According to the Bible the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. (1 John 5:19)

Question

1 John 5:19 (NRSV)

"We know that we are God’s children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one."

How could someone evil gain control over the world (humanity)?

Answer 1

To be as short an succinct as possible:

World is created by God through His Logos and both share one absolute unalloyed Goodness; and since, according to John, the creation includes everything (John 1:1-3), and since evil has not co-existed in eternity with God, then evil is not created by God and its existence has no ontological eternal ground whatsoever.

Thus, if its source is not God, then its source must be something belonging to the creation, and this something is that, which can deviate from the good order set by God. Now, the only thing that can deviate from this order in the created universe is a free agency of a created will. This abuse of freedom, first in the angelic world and then in the human world, accounts for the existence of evil. Accordingly, Jesus did not come to condemn the world or to forsake it to evil, but to save it (John 3:17), and to expel from it the initiator of the evil - the Satan (John 12:31).

All well! But what is exactly this deviation through which the world as yet remains entrapped to the demonic powers according to 1 John 5:19? This is the power of sin that works through human weakness, through the frailty of human nature that has been damaged since Adam's primordial lapse. Now, since it is damaged, it cannot obey to and fulfill divine commandments (Romans 8:7); moreover, it inclines and desires towards delectation of sin and the power of this inclination, this drive is so mighty, that without Christ nobody can overcome it, even those who wish to overcome (like Paul so brilliantly expresses in Romans 7:17-20), and what to say about those who even do not wish to overcome it, so much fond of it they have become?! And this is the meaning that the entire world lies in sin.

Yet, the sin has been defeated by Jesus through His crucifixion and resurrection, thus through Him and in Him also those who believe and follow Him will be able to defeat the inertia/drive of sin and of demons and become God's sons (John 1:12), but not in order to leave the world for some nirvana or some recluse sect as Pythagoreans or Neoplatonic philosophers, but to go to the world as sheep to wolves and convert the latter also into sheep, that is to say, Christianize them (Matt 10:16).

Answer 2

I think it is fair to say here that John is drawing a distinction between those who, in the NRSV translation, are God's children (ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ - lit. "of God") and those who are of the whole world (ὁ κόσμος ὅλος). The line of thinking follows, I think, Paul's when he maligns what he calls the wisdom of this world (1 Corinthians 3:18).

That which is under the power of the evil one (or simply evil) is there because it chooses to remain so and not because of domination somehow granted to the devil. A reasonable explanation of the verse can be found, I think, in the commentary of the Eastern Orthodox theologian Justin Popović (1894-1979):

We know that we are of God: this is the constant understanding of a Christian. Everything that makes us Christians, and that is to say, true Christians, is of God. In everything, we originate from God ... Since everything in them is of God, they clearly discern and see the boundary line between that which is of God and that which is not: between good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness, truth and lies, life and death, God and the devil. Because their vision and understanding are of God, they see and know that the whole world lieth in wickedness. Lieth because sins have thrown it down, and it does not have a desire to stand up. Christians live in such a world, but they guard themselves from evil and sin by living by means of the holy powers of the other world ... That world is comprised of human beings who have voluntarily subjugated themselves to sin and vices.^*

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^{* Commentaries on the Epistles of St. John the Theologian (tr. from Serbian; Sebastian Press, 2009), pp.80-81}

Answer 3

1 John 5:19 reveals a fundamental truth namely that the world is under control of the Evil one, please keep in mind that Satan offered all kingdoms to Jesus as clearly stated in Luke 4:5,6 but at the same time, like Jesus did, we have the power to choose between good and bad. Notwithstanding Satan has an earthly organization to reach its goals as I have highlighted in my book "The whole world is under control of the Evil one"

Answer 4

How could someone evil gain control over the world (humanity)?

The short, Biblical answer, is that God allowed it to happen, part of the curse caused by Adam's sin. And since then God has planned and executed a rescue mission which is still ongoing until Jesus's second coming. John Piper goes into the Biblical support for this standard Christian view, which includes putting 1 John 5:19 in context along with other relevant verses such as the temptation of Jesus in Luke 4:5-7 and Matt 4:8-9 and how Jesus and Paul alluded to the current reigning power of the world as a matter of fact, BUT defeated, although not completely, leaving us Christians to choose the right side and join the fight.

Except for the pastoral article by John Piper above, I think Levan Gigineishvili answer is more complete and better than mine, which I agree completely :-).

Answer 5

I would like to offer an outline to an alternative answer to L. Gigineishvili's. At the centre of his answer lies, I suggest, his phrase "a free agency of a created will". How could the human will be free of how and why it was made? Surely there must be a relationship between how the will was made and how it functions. This alternative explores there being no such thing as free will.
Col 1:16 He created archai and exousiai
Col 2:10 He controls, is the head of all arches kai exousias.
Col 2:15 He disarmed archas kai exousias and put them to open shame.
Things that God made, things that control this world, God made, controls and has found wanting the perfection that was in His Son Jesus.
A theodicy: God is holy.
God made everything.
Evil exists.
Free will suggests that God did not make everything as man can be a first cause.
God is the Only Beginning, Alpha, tells me man cannot be a first cause.
God had a holy motive for creating that which was "very good", but this could mean fit for purpose. Fit for purpose could be morally bankrupt because The Father wanted Only Jesus to be able to say that He had come to fulfil the Law and the Prophets. If only Jesus was to have this joy then might not this be a holy motive to make sure that no created being got this privilege.
God's Laws are not so much to be obeyed as to lead us to the cross because they cannot be obeyed. God is uncreated. Evil is created. God could never become created whatever He created.

Answer 6

God created a very good world. It was a creation that reflected His own goodness. Mankind was the pinnacle of that creation. When sin entered, death entered, everything began to die, the whole cosmos, God’s whole material creation was affected. All of God’s creation came under the power and condemnation of the evil one. The whole creation “groaned” under his power. Mankind, as the pinnacle of God’s creation “groaned” loudest, animals typified by the snake, paid a heavier price than plants, plants as typified by weeds came next, the ground was cursed, everything was marred by Satan and sin was subject to judgement and God’s wrath. Only by Gods grace did everything not immediately disintegrate and perish instantly. God’s love compelled Him to rescue the creation that he loved. Immediately, rather than allowing satan (being a “murderer” from the beginning)to accomplish his plan to “murder” the cosmos, God enacted a redemptive plan. The Christ plan… (references provided by request)

Often the very real question of “why did God allow this or that to some or something and not that to someone or something” is answered by the proper understanding of the above it seems to me. It’s only by God’s grace that the ultimate evil, the satan’s powerful deadly, dissembling rule over “our” world, doesn’t immediately fall upon all of us and everything around us The real answer to the “why” question is “why not?” Only by God’s grace is anything (or anyone) spared the effect of satan’s rule.

Answer 7

19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. 1 John 5:19 (KJV)

There is no word for "one" as in a person. The translation you are using apparently added the word "one" to try and make sense, but missed the meaning. The Greek text has no word for "one". The Lord Jesus is the one in which all things are controlled - He. 1:-3, Col. 1:17, Matt. 28:18.

Therefore, by the text given above, the translation you used to post your question causes confusion and perhaps a contradiction.