Scripture speaks generously of God’s love.
“God so loved the World that He gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Yet “Whom?” or “What?” does “world” include?
Should we understand “God so loved the world” as a Creator’s love for all people, or only a redeemer’s love for His chosen ones?
“I know that some try to take world here to refer to the elect. But that really will not do. All the evidence of the usage of the word in John’s Gospel is against the suggestion.”
“World in John does not so much refer to bigness as to badness. In John’s vocabulary, world is primarily the moral order in willful and culpable rebellion against God. In John 3:16, God’s love in sending the Lord Jesus is to be admired not because it is extended to so big a thing as the world, but to so bad a thing; not to so many people, as to such wicked people.”
“Nevertheless elsewhere John can speak of “the whole world” (1John 2:2), thus bringing bigness and badness together. More importantly, in Johannine theology the disciples themselves once belonged to the world but were drawn out of it (e.g., John 15:19). On this axis, God’s love for the world cannot be collapsed into his love for the elect” (D.A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God).
Wisdomforlife 