John 12:20-32, What World did God Love? (3)

 ·       Jhn 12:25,31,46,47: The coming of the “Greeks” (12:20-22) sets the context for this passage and for this time in Jesus’ earthly life.  In v25 He is speaking of Himself as well as anyone “who hates his life in this world.”  The Greeks want to hear from Jesus.  Jesus does not actually speak with them as far as we know.  Rather, He recognizes that now is the time for the cross, the burying of the seed in the ground, for the carrying out of the event that will satisfy the desire of the Greeks.  V31: “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.”  Both the world and the ruler of the world are judged.  It is not as though Satan was in the “world of the elect” and needed to be cast out; the world itself is to be judged even as the ruler of the world is judged.  For the last time Jesus references His ministry as the “light of the world” in v46-47: “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.  47 “And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” 

·       Jhn 13:1: Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.  (Note that “his own” are in the world.  If Jn. 3:16 refers to the elect who are in the world, i.e. the world in which are the elect, John knows how to say that as he does here.  The elect are certainly “in the world” but that means the world is more than the elect.)

·       Jhn 14:17: “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.”  (The world of the elect does know Him.)

·       Jhn 14:19,22: “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me.  (Again, seems strange to say this because it seems obvious, there is a distinction between the world and the elect who will see Him.)  v22: Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?”  (He manifests Himself, but not to the world He loves.)

·       Jhn 14:27: A distinction between the peace of Christ and the peace of the world.

·       Jhn 14:30,31: “The ruler of this world is coming (Satan), and his world needs to know that Jesus loves the Father.  So, it is on to Gethsemane and Golgotha.

·       Jhn 15:18,19: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (The elect were in the world He loved, but they were hated by that world.)

To keep matters clear, what I see is that God loved the world, the one He created that is full of sinful people.  He has chosen some from that world, and we also say that some in that world have believed in Jesus.  The world in general, God having loved them all because He loved the world, nevertheless hates those who are His.