II. Sinful men have made an _evil world_. The world, as Paul knew it, was evil indeed. "The existing evil age," he says, the world as it then was, in contrast with the glory of the perfected Messianic kingdom.
This was a leading distinction of the rabbinical schools; and the writers of the New Testament adopt it, with the necessary modification, that "the coming age," in their view, commences with the _Parousia_, the full advent of the Messiah King.[4] The period that intervenes since His first appearing is transitional, belonging to both eras. It is the conclusion of "this world,"[5] to which it appertains in its outward and material relations;[6] but under the perishing form of the present there lies hidden for the Christian believer the seed of immortality, "the earnest" of his future and complete inheritance.[7] Hence the different and seemingly contradictory ways in which Scripture speaks of the world that now is.
[4] 2 Thess. i. 5-7; 2 Tim. iv. 18; Heb. x. 12, 13; 1 Pet. v. 10.
To Paul at this time the world wore its darkest aspect. There is a touching emphasis in the order of this clause. "The present world, _evil as it is_:" the words are a sigh for deliverance. The Epistles to Corinth show us how the world just now was using the Apostle. The wonder is that one man could bear so much. "We are made as the filth of the world," he says, "the offscouring of all things."[8] So the world treated its greatest living benefactor. And as for his Master--"the princes of this world crucified the Lord of glory." Yes, it was a bad old world, that in which Paul and the Galatians lived--false, licentious, cruel. And that "evil world" still exists.
[8] 1 Cor. iv. 9-13; xv. 30, 32; 2 Cor. vi. 4, 10; xi. 16, 33.
True, the world, as we know it, is vastly better than that of Paul's day. Not in vain have Apostles taught, and martyrs bled, and the Church of Christ witnessed and toiled through so many ages. "Other men have laboured; we enter into their labours." An English home of to-day is the flower of the centuries. To those cradled in its pure affections, endowed with health and honourable work and refined tastes, the world must be, and was meant to be, in many aspects a bright and pleasant world. Surely the most sorrowful have known days in which the sky was all sunshine and the very air alive with joy, when the world looked as when it came forth fresh from its Creator's hand, "and behold, it was very good." There is nothing in the Bible, nothing in the spirit of true religion to damp the pure joy of such days as these. But there are "the days of darkness;" and they are many. The Serpent has crept into our Paradise. Death breathes on it his fatal blast.