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Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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WORLD (κὁσμος).—1. The underlying significance of the term κόσμος is that of order. Its probable derivation is from a root κομιδ, which appears in Lat. comptus and in our ‘comb.’ This order, regularity, neatness receives the widest illustration in classical usage. Thus κόσμος includes the idea of decency of behaviour (aesch. Ag. 521, cf. Soph. Aj. 293), of constitutional government (Thuc. iv. 76), of elegance of attire (Hdt. iii. 123), and so, by just transference, of the world or universe (Plat. Tim. 27 A, cf. Arist. Cœl. i. 10), as exhibiting perfection of arrangement, and standing in eternal contrast with chaos. In this, its widest application, it became employed by all writers on natural philosophy, though the meaning oscillates, with some uncertainty, between the earth and the universe generally (see Liddell and Scott, s.v., from which the quotations are taken). It is interesting to observe that ordo in Latin does not, as might have been expected, stand as an equivalent for κόσμος. Its equivalent in Latin is mundus (cf. Sanskr. mund), the root idea of which again is cleanliness, neatness, or order. Thus both the Latin and the Greek pass through, with a singular exactness of analogy, the same transferences of meaning, so that Cicero (Univ. 10) identifies κόσμος and mundus in that widest application of the term above referred to (see Lewis and Short’s Dict. s.v. ‘Mundus’). There is, however, a further transference of meaning in a use of mundus by classical writers not found in the corresponding use of κόσμος. It is employed (Hor. Sat. i. 3. 112, cf. Luc. Pharsal. v. 469), but somewhat rarely, in a social sense to signify mankind, whereas this application is not given to κόσμος except in so-called Alexandrine Greek. In a word, the conception of order covers every departmental application of the Greek κόσμος and its Latin equivalent.

2. If proof on such an issue were needed by students, the use of the word κόσμος would strikingly show the original way in which NT writers handle and apply such terms. Certainly, to the ancients, with the word κόσμος the vision of the figure of order would be manifest in thought. Generally speaking, in the NT the ancient conception falls so far into the background as sometimes to vanish. But what the word has lost in one way it has gained in other ways, as will be seen upon a brief examination of its employment generally in NT literature.

It is interesting, however, to note that, in the transferred applications of the word, this literature follows the lines of classical usage. Thus κόσμος is used of women’s attire (1 Peter 3:3), of the universe (Romans 1:20), of the earth (Matthew 4:8 [cf. Luke 4:5 τῆς οἰκουμένης] Luke 16:26), and of human society (John 1:29) In such illustrations we do not part company with the radical idea of ‘order,’ but it is only faintly made apparent.

In the Synoptics the term is rarely employed, and the student of the Authorized Version must be put on his guard against supposing that, in all cases where the translation ‘world’ is used, it stands for κόσμος in the original. In some six cases it stands for αἰών, and in two for ἡ γῆ οἰκουμένη. But, as any confusion is sufficiently checked by (Revised Version margin) , the point need not be pursued here. The use of the word, rare as it is in the Synoptics, is largely free from Johannine or Pauline sentiment on the idea. It is difficult to find a passage in them in which the term is used absolutely in malam partem, as it is found not only in the writings of St. John and St. Paul, but also in those of St. Peter and St. James. In the parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:24-43) the ‘world’ appears in no dark or ominous colouring. It is not its cares, but the cares of the age (αἰών, Mark 4:19), that choke the word so as to render it unfruitful. When our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount speaks of His disciples as the light of the world (Mark 5:14), we find the figure interpreted by the parallel expression which precedes it: ‘Ye are the salt of the earth’ (Matthew 5:13). To declare that the world needs purification and illumination is not a wholesale condemnation of the world. There is in the Synoptics no violence of contrast between it and the Divine society. In its rare occurrences in the Synoptics the world is a sphere in which Christ’s disciples live and move and have their being. For them it has its pitfalls (Matthew 18:7), its characteristic dangers, but nowhere does it appear as wholly or inherently evil.

3. When one turns from the Synoptics to St. John’s writings, for here it is impossible to separate his Gospel from his letters, the contrast appears startling. Instead of a rare appearance of the term, we find that it occurs some eighty times in the Gospel, and twenty-two times in the First Epistle (A. Plummer, Com. on the Gospel in Cambridge Bible). And with this frequently comes a change in meaning, a change, however, which in the Gospel appears gradual and climactic. For in the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel the term appears with the same lack of colour in which it is painted in the Synoptic Gospels.

