The first is from 1 John, ii. 2. But before you examine it, turn for one moment to the words of the same apostle in the fifth chapter of the same epistle, and 19th verse, ‘We are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.’ That verse shows with indisputable clearness who is meant by ‘we,’ and who by ‘the world.’ By ‘we’ is meant the people of God, believers, the elect. By the world the rest of mankind, those who live and die unconverted and unsaved. And now turn to the passage in the second chapter, ‘And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.’ Surely the ‘our’ in that verse must refer to the same persons as the ‘we’ in the fifth chapter, and ‘the whole world’ in the second chapter must be the same as ‘the whole world’ in the fifth. But if so it is perfectly clear that He died not for the elect alone but for all mankind; for the whole world that lieth in wickedness. From the second passage we learn exactly the same respecting the love that led to it. I refer to John, iii. 16. But before we refer to it let us turn to another text in explanation, viz., that most wonderful prayer of our blessed Saviour in John, xvii. 6, ‘I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.’ You will observe in these words the clear distinction between the world and the elect. The mass of men are described as the world, while the elect are said to be given to Him out of it, set apart as a separate people, and given Him in the covenant of God. And now turn to the passage in John, iii., ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Surely we must take ‘the world’ here in the same sense as in the other passage. It is impossible to believe that by ‘the world’ he meant the elect of God given Him from out of the world, the peculiar people whom He Himself most carefully distinguishes from the world. Surely, then, we must conclude that the love which moved Him to make the atonement was a love for us all, a free love, an unmerited love, a compassionate love, a most merciful love, to every individual involved in the ruin of the fall.