of people from the Father’s love. Any of this world of people who desired to come into the Father’s love had to quit hating Jesus as the world was doing. They had to separate from this loveless world and had to love God’s Son and come into union with the Son. These become the ones whom God the Father loves just as he loves his Son.

On this basis of understanding, let us now consider John 3:16, 17, over which the original questions were raised. The verses in question read: “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life. For God sent forth his Son into the world, not for him to judge the world, but for the world to be saved through him.” Jesus’ words here do not refer to that large, comprehensive arrangement or constituted order made up of symbolic heavens and earth, “the heavens and the earth that are now.” Jesus is here talking about people, about people living on the literal earth and living according to a certain order or arrangement, as they are living under the invisible “ruler of this world,” Satan the Devil. (2 Pet. 3:7; John 12:31) Certainly God did not love the symbolic heavens, composed of Satan the Devil and his demons. Hence the world that Jesus said God loved is a restricted one and does not include the symbolic “heavens . . . that are now.”

Certainly in sending his Son into this world of people on earth Jehovah God the Father was performing a loving act toward this world. The taking of steps to save people of this world, instead of destroying this world of people outright with every member of it, was an action of love toward this world. No particular individuals in this world of people were singled out, although Jesus was sent directly to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Thus anybody and everybody of this world of people could take advantage of what God was doing through his Son. Because it was a loving act of God for the benefit of anyone and everyone in this world of people, God’s giving of his Son was an expression of love for the world of people living under the “ruler of this world,” Satan the Devil.

This did not mean, though, that everybody of this world of organized people would respond to that love and would come into God’s love and prove worthy of God’s love. That was why, without naming names of any individuals and without specifying any certain persons, Jesus added the conditional words: “In order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.” It is only “everyone exercising faith in him” that will “have everlasting life.” Those not “exercising faith in him” will “be destroyed.” Those not exercising the necessary faith prove to be in the majority, for which reason the world of people in general, without naming names, will be destroyed.

So from being a general love for this world of people, Jehovah’s love becomes a specific love for those who exercise faith in his Son and who love his Son and come into union with him. These are the ones who will “have everlasting life” in that righteous new order of the future and who make up a part of its new heavens and new earth. They are really people of the new order, for by coming into loving union and association with God’s given Son they cease to be a part of this world of people.

God knew that there were lovable persons, or persons who could become lovable, in this world of people. He, with his discerning eyes, knew that there were individuals who by birth were a part of this world of people but who were really not in heart harmony with the “sin of the world” and who desired to get free from the condemnation that was due to the “sin of the world.” (John 1:29) Hence God did not send his Son into this world of people to pronounce a blanket condemnation of this entire world of people, an indiscriminate condemnation of every member of this world of people without first an opportunity to show how individuals felt about the world’s condemnable sin and sinfulness. So God sent his Son into the world of people, “for the world to be saved through him.”

This is not saying that all the world of people will be saved through Jesus Christ, God’s Son. It is saying that the opportunity is open for anyone and for all to be saved, without partiality to anyone. Nevertheless, the world of people becomes judged. This is the meaning of Jesus’ words later on to a crowd of Jews: “Now there is a judging of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And yet I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw men of all kinds to me. I have come as a light into the world, in order that everyone putting faith in me may not remain in the darkness. But if anyone hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him, for I came, not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that disregards me and does not receive my sayings has one to judge him. The word which I have spoken is what will judge him in the last day.”—John 12:31, 32, 46-48.

Not all the people of this world get saved; not all this world of people escapes judgment that results in a condemnation to destruction, even though Jesus at his first coming did not come to judge and condemn the world of people in its entirety. Why does not the whole world of people therefore get saved and escape judgment? It is because, as Jesus added, “he that exercises faith in him is not to be judged. He that does not exercise faith has been judged already, because he has not exercised faith in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. Now this is the basis for judgment, that the light has come into the world but men [not angels] have loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were wicked.” (John 3:18, 19) Consequently, the only ones of this world that do not get judged down and that get saved are those who put faith in God’s Son and come out of the world’s darkness into the light in order that their “works may be made manifest as having been worked in harmony with God.” (John 3:21) Except for these, the world of people in general get judged as unworthy of salvation.

Concluding now the discussion, we say that the “world” that God loved so much and that he sent Jesus, not to judge, but to save, is the world of people on earth as represented by those members who break away from the worldly, organized people and who exercise faith in God’s gift of his only-begotten Son and then come into union with him or into association with him, proving themselves to be worthy of God’s love through his only-begotten Son. Such faithful believers and followers are reserved for everlasting life in God’s promised new order of “new heavens and a new earth.”—2 Pet. 3:13.

Christians Ever Misunderstood

The complaints made against the Christian witnesses of Jehovah as to their not joining in with popular well-meant movements have a familiar ring to those who know the history of early Christianity. Thus second-century anti-Christian writer Celsus “besought them to help the Emperor [Marcus Aurelius] in his difficult task of saving the world. Let them come forth from their selfish isolation, let them assist his councils, and even join his armies as officers.” Yes, even as with dedicated Christians today, Christians back there in the second century were unpopular because “they refused to come into a scheme deemed vital to the interests of civilization.”—Eusebius of Caesarea, Foakes-Jackson.

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“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

February 15: Down with the Old—Up with the New! Page 37.

February 22: Surviving with the New. Page 44.