satisfy the selfish desire by which he was enticed, this spirit son of God changed himself from a son of God into a disowner of God his Father, from a co-worker with God into an opposer of God, from a truthtelling praiser of God into a lying slanderer of God. He turned himself into Satan the Devil, whom God could not own as his son. He did this by trying to convert Adam and Eve from perfect, righteous, sinless children of God into bad persons such as he could now originate, sinners against their Creator. That is why John writes: “He who practices sin originates with the Devil, because the Devil has been sinning from when he began. For this purpose the Son of God was made manifest, namely, to break up the works of the Devil. . . . The children of God and the children of the Devil are evident by this fact: Everyone who does not practice righteousness does not originate with God, neither does he who does not love his brother. . . . we should have love for one another; not like [Adam’s son] Cain, who originated with the wicked one and slaughtered his brother [Abel]. And for the sake of what did he slaughter him? Because his own works were wicked, but those of his brother were righteous.” (1 John 3:8-12) Through introducing sin, Satan desecrated God’s Eden sanctuary.

(To be continued)

Questions From Readers

● At John 3:16, 17, what “world” did God love so much, and what “world” did God send Jesus, not to judge, but to save?

In John’s account of Jesus’ life the English word “world” is translated from the Greek word kósmos, which occurs at least seventy-nine times in the original text of John’s account. Fundamentally, kósmos means “order,” that is, a constituted order, an arrangement, an ordering of things according to a certain design, an arrangement of things according to a certain pattern.

However, whenever in John’s account we read the word kósmos, we must not in every case at once think of a world made up of heavens and an earth, the heavens being composed of invisible controlling spirit forces and the earth being composed of human creatures subject and submissive to the control of those invisible spirit forces. Hence we should not at once think of such kinds of world which have been or will yet be associated with this earth—the Edenic world of Adam and Eve’s innocency; the world outside the garden of Eden or the world of the ungodly before the Flood; the present world of the “heavens and the earth that are now”; and the coming new world of “new heavens and a new earth.” If we always think of such worlds we may run into confusion and wonder which is the one of those several worlds that is meant.

For example, take John’s first four uses of the word kósmos or “world.” We read: “The true light which gives light to every kind of man was about to come into the world [1]. He was in the world [2], and the world [3] came into existence through him, but the world [4] did not take note of him. He came to his own home, but his own people did not take him in.” (John 1:9-11) Now, into what world did Jesus come as the true light? It is true that this occurred during the time of the world made up of the “heavens and the earth that are now.” (2 Pet. 3:7) But is this the “world” that John 1:9-11 means? Was this the world that “came into existence through him”? Was this “his own home” to which he came, but none of which took him in?

We must keep in mind that Jesus came out of the invisible, higher spirit realms into the visible, lower earthly or fleshly realms. This was why he said to the Jews: “You are from the realms below; I am from the realms above. You are from this world; I am not from this world.” (John 8:23) Here Jesus was identifying one world with the “realms above,” and another