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 against the law of grace, formed in him.
4. The interpretation of the word world, now under assertion, magnifies that divine attribute, the love of God, incomparably more and above either of the former. They, who by the world understand the elect only, (which is the substance, also, of the second interpretation, unless it chooseth rather to resolve itself into this third, as was lately proved) allow a very small, narrow, and inconsiderable sphere, for so noble, active and diffusive a principle, as the love of God is, in comparison of those who extend it to the whole circumference of mankind. The whole element, and vast body of the air, in all the dimensions of it, height, depth, length, and breadth, make but a proportionable sphere for the sun, wherein to display the fulness of the glory, and to express the activity of his abundant light. Nor will the whole universe of creatures, take the whole number and entire host of them, a prima ad ultimam, et ab ultima ad primam, make a theatre any whit too large, capacious, or extensive, for the abundant riches and fullness of the love of God to act like themselves upon. They who present the love of God in the gift of his son Jesus Christ, as contracted to the narrow compass of the elect, i.e. of those only who shall in the end be saved, and preach this for the gospel unto the world, do by men, in respect of their spiritual accommodation, as God should do by the world in their temporal, in case he should keep his sun in a continual eclipse, suffer ten parts of the light of it to be perpetually obscured.
5. This interpretation, we now plead is of fair and dull consistency teach and affirm, concerning the nature of God, his mercy, sweetness, love, goodness towards all his creatures, his equal and impartial administration of rewards and punishments in the world, his non-exception of persons, his ardent, serious, and compassionate desires that none should perish. It means that even the vilest and wickedest of men should return from the evil of their ways, and be saved, his not delighting in the death of those who do perish, with much more of like consideration and import. There is an obvious and manifest agreement between the exposition we contend for, and all such veins of Scripture expression, as these: whereas the other interpretations are at an absolute and manifest defiance with them.
And, lastly, the sense now argued for is attested by Calvin himself upon the place, with several other Protestant divines. “Both,” saith he, “are here distinctly delivered