Course of this world

@all Before man was born into the earth, there already stood a curriculum fashioned against his destiny. The flesh had its appetite, the eyes had their fascination, and the pride of life had its throne. What Eve first beheld in the garden was not a mere tree, but the unveiling of an ancient curriculum of deception, for 1 John 2:16 speaks of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, and these are not of the Father but are of the world. When the serpent persuaded her to see the tree as good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise, Genesis 3:6 reveals the first lesson in the classroom of rebellion. That moment was not only a temptation, it was an enrollment. Man was being tutored into a world-system that would train him for estrangement from God.

This is why Ephesians 2:1 to 3 is so piercing. The apostle unveils that the children of disobedience are not accidental rebels but faithful scholars of the course of this world, walking according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. The world has a course, and that course has a spirit. It shapes appetites, forms desires, and teaches men how to live without God while calling it wisdom. It raises men who are educated in pride, fluent in self, and skilled in unbelief, until they grow into a stature that resists the Lord who made them. Thus the earth becomes a place of competing tutorship, where hell seeks to disciple man into perdition while heaven seeks to recover him into glory.

Yet redemption is not merely pardon, it is deliverance from a false education. Titus 2:11 to 12 says the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. Grace is therefore not only a gift, it is a teacher. Salvation does not just rescue man from judgment, it rescues him from the curriculum of the fallen age. Christ does not merely forgive the student of the world, He enrolls him into a higher school, a kingdom learning, where the soul is rebuilt by truth, the will is retrained by the Spirit, and the life of God is formed in the inward man.

This is the burden of the apostolic ministry. Colossians 2:2 to 3 speaks of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Therefore the goal of the Gospel is not information alone, but formation. The divine agenda is to make man complete in Christ, as Colossians 2:10 declares, and to root him so deeply in the Lord that he is no longer tossed by the doctrines of the age but established in the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Paul labored as a spiritual tutor, not merely to convert men, but to calibrate them unto maturity, that their faith might be toward the Lord Jesus and their love toward all the saints, as seen in Ephesians 1:15 and echoed in the apostolic burdens throughout the epistles.

And this is where the struggle over man becomes so profound. Man is a treasure of immense value, for heaven contends for him and hell also covets him. The soul of man is no small estate. He was created for communion, fashioned for glory, and intended to bear the likeness of God. That is why the conflict is so fierce. What is at stake is not merely behavior but destiny, not merely actions but allegiance. The one who owns the curriculum ultimately owns the student. Hence the battle is for what man hears, what man sees, what man loves, and what man becomes.

Yet there is a higher school, the school of the life to come. And even though a man is admitted into it by new birth, he does not enter empty. He comes with the residue of former learning, old patterns, old reflexes, old judgments, and old appetites. This is why Ephesians 4:22 to 24 commands us to put off the old man, which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, and to put on the new man, created according to God in righteousness and true holiness. New birth is real, but the old syllabus still cries from within unless it is mortified by the Spirit. The child of God enters the kingdom as a beginner, like a child in kindergarten, yet he must not remain bound to the grammar of the old age. He must learn Christ, be taught by Christ, and be transformed into the image of Christ.

So the calling is clear. We must remain under the discipline of the world to come until the world within us is fully dethroned. Hebrews 12:1 to 2 calls us to lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. For true freedom is not found in escaping all schooling, but in being thoroughly yoked to the right school, the school of the kingdom, where the Son teaches sons, where grace instructs the redeemed, and where eternal life is not only professed, but formed.

In conclusion, man is not merely saved to escape hell. He is saved to be retrained for glory. He must put off the old man because he cannot properly learn the life of the age to come while still carrying the vocabulary of the old age. The new birth gives him admission, but sanctification gives him understanding. And as he submits to the hand of Christ, the former curriculum loses its authority, the old lens is broken, and the man begins to walk as a true son, fitted for the Father, prepared for eternity, and certified by grace for the world to come.