^ The first meaning of the Greek word for world (Jcosmos) is " order." And as all order is more or less beautiful, the second meaning of the term is "ornament." The word is found with this meaning in 1 Peter iii. 3, — " Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel ; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." After the word had for ages been employed by the Greeks in these acceptations, it occurred to one of the greatest thinkers that ever lived that there was no order so wonderful as the order of the universe, no ornament so ornamental, so real, as the great world. Hence he employed the word \vhich" signified
* H. Johnson, From Love to Praise, 10.
192 THE AMAZING GIFT OF LOVE
" order " and " ornament " to designate the " world." The Holy Spirit, who guided the holy men who wrote the New Testament, approving of his idea, adopted the Greek term in its Pythagorean sense. And thus it is that we read such expressions as the follow- ing : — " The invisible things of God from the creation of the {orderly and beautiful) world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." " Glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." " What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
To the eye of most of the ancients, however, the sun and the stars, instead of being orbs greater and more glorious than our earth, were only luminaries or lamps to light us by day and by night. The earth was to them almost all the universe. And it was the earth especially which they called the world. This import of the term became stereotyped ; and thus we read in the Bible : " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
But this world — the earth — is the temporary home of a vast multitude of thinking beings, every one of whom seems to be more wonderful and glorious than the vast earth on which he moves and has his being. These thinking beings use the earth ; the earth does not use them. They think of the earth ; the earth does not think of them. They feel too, — they feel the earth; the earth does not feel them. They live ; the earth does not live. They are the lords of the earth, and subdue it and have dominion over it. They are men ; and as they rise into the consciousness of what they are, they gradually reach the idea — "We are the world ; the earth is beneath our feet." The men of the earth are a world upon a world. They are a thinking, feeling, will-endowed, moral world. They are " the world." Hence it is that we read of "all the world being guilty before God." God shall "judge the world." And in this Gospel according to Jesus, our Saviour is His own herald, and says that " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." The "world," then; which is loved by God, is the world of men.
It is, we may add, the world of all men. The word " world," when not expressly limited in its scope by the mention of the parties to whom it refers, or when not obviously limited by the nature of the case, must be understood in its simple, unrestricted, universal acceptation. It is not expressly limited here by the mention of any mere section of the race. The expression is not "the fashionable world," "the scientific world," "the religious
ST. JOHN III. i6 193
world," " the commercial world," " the literary world," " the busy world." Neither is there anything in the natm-e of the case referred to, — there is nothing in the nature of God's love, — that should lead us to suppose that it is confined either to the religious, or to the fashionable, or the scientific, or the commercial, or the busy, or the literary. It must be the whole world — the world of all men — that is referred to.
It is true that the word " world " is sometimes hyperbolically used with a limited reference. Even the expression, " the whole world," is sometimes thus used. We read that " the whole world lieth in wickedness " ; although in that very passage we also read that they who believe in Christ are not lying in wickedness, but are "of God." Jesus said to His disciples, "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own ; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." Here the word " world " obviously means somewhat less than all men. It means " the worldly." It means those who are characterized by the spirit which actuated men in general all over the world.