number of the godly (in comparison of them) are by John termed the whole world, “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.” 1 John v. 19. Or, lastly the promiscuous generality or persons, good and bad together, be they fewer or more, where a man converseth, or hath opportunity to come amongst, or speak unto. Several instances were lately given of the second signification of the word, from the Scriptures. Instances of the first signification, also, there any many. “Ye are the light of the world,” Matt. v.14. “And the world knew him not,” John i. 10. “And I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him,” John viii. 26. “But I have chosen you out of the world,” John xv. 19. “Which thou gavest me out of the world,” John xvii. 6. “God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?” Rom. iii. 6. “As by one man sin entered into the world,” Rom v. 12. “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world” and “the weak things of the world,” 1 Cor. i. 27. “There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world,” 1 Cor. xiv. 10.
The world is never used in Scripture for the elect or godly party in the world, considered by themselves, or apart by others. It is used either for the wicked of the world alone, or apart by themselves, or else for both godly and wicked taken together, and as mixed one with another. It would be very strange that our Saviour should use it in that by-sense, and unheard of elsewhere, in so eminent a place and passage of the gospel as that in hand, and not in the familiar and best known signification of it.
2. This interpretation of the word accommodates the whole verse or sentence with clearness of sense and regularity of construction, as is evident unto those who understand what the one and what the other of these mean. For by it the genuine and proper use and import of the distributive particle, whosoever, is fully salved, which is destroyed by either of the former, and such a distribution of a general made by it, which supposeth a possibility of a difference between the particulars contained under it, and into which the said general is distributed, according to the exigency of those things, in reference whereunto the distribution is made. As for example: here is a distribution made of this general, the world, i.e. of all mankind, by this distributive pronoun, whosoever. The occasion of this distribution is to show who, or what particulars contained under this general, i.e. what particular persons of mankind shall not perish, but have everlasting life; and withal, by a tacit antithesis or in consequential way, as hath been already noted, to show what other particulars contained under the same general shall perish, and not to have everlasting life. The former are said to be such as shall believe on the only begotten Son of God; the latter are clearly implied to be such who shall not so believe. Now, if it should be supposed that there was, or is, not possibility that any such difference should be found between the particulars, into which the general is here distributed, as believing, and not believing, the distribution would be altogether needless and vain; yea, and would dissense the whole sentence. These things are plain and sensible to every understanding that knows what belongs to common sense or regularity of syntaxis.
3. This exposition of the word world, makes a clean joint, a rational and pleasant coherence, between this verse and that which follows; as also between this and the two verses immediately precedent. The words of the two preceding verses are these, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Now, certain it is, that Moses did not lift up the serpent with an intent of healing to be conferred by it upon such or such a definite or determinate number of persons; nor with an intent, either on his part or on God’s part, that none should look upon it but only such a parcel or determinate number of men; but with an intent, not only that whosoever in the event did look upon it, and could not but look upon it, might look upon it; but that whosoever would, might look up unto it, and that whosoever, being stung with the fiery serpents, did look up unto it, should be healed thereby.
This is evident from the story. “Make thee,” saith God to Moses, “a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when He looketh upon it, shall live,” Numb. xxi. 8. Now, then, all men without exception being stung with that fiery serpent, sin, unless Christ should be lifted up upon the cross, with an intent on God’s part and in himself; (a.) That every man, without exception, might believe in him; and (b.) That every man that should believe in him, should be saved by him. He could not be said to be lifted up, as (i.e. upon the same terms of a universal accommodation on which) Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Therefore, our Saviour, to give the world a satisfying account how it comes to pass that the Son of man, meaning himself, should be lifted up upon such terms, viz. for the universal benefit of salvation unto all mankind, he assigns the love of God to the world, as the reason or productive cause of it. For God so loved the world that, &c. Therefore, by the world, he must needs mean all mankind, or the generality of men, that were bitten or stung with sin, unless we will say, that God gave his son for the salvation of those whom he loved not.
The tenor of the following verses is this, “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but,” &c. In these words our Saviour confirms his former assertion, touching the love of God to the world, in giving his Son for the salvation of it, by rejecting that reason or motive of his sending him into the world, which men might imagine did occasion this his sending by God, and besides which, there could none other well be imagined, but only that which he had asserted, viz. an intent or purpose in Him, in God, of condemning the world by Him. Now to make Christ to say, that God sent not his Son into the world to condemn mankind, or the generality of men, as having sinned against him, is to make him say that which is savoury and comfortable, and that which opposeth, or is apt to prevent such a sad imagination, as was very incident to the minds of men through a consciousness of the guilt of sin, viz. That if God ever did, or should, send his Son amongst them, it would be to judge or condemn them.
But to make him say, that God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the elect, i.e. those few whom he infinitely loved, and to whom he had peremptorily, and without all possibility of reverse, decreed non-condemnation before this sending of him, is to make him speak at an extreme low rate of sense or reason, and to labour, as the proverb is, in lifting a feather. Inasmuch as no such thought or imagination as this was ever like to bear upon or trouble any man’s spirit; inasmuch then as no other interpretation of the world, in the former verse, but only that which hereby understandeth the generality of men-sinners, will accommodate this verse, in respect of the connexion between them, with any tolerable sense, evident it is, that that must needs be the true interpretation thereof.
By the way, when Christ saith, “For judgment I am come into the world,” &c. John ix. 39, He no ways opposeth what he here saith, viz. “That God sent him not into the world to condemn the world.” For in the former place, he speaks not of the intent, but of the event; in this, not of the event, but of the intent of his sending or coming into the world. Christ was not sent into the world with any intent on God’s part, nor came with any intention of his own, to make those which see to become blind, meaning either to augment or to discover to their shame the spiritual blindness and ignorance in such men, who being ignorant, presume of their knowledge by one means or other; but with an intent to heal the blindness of all, to their comfort, peace, and glory. Therefore, if any man through a foolish and proud conceit of his own knowledge and wisdom, shall stumble at, or reject the gospel and doctrine of Christ as foolishness, and so discover himself to be blind, ignorant, and foolish in the end; this is merely adventitious and accidental, in respect of the antecedent, primary, and direct intention of God in sending Christ into the world, as Calvin himself affirmeth.1
If it be demanded, but did not God intend that whosoever should stumble at or reject Christ, should in such a sense, be made blind? I answer, Yes, doubtless: God did intend to punish all manner of sins with judgments suitable to them. But his intention of making those blind, in the sense declared, who should reject Christ or his doctrine, was not that intent or purpose, out of which he sent Christ into the world, which was the genuine and natural product of his love, but such an intent which his perfect hatred of sin, especially of sin committed
