wrote, “To us a Son is given” (Isaiah 9:6).

Understanding the sonship of Jesus is key to understanding who he is, what he has accomplished, and what place he has in the Kingdom of God throughout eternity.

He is the Son in at least seven momentous ways, and each is important to the Christmas event.

1. The Son of Joseph

Luke 3:23 says, “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph.” (ESV used for each Bible quotation)

Although Jesus was not the physical descendant of Joseph, Joseph was his father in a more significant way. That Luke records the genealogy of Jesus tracing back from Joseph shows that God regarded Joseph as the father of Jesus in a real way, a way that connected Jesus to the line of promise through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David.

Because Jesus is the Son of Joseph, he fulfills promises and covenants God had made to other important figures.

2. The Son of Mary

Luke 2:7 says Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

Jesus was a real human born after developing in the womb of his real mother for nine months. He had real blood flowing in his veins, and his DNA and genes were inherited from Mary. I assume his face resembled Mary’s. He definitely did not look like Joseph, because Joseph and Mary did not come together until after Jesus was born. Mary was a virgin, and the child Jesus was conceived in her womb by a miracle of God. Jesus was 100 percent human. That is why he was able to die for our sins.

3. The Son of Abraham

Luke’s genealogy also names Jesus as “the son of Abraham” (Luke 3:34).

Being the son of Abraham was important in the life of Jesus because two thousand years before Jesus was born God said to Abraham, “‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (See Genesis 15:1–6)

God fulfilled that promise and covenant through Abraham’s descendant Jesus. Every Christian is one of the “stars in the sky.”

Abraham was the man of faith who was credited with righteousness through his faith in God and his promise. And this is the same way we are now saved in the new covenant—through faith in Jesus Christ. Through our faith in Jesus God credits righteousness to us, just as he did for Abraham.

4. The Son of David

In Luke’s genealogy of Jesus, he includes that Jesus was “the son of David” (Luke 3:31).

The Gospel of Matthew uses the title “Son of David” for Jesus ten times, so the idea is familiar to Bible readers. Its chief significance lies in the promise that God made to David after he had established him on the throne of Israel.

God said, “I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Samuel 7:11–13)

Jesus fulfilled this promise. Jesus will reign as a king over God’s people throughout all eternity.

5. The Son of Man

This correlates with Jesus’s being the son of Mary, but it takes the humanity of Jesus to a whole new level. Jesus uses this identity and title to speak of himself 25 times in the Gospel of Luke. (See Luke 5:24, for example.)

The title son of man was used in the Bible to speak of people other than Jesus, and in those cases it is simply a poetic way of saying a human, an offspring of the human race.

With Jesus, however, the title Son of Man was used both to emphasize his humanity and his divinity. It fulfills one of the extremely important prophecies given about the Messiah through the prophet Daniel.

Daniel 7:13–14 says, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

Jesus fulfills this prophecy!

6. The Son of Adam

Luke concludes his genealogy of Jesus by naming him as the “son of Adam” (Luke 3:38).

We need to first define what this does not mean. The idiom “son of__” is used often in the Bible to mean one is under the influence and imprint of someone or something. But that is decidedly not what being the son of Adam means with Jesus. Through Adam’s disobedience, he failed the human race as our representative head, bringing condemnation, death, and original sin to all humanity. Jesus did not do that; in fact, he overturned all that for those who believe in him.

Jesus is the Son of Adam in this regard:

First, he is the physical descendant of Adam just as all human beings are descendants of Adam. To save Adam’s fallen race Jesus had to be a member of Adam’s fallen race.

Second, Jesus is the antitype for the type of Adam. Adam is a type of Christ in that he was the representative head of humanity. Christ is the second Adam who is the new and superior representative head whose obedience earns salvation for all who believe in him.

Romans 5:14–17 says, “Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

7. The Son of God

At Jesus’ baptism, God the Father spoke from heaven declaring, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).

This of course is the ultimate Sonship. Jesus Is the eternally begotten son of God the Father.

Jesus is fully divine, having the identical nature and character qualities of his Father. He is equal with the Father in glory and equally worthy of worship.

Hebrews 1:2–3 says, “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

Colossians 2:9 says, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”

And so it is with good reason that Isaiah gave his astonishing prophecy: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God…. (Isaiah 9:6)

Christmas brings into sharp focus the glorious fact that Jesus is the ultimate son: Son of Joseph, Son of Mary, Son of Abraham, Son of David, Son of Man, Son of Adam, Son of God.

This great person wants to have a relationship with you. Most likely the great people of the earth are not seeking you out, but this great person is. He loves you and is seeking a daily relationship with you. He cares about you and wants your highest good. Better yet, he can bring the highest good into your life as you follow him as a true disciple. Make that decision right now, that you will follow Jesus from this moment on as a completely surrendered and committed disciple, and tell him so in prayer.

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How Jesus Fulfilled Prophecy

By Craig Brian Larson

Based on Luke 18:31–34, ESV – “{31} And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. {32} For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. {33} And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” {34} But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.”