AG STUDY GUIDE FINAL - The Forerunner

This is not to say that the words “all,” “world,” and “whole world” in the Bible can
never be taken to mean every single person or thing. In some cases they can. But how
we understand these words — like virtually every other word in the Bible — is based
upon the context, when and to whom they were written, and then compared to other
Scriptures.
The verse quoted most often to prove what Jesus did He did for every single person is
perhaps the most well-known and loved passage in the whole world. John 3:16 states:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” ~ John 3:16
In their universalistic interpretation of this verse, the Arminian fails to take into account
when and to whom the Lord was speaking. They ignore the historical context — that a
young Jewish rabbi was addressing a culture obsessed with race and ethnicity; that,
while the occasional Gentile might somehow find his way into the Kingdom of God, it
was to the physical descendents of Abraham that salvation really belonged.
Dr. D. James Kennedy – We need to understand the Jewish mindset was that a Messiah
was going to come, and this was a Messiah of and for the Jews. And it never dawned on
a Jewish mind that their Messiah was going to pay for the sins of a Roman. I mean these
people needed to be destroyed and abolished and thrown out. Not redeemed and saved
and taken to Heaven. This was almost an unthinkable thing. And so when John, on
several different occasions said that He is the propitiation not only for our sins, but for
the sins of the whole world, he is talking about the amazing thing is that a Messiah has
come which is going to pay for the sins of the people in Israel and also for the people in
all other countries in the world. The great Baptist scholar, John Gill, echoes this
interpretation,
“Now, in opposition to such a notion, our Lord addresses this Jew [Nicodemus];
and it is as if He had said, you (Nicodemus) say, that when the Messiah comes,
only the Israelites, the peculiar favorites of God, shall share in the blessings that
come by, and with [the Messiah]; and that the Gentiles shall reap no advantage by
Him, being hated of God, and rejected of Him: but I tell you, God has so loved the
Gentiles, as well as the Jews…” ~ Gill, John D.D., Gill’s Expositor, (Streamwood,
IL.: Baptist Library 1976), Volume IX, pg. 189)
Besides, if “the world” always means every single person, then the Arminians have a
problem when he they get to verses like 1 John 2:15:
160