Here is a statement that I believe is implied in Acts 2:40 and is undeniably found all over the NT: The certainty of the Spirit’s activity in a church is based on the church’s conformity to Christ, which is directly tied to how much the church separates herself from the values and practices of the world.
The world has been rightly defined as the unredeemed mass of humanity that is opposed to God in its values and practices. In light of that, the prescribed biblical disposition towards the world is highly expected, as depicted in passages like Rom. 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind; 1 John 2:15—Do not love the world nor the things in the world. Regarding this danger of worldliness, we must not think of merely the tangible evils of the world—that as long as we stay away from drugs, wicked entertainment, or spending too much money on hobbies or luxury items—then surely we will glorify God. But what about the wisdom of the world that is in stark contrast to the wisdom of God found in the gospel? This wisdom of the world is that which expects God’s ways to be completely compatible with man’s natural reasoning. In 1st Corinthians, the Apostle Paul maintains that both the gospel of Christ and the method of preaching Christ are contrary and inaccessible to the wisdom of the world—1 Cor. 1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Furthermore, what about the god of emotional wholeness that is worshipped in our time and place? Processing what we hear and who we allow to influence our lives based entirely on how it makes us feel about ourselves is the epitome of worldliness because it puts self at the center of our universe and the primary assessment tool of what is right and wrong. James exposes the deadly nature of living this way in James 4:1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Would we really say that these types of things are less dangerous for the human heart that is naturally inclined towards worldliness than drugs or filthy movies? We must all be on guard against a friendly relationship with the world, since our flesh is bent on finding the easiest way and the path of least resistance. Lastly, part of what it means to be saved is emptied of its meaning if it does not mean saved from being enticed and entrapped by the world. Is this not how the Apostle Paul describes conversion in Eph. 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…
In that passage the salvation found in Jesus Christ has a significant intention to rescue us from the world and that’s exactly the content of Peter’s exhortation to this crowd in Acts 2. This rescue is what enables the church to be freed up to be devoted to the things that Christ prescribes. In other words, to the degree that one is freed from the influences of the world is the same degree that person can be devoted to what a Christian should be, especially as it relates to the body of Christ. And since that’s the case, what would be God’s perspective of a Christ follower who may not pursue the world, but considers certain values or practices of the world as neutral or worse, desirable? Christian-you are saved to remain separate from the world.
Why Christians Must Be Saved From The World
