The “World” of 3:16

10. December 2007 by James.

God loves the world in this manner….. John 3:16.

This is a continuation of 3:16 the Ubiquitous End-Zone Ad.

In the last post, “So“, I asked for a better definition of “the World”. (The world? The universe, The planet earth, the people? All people? Just some chosen ones?)

This word “world” (kosmos in Greek) seems to mean different things in the Bible. It could mean the cosmos, or the system or the arrangement. Ignoring Michael Jackson’s “We are the World, we are the people” lyrics, it seems odd that the word world would mean the people in the world, because that would mean that the world is the people, or that the people - that which is in the world - would have to be the world itself - which doesn’t make sense to me.

Elsewhere in the scriptures the word world is identified as an age ,or an eon, or even an administration or stewardship system. We are hard pressed to find that God initiated His loving interface with mankind just on the chance that some of them might choose Him. Instead we see an organized, systematic purpose in God’s interaction with people and with his other creations, living and non-living.

In Genesis, we read of His creative activities and each time he created something in His “system” He said it was “good”, He didn’t limit this expression to mankind alone since He expressed approval of the whole “arrangement” of His creation.

Light came into the world but men loved darkness (John 3:19). It is clear that the world is an “arrangement” and the men that lived in it are a part of that “system”. Light is a part of the arrangement, and so is darkness. People - a part of the arrangement - loved the dark part of the world more than the light part of the world.

We read in John’s “Revelation” that there will be a “new heaven and new earth” (Rev. 1:21), not just new people but a new era, or eon, or age, or system, or “world“.

God’s love of the entire system, which includes time, darkness, light, people and all of His creation - is such that He gave….

For God’s love of His “arrangement” is displayed in this manner:

He gave….

His only begotten Son… begotten? First-born, child, first creation?

Next post - Gave.

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