1 John 2:15 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

To you all, whether fathers, young men, or little children, I say, Love not the world Pursue your victory by overcoming the world, and all the temptations which may assault you from it, whether from prosperity or adversity, from riches or poverty, honour or reproach, pleasure or pain, life or death; from the persons of the world, or from the things that are in the world Whether they assault you through the medium of your senses, or your appetites and passions. If any man love the world Esteem, desire, or pursue it, or any thing in it, inordinately, so as to place his happiness in the enjoyment of it; the love of the Father is not in him There being a real inconsistency between the love of the world and the love of God; between being carnally minded, esteeming, desiring, and pursuing immoderately visible and temporal things, which is death, and being spiritually minded, having our thoughts and affections set on invisible and heavenly things, which is life and peace, Romans 8:6. For all that is in the world That is tempting and alluring; the lust Επιθυμια, the desire; of the flesh The pleasure arising from gratifying the outward senses, whether of the taste, smell, or touch, or the bodily appetites; the desire of the eyes Those things, which, being seen by the eyes, are earnestly desired and sought after, and which they take pleasure in beholding, especially riches, including also the pleasures of imagination, (to which the eye chiefly is subservient,) of that internal sense whereby we relish whatever is grand, new, or beautiful; and the pride of life Those things wherein men are wont to take the greatest pride, and which chiefly feed pride of heart; all that pomp in clothes, houses, furniture, equipage, manner of living, things which generally procure honour from the bulk of mankind, and so gratify pride and vanity. It therefore directly includes the desire of praise, and, remotely, covetousness. All these desires are not of the Father, but of the world That is, from the prince of this world, or from that corruption of nature that prevails in worldly men. And the world passeth away Namely, all the enjoyments of the world; and the desire thereof All that appears desirable in it, and causes it to be so much sought after; or all that can gratify the above-mentioned desires, passeth away with it; but he that doeth the will of God That loves him, and not the world, and seeks happiness in him, and not in worldly things, abideth in the enjoyment of what he loves, and makes the object of his pursuit, for ever.