Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The World and Offences. Various Meanings of World.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
20. The World and
Offences. Various Meanings of World.
“Woe unto the world because of occasions of
stumbling.”5946
The
expression “cosmos,” is used in itself and absolutely in
the passage, “He was in the cosmos and the cosmos knew Him
not,”5947
but it is used
relatively and in respect of its connection with that of which it is
the cosmos, in the words, “Lest you look up to the heaven, and
seeing the sun, and the moon, and all the cosmos of the heavens, you
should stray and bow down to them and worship them.”5948
And the like you will find in the Book
of Esther, spoken about her, when it is written, stripping off all her
“cosmos.”5949
| 5949 Lomm., following Huet.
refers to Esther (The addition
to Esther, xiv. 2). But
the word κόσμος does not occur in
this passage. See Judith
x. 4; 1 Macc. ii. 11. | For the word
“cosmos,” simply, is not the same as the
“cosmos” of heaven, or the “cosmos” of Esther;
and this which we are now investigating is another. I think,
then, that the world is not this compacted whole of heaven and earth
according to the Divine Scriptures, but only the place which is round
about the earth, and this is not to be conceived in respect of the
whole earth, but only in respect of ours which is inhabited; for the
true light “was in the world,” that is, in the place which
is around, conceived in relation to our part of the earth; “and
the world knew Him not,”5950
that is, the men in
the region round about, and perhaps also the powers that have an
affinity to this place. For it is monstrous to understand by the
world here the compacted whole formed of heaven and earth, and those in
it; so that it could be said, that the sun and moon and the choir of
the stars and the angels in all this world, did not know the true
light, and, though ignorant of it, preserved the order which God had
appointed for them. But when it is said by the Saviour in the
prayer to the Father, “And, now, glorify me, O Father, with Thine
own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world
was,”5951
you must understand
by the “world,” that which is inhabited by us on the earth;
for it was from this world that the Father gave men to the Son, in
regard to whom alone the Saviour beseeches His Father, and not for the
whole world of men. Moreover, also, when the Saviour says,
“And I come to thee and am no longer in the
world,”5952
He speaks of the
terrestrial world; for it is not to be supposed that He spoke things
contradictory when He said, “And I come to thee, and I am no
longer in the world,” and “I am in the world.”
But also in this, “And these things I speak in the
world,”5953
we must think of
the place round about the earth. And this is clearly indicated
also by the words, “And the world hated them, because they are
not of the world.”5954
For it hated
us from the time when we no longer “look at the things which are
seen, but at the things which are not seen,”5955
because of the teaching of Jesus; not the
world of heaven and earth and them that are therein, all compacted
together but the men on the earth along with us. And the saying,
“They are not of the world,”5956
is
equivalent to, They are not of the place round about the earth.
And so also the disciples of Jesus are not of this world, as He was not
of the world. And further also the saying, “That the world
may believe that Thou hast sent Me,”5957
twice spoken in the Gospel according to John, does not refer to the
things that are superior to men, but to men who need to believe that
the Father sent the Son into the world here. Yea, and also in the
Apostle, “Your faith is proclaimed in the whole
world.”5958
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
