God Loves the Whole World

"For God so loved the world...." (John 3:16)

The Bible is a strange book with so many apparent contradictions. Please note carefully what I am saying. I did not say that the Bible has many self contradictions - I simply said that it appears so. Our present text tells us that God loved the world. Ephesians 5:1 tells us that as dear the children of God we have to imitate Him.

As a cumulative effect of both John 3:16 and Ephesians 5:1, a casual student of the Scriptures will be led to conclude that even a child of God must love the world, because his/her heavenly Father did so.

But the first epistle of John, the apostle, 2nd chapter, 15th verse tells us something which seemingly contradicts and condemns the earlier idea. Let us consider what the Scripture says - "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him". Did you notice that here we are commanded clearly not to love the world. Just consider these three verses - 1. God loved the world 2. We must imitate God 3. But must not love the world!! How do we justify that? In order to understand this apparent contradiction, we must know the correct definition of the word, "world". We must also understand that a single word may have different definitions on different occasions, in different situations.

When the Scripture tells us in John 3:16 that God so loved the world, the word "world" refers to mankind in general. John 3:16 means that God loved the mankind. It means, God loved men and women of all the people of all the nations in the world. God loved the people living in the whole world. But in 1 John 2:15, the apostle uses the word "world" with a totally different meaning. Here, the word "world" means all the sinful attractions and pleasures of the world. It can also mean the wealth of the world. It can mean the fame of the world. A Christian must not love all these things. A child of God is expected to be disinterested in all the attractions of the world. The reason is given in 1 John 2:15. If we love the world, the Scripture tells us that the love of God will not dwell in us. That means if we love the world and the worldly things, we cannot love the things which are dear to God. We cannot love the things which God loves. Herein lies the secret of Godliness. Herein is disclosed the secret reason for the failure in the lives of innumerable saints. So many people cannot become men/women of prayer because they love the world and the things in it. Many Christians cannot become enlightened students of the Word because they love the worldly things. Moreover, many people cannot be successful evangelists because, their hearts are not filled with love for the perishing souls. Many Christians do not love the sinners because, they love sin.

The God who loved the sinners is the most holy God who hates sin with absolute and perfect hatred. So we logically conclude that everyone who hates sin will inevitably love the sinner and endeavour for his salvation. Many Christians do not have sympathy for the sinners, for the simple reason that in the depth of their heart, they do not hate sin with perfect hatred. This truth is at once both difficult and essential for us to understand. May the Holy Spirit enlighten us on this vital subject. May god bless you.