In the first place, the "Love" here of God, in the context, is clearly His "Saving Love", as the passage is talking about the salvation of believing sinners
Not really. You're describing "love" (here αγαπαω) as a noun, not a verb. The focus is on what God as the subject does, not what the type of love is. What you're missing here is the word οὕτως, which means "thusly" or "like so." So, John is defining what the love of God is in this case: Sending his Son. Is that slavific? Sure! But, it's not the meaning of "love" here.
In the second place, again, contextually, "τὸν κόσμον", can only mean "the entire human race", or better as John Calvin says, "everyone without exception". It is NOT to be "limited" as some do, for the purpose of their "theology", mean "the elect". This argument, as we shall see is absurd!
There are plenty of cases where "the world" does not and cannot mean "the entire human race." In fact, in John 3:17 where it says "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" the phrase "the entire human race" would not work. We could not say "For God did not send his Son into [the entire human race]. You might make the argument that "the entire human race" would work in some places--which it does--but it doesn't work in every one. So, your chose for it in 3:16 is entirely subjective. And, what is more, "the entire human race" cannot mean everyone without exception, otherwise you'd have to be a universalist at some point.
In the third place, the Greek adjective, "πᾶς", has the meaning, "everyone", the KJV and others read, "whosoever". These are those from "τὸν κόσμον".
In the fourth place, the "πᾶς" here are limited to those, "who believe in Him (Jesus Christ)", and not "τὸν κόσμον"
This is wrong. πᾶς is not where the KJV gets "whosoever." And, I might add, the translation "whosoever" is wrong. The relevant portion of the passage : πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν. Whether this portion is translate as "whosoever believes" (the wrong way) or "all the ones believing" (the right way) hinges on the definite article before pisteuown. Here's where we go into the deep end of the pool:
The masculine singular definite article in Greek is ὁ. (Notice the "rough" breathing mark...it looks like an apostrophe over the letter). The neuter singular relative pronoun in Greek is ὅ. (Notice the accent mark next to the rough breathing mark).
The neuter relative pronoun might be translated "whosoever;" the definite article cannot be. If, indeed, John wanted to convey the idea of "whosoever," he would have likely done it with a relative pronoun. But, here's the thing: The participle "the one believing" is a masculine singular participle. The relative pronoun that couples with a masculine singular noun is ὅς, not ὅ. ὅ is the relative pronoun that would be used for a neuter singular noun.
So, it is not possible to take ὁ as a relative pronoun because to do so would break the Greek grammatical rules related to gender. Therefore, this participle cannot be translated "whosoever believes." The proper translation is "the believing one" or "the one who believes."
In the fifth place, there are two classes of "τὸν κόσμον" in this passage, "ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν"; and "ὁ δὲ μὴ πιστεύων", those "who believe", and those "who do not believe". This means the "ability" to either "accept", or "reject", Jesus Christ.
No statement of ability is implied by the text, you've read that into it here.
In the sixth place, if we were to understand "τὸν κόσμον", as only "the elect", then it is clear from the passage, that there are "some" of "the elect", who will be saved and have eternal life; and there are the others, "who do not believe", who are judged, "because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God". Which means there are those "unbelieving" of "the elect", who will be eternally lost.
I--for one--do not think κοσμος refers to the elect only.
In the seventh place, it says, "ἀλλ' ἵνα σωθῇ ὁ κόσμος δι' αὐτοῦ", where the verb "σωθῇ", is in the subjunctive, meaning "conditional", "might be saved". the "condition" here is "believing".
One of the clearest and strongest passages against "Particular Redemption", The "L" in TULIP.
This is very wrong. First, the subjunctive does not equal conditional. There are conditional sentences in Greek--several classes, in fact. But, they are formulaic and that formula is not present here.
The verb is subjunctive, but it is in a purpose clause (denoted by the word ἵνα). Since it is a purpose clause the subjunctive actually functions more like an indicative. Here, the subjunctive is not stating possibility of an action, but it is stating the intended result of the primary action (God sending His son into the world--not to condemn it--in this case). So, all this is telling us is that salvation (as opposed to condemnation) comes because God sent His son into the world.
Nothing here is said of why "choices" may or may not be made. In fact, John 3:16-18 doesn't mention at all why anyone who believes wound-up believing. You'd have to go to John 3:3--which says you have to be "born again from above."
The Archangel
