”世界“是指“被拣选的”吗？
Obviously, then, the distribution of the notion "world" in our text into "each and every man" in the world, does less than justice to the infinitude of the love of God which it is plainly the object of the text to exalt in our thought. Reacting from the ineptitudes of this interpretation, and determined at all costs to take the conception of the love of God at the height of its idea, men of deeper insight have therefore suggested that it is not the world at large that is in question in the text, but God's people, the chosen of God in the world.
明显地，把“WORLD"统统解释成”世界上每一个人“是对神的爱的无限稍欠公正的， 非常简单，神的爱是我们的思想要要高举的。 针对对这种解释的不足， 并基于尽一切力量高举神的爱的立意的立场， 一些思想深刻的人提出了文中争议的部分不是笼统地解释为世界， 而应该是神的子民， 神在世界上的选民。
Surely, it is God's seeking, nay, God's finding love that is celebrated here, they argue—the love which goes out to its object with a vigor which no obstacle can withstand, and, despite every difficulty, brings it safely into the shelter of its arms. The "world" that God so loved that he gave his Son for it—surely that is not the "world" that he loved so little as to leave it to take or leave the Son so given, as its own wayward heart might dictate; but the "world" that he loved enough, after giving his Son for it, powerfully to move upon with his quickening Spirit and graciously to lead into the offered salvation. This is the "world" of believers, in a word, as they are called in the following clause, or, as they are called elsewhere in Scripture, the "world" of God's elect. It was these whom God loved before the foundation of the world with a love beyond all expression great and strong, constant and prevailing, a love which was not and could not be defeated, just because it was love, the very characteristic of which, Paul tells us, is that it suffereth long, is not provoked, taketh no account of evil, beareth all things, endureth all things, yea, never faileth: and therefore was not and could not be satisfied until it had brought its objects home.
他们当然在这里宣讲神的爱的寻找， 而不是爱的发现。 他们认为那种出来带着能力， 克服障碍， 不顾任何困难的爱会把世界带回它的膀臂的安全保护里。 神自己深爱并把自己的儿子献给的那个“世界”肯定不是他并不深爱可以对他的已舍的儿子任意取舍的“世界”。 他深爱的那个世界， 在他舍了自己的儿子后， 充满能力地与他的使人苏醒的圣灵同行并丰丰富富地奔向那许诺的拯救。 这是信徒的“世界” 用一个词表示，就是选民。 就像在下面常常用到的， 就像在圣经里常常提到的， 神的选民的世界。 神在创世以前就爱他们， 用那言语无法表达的伟大的， 强烈的， 恒久的和流行的爱来爱他们。 这是不败和不可能失败的爱。 就像保罗所讲的， 爱是恒久忍耐，又有恩慈。爱是不嫉妒。爱是不自夸。不张狂。爱是永不止息. 如果不把爱的对象带回来， 爱是不满足也不会被满足。
It is very clear that this interpretation has the inestimable advantage over the one formerly suggested, that it penetrates into the heart of the matter and refuses to evacuate the text of its manifest purport. The text is given to enhance in our hearts the conception of the love of God to sinners: to make us to know somewhat of the height and depth and length and breadth of it, though truly it passes knowledge. It will not do, then, as we read it, to throw limitations around this love, as if it could not accomplish that whereto it is set.
相对于前一种， 这种解释明显地有难以估量的优势。 它触及到了事情的核心， 不会倒空经文的宣告的意味。 这节经文在这里增强了我们对神对罪人的爱的理解：是我们知道其长阔高深超过我们的认识。 在我们读它时， 不会对这爱形成限制， 就好像它无法完成它的预定目标似的。
Beyond all question, the love which is celebrated is the saving love of God; and the "world" which is declared to be the object of this love is a "world" that is not merely given an opportunity of salvation, but actually saved. As none but believers—or, if you choose to look at them sub specie aeternitatis, none but the elect—attain salvation, so it seems but an identical proposition to say that it is just the world of believers, or the world of the elect, that is embraced in the love of God here celebrated. When the text declares, therefore, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for it, is not what is meant, and what must be meant, just the elect scattered throughout the world?
超越一切的是， 我们所理解的爱是神的救恩的爱。 在这里宣告的作为爱的对象的“世界“不只是一个有某种被拯救机会的世界， 而是一个确确实实地被拯救的世界。 除了信徒以外（如果你要追究的话， 除了选民以外）， 没人能够获得救恩。 用同样的意思表达， 神的爱只是拥抱了信徒的世界， 或者选民的世界。 难道真的是， 当圣经将神爱”世界“， 甚至将他的独生子交出来， 世界不是它的字面意思， 而是散落在世界上的选民？
