The Spirit of the World
The god of this world (2 Cor 4:4) has saturated the system of this world with the wisdom of the world (1 Cor 3:19). This world is passing away (1 Cor 7:31) because the world is condemned (1 Cor 11:32), as a result of sinful rebellion (Rom 5:12–21). The world will be destroyed with fire on the last day of history (2 Pet 3:10–12), a day of God’s vengeance, unlike any other day before it (Mt 24:21).
Sin entered the world through one man, Adam (Rom 5:12). Death came because of sin and death has spread to all (Rom 6:23). Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners from their impending judgment and eternal condemnation (Mt 1:21; 1 Tim 1:15; Heb 9:27). God’s salvation is not exclusive to one gender, one race, or one people group (Gal 3:28; Rev 5:9; 7:9). Jesus Himself is the propitiation for our sins (the church), and this reaches to the uttermost part of the earth (1 Jn 2:2).
God has sent the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, to reveal the truth of God, which includes the truth about humanity in this fallen world (1 Cor 2:10). Just as the Spirit of God leads us in the way we should go and guides us into all truth (Jn 16:13), so there is a spirit of the world.
The adversary has mimicked God; and in his endeavor to be God, the devil has positioned himself as God. This is only possible by deception, of course. God knows the truth. Satan knows the truth. It is man who has been led astray into captivity by an unholy trinity.
With the coming of the man of lawlessness, often called, “the Antichrist,” the devil has his man (2 Thess 2). The spirit of Antichrist was already in the world, when the apostle John wrote his epistles, at the end of the first century A.D. (1 Jn 4:3). This is the spirit of the world (1 Cor 2:12).
Because the world is in the power of the evil one (1 Jn 5:19), Christians are taught to avoid loving the world and the things of the world (1 Jn 2:15). The world is in conflict with the one True God, and all that is in this world of sin is not from God the Father (1 Jn 2:16).
The spirit of the world operates in direct conflict with the Spirit of God. If the Spirit of God fills the man of God to speak the Word of God, which is the truth (Ps 119:160), then, the spirit of the world sends his many false prophets into the world (1 Jn 4:1). They are from the world; therefore, they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them (1 Jn 4:5).
Truth sets captives free (Jn 8:32), but the deception of sin enslaves them (Jn 8:34; Rom 6:6, 16–20). The spirit of Antichrist operates as the serpent did in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3). He entices people to imagine themselves to be gods (Gen 3:5). He tells them to dream dreams. He occupies them, in confusion, from childhood. They are to be all they can be in the world, making a name for themselves (Gen 11), having their best life now, while accumulating more and more of the world.
The spirit of the world is behind every human philosophy, psychology, and religion. Human wisdom promotes thoughts of the world with words of the world, always in contrast with the spiritual thoughts and words of the Bible (1 Cor 2:13). The battlefield between the Holy Spirit and the spirit of Antichrist is the mind and hearts of people.
It is the Holy Spirit who moved men, prophets and apostles, to speak the Word of truth and to write it down (2 Pet 1:20–21). The Bible serves as the sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:17), a double-edged sword that cuts with precision, to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:12). It is profitable for one to read the Bible, meditating on it night and day (Ps 1:2), for it teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).
The world is unrighteous, meaning it does not have right standing before God. The world of the ungodly and unrighteous is under the wrath of God (Rom 1:18). When confronted by conviction of the Holy Spirit, the deceived people of the world object, calling the revealed wisdom of God “foolishness” (1 Cor 1:18).
Walking in the futility of their minds (Eph 4:17) and with no love for God in their hearts (Jn 5:42), the slaves to sin live at enmity with God, as haters of God (Rom 1:30). Despite their position of hopelessness without God in the world (Eph 2:12), they have no mind to repent of their sins against God (Acts 17:30; 1 Cor 2:14). They have no will to be right with God (Jn 1:12–13; Rom 3:10–12), nor are they able to do anything to rectify their separation from the Almighty judge of heaven and earth (Rom 8:7).
Friend, is this describing you and the life you now live in the flesh? Do you love yourself and the life you have in this world? Do you covet more of this world? Have you no interest in the Bible? Examine yourself, as to whether you are living under the deluding influence of the spirit of the age, the spirit of the world.
It is the work of the Spirit of Christ to help you see your spiritual blindness (2 Cor 4:3–4). As He opens the eyes of those living in the domain of spiritual darkness (Col 1:13), He will show you more and more of Jesus Christ. It should be your very priority in this life, to learn Christ. Ask God, in prayer, to give you His Spirit (Lk 11:13).
Death is looming for everyone who has not been given eternal life (Heb 9:27). Forsaking the world, by forsaking the spirit of the world, only comes with receipt of the Spirit of God, who alone saves His people from their sins.
He that is in the people of God is greater than he that is in the world (1 Jn 4:4). This is the power and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24), in those of us who believe what has been revealed to us, by the One living in us (Jn 14:17; Rom 8:9, 11; 2 Cor 1:21–22). This is not the spirit of the world, but the life-giving Spirit of God, who has delivered us from the world of lies and deception of the devil, by giving us the truth, as it is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
David Norczyk
Missoula, Montana
August 6, 2022