The world is indeed seen to be beset by the grave fault of indifference to its own darkness. The light came, but it was not recognized. Yet in this lack of welcome His own were involved (John 1:11; cf. John 8:12). The testimony of the Baptist advances the issue a step farther. His recognition of Jesus as the Lamb of God (John 1:29; John 1:36) implies his recognition of the purpose of His mission as the world’s Saviour from its sin. Later, our Lord’s testimony to Nicodemus informs him of the gracious fact of His love towards the world. His deliberate intention in regard to the world was not its condemnation but its salvation. Life, not death, through Him was the Father’s eternal purpose (John 3:16; John 3:13, cf. John 4:42, John 12:47). Through the type of the manna, our Lord brings Himself, if it may be so expressed, into still closer touch with the world. He is the Bread of heaven which gives life to the world (John 6:33). Later, with more awful explicitness, the bread is identified with His flesh, and its offering is on the world’s behalf (John 6:51).

So gracious, indeed, are the Lord’s utterances in regard to the world, that twice the group of the disciples appeared unable to distinguish themselves from it. They could not understand in the earlier stage of their discipleship why any manifestation of Jesus should not be made on equal terms to the world as to themselves (John 7:4, cf. John 14:22). They omitted to see that a manifestation of Himself could be made only through the medium of love. A difference, therefore, not only in point of time but also in degree of training, explains any seeming inconsistency in our Lord’s teaching in respect of the attitude of the world towards His own. At an earlier stage He declared that the world could not hate His followers,—there was nothing then to excite hostility either by way of their belief or their love (John 7:7). At a later stage the parting of the ways had come. His own had made their final choice. With the choice came the world’s hatred. The persecution which He endured was to be theirs also (John 15:17-20). All turned upon the identity of themselves with Him. This once established, His own exhibited love and obedience. The world was seen as penetrated by hatred and disobedience. In this awful contrast and conflict, victory was assured for His own, and with victory would come its fruit. He was their surety. Peace and triumph were their lot through Him (John 16:33).

But Johannine teaching on the subject of the world cannot be regarded as complete if the First Epistle be ignored. The scope, however, of this Dictionary must limit the inquiry to general references. The doctrinal differences here are explicable, as Bp. Westcott has pointed out (Gospel of St. John. Introd. lxxviii). because the Gospel is related to the Epistle, as history to its comment or application; the former is throughout presupposed in the latter. ‘The Lord’s words in the Gospel have been moulded into aphorisms in the First Epistle’; and in the latter document the Apostle writes, conscious that the Church must be in dire conflict with the characteristic dangers and heresies of the age. It would seem reasonable to regard the teaching of the First Epistle on the world as a commentary, in particular, on our Lord’s pregnant utterances on the ‘convictions’ of the world (John 16:8-11; see Westcott, in loco.). In that passage, the world appears as separate from God, ‘yet not past hope.’ Our Lord declares there, not that He will convict the world simply as sinful, etc., but that He will show that it lacks the knowledge of what sin, righteousness, and judgment really are.

We conclude that the general teaching of St. John’s Gospel on the subject of the world is that it is an order or sphere touching man’s life, affecting man’s life considered as apart from God; but that in the First Epistle the world is seen more darkly and ominously still: it is not merely regarded as apart from God, but as alien to Him, in direct opposition to His eternal and gracious purposes. St. John would teach us that if it is to be overcome, it must be by powers which lift us above it, and those are the twin powers of love and faith (Liddon, Easter Sermons, No. xxii.).

Literature.—In addition to the Lexx. and Comm., J. H. Newman, Par. and Plain Serm. vii. (1868) p. 27; F. W. Robertson, Serm., 4th ser. (1874) p. 145; A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 1st ser. (1884) p. 83; B. F. Westcott, The Gospel of Life (1892), p. 20; C. J. Vaughan, Doncaster Serm. (1891) p. 225; R. W. Church, Village Serm., 2nd ser. (1894) p. 326; Stopford A. Brooke, The Ship of the Soul (1898), p. 31; R. Flint, Serm. and Addresses (1899), p. 145.

B. Whitefoord.