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Joh_3:17. Confirmation of Joh_3:16, in which ἀπέστειλεν answers to the ἔδωκεν , κρίνῃ to the ἀπόληται , and σωθῇ to the ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον of Joh_3:16. Considering this exact correspondence, it is very arbitrary with modern critics (even Lücke, B. Crusius) to understand the second τὸν κόσμον differently from the first, and from the τ . κόσμον of Joh_3:16, as denoting in the narrow Jewish sense the Gentile world, for whose judgment, i.e. condemnation, the Messiah, according to the Jewish doctrine, was to come (see Bertholdt, Christol. pp. 203, 223). Throughout the whole context it is to be uniformly understood of the world of mankind as a whole. Of it Jesus says, that He was not sent to judge it,—a judgment which, as all have sinned, must have been a judgment of condemnation,—but to procure for it by His work of redemption the Messianic σωτηρία . “Deus saepe ultor describitur in veteri pagina; itaque conscii peccatorum merito expectare poterant, nlium venire ad poenas patris nomine exigendas,” Grotius. It is to be remembered that He speaks of His coming in the state of humiliation, in which He was not to accomplish judgment, but was to be the medium of obtaining the σώζεσθαι through His work and His death. Judgment upon the finally unbelieving was reserved to Him upon His Second Advent (comp. Joh_5:22; Joh_5:27), but the κρῖμα which was to accompany His works upon earth is different from this (see on Joh_9:39).
The thrice-repeated κόσμος has a tone of solemnity about it. Comp. Joh_1:10, Joh_15:19.