...the whole world saved
By Diane M. Hale
I had quoted John 3:16 many, many times and heard it many more times, yet I had failed to “get it” when
suddenly I realized -- God wants the whole world saved! The words, “For God so loved the world…that whosoever
believes” refer to all that He has created. He has empowered man to make known the fullness of what the Cross
regained, concentrating on the soul of man which, of course, is the top priority and where reconciliation and restoration begins. However, my mind is now filled with the fact that when we maintain that order, then salvation of
the world will be in evidence!
How far away are we when death and the spirit of fear are roaming a world which is in darkness. What an
impossible task bringing the world to know the Savior seems to be, yet Jesus said, “With men it is impossible, but
not with God for with God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27) and what God desires God has already regained.
The full impact of the Cross is that the whole world would be saved! When man honors God, righteousness is
regained; when righteousness is regained, peace rules the nation. When nations come to the outshining of His
glory, worlds shall know salvation.
The truth found in the book of Hebrews is that we do not live in a world that is subject to Christ—yet! But
we do see Jesus, “who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all
things by the word of His power when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” To “sit down” is a sign of completion, the same completion that you and I enter into when we rest
in the finished work of Christ. We are kept in this place of completion and so too are the worlds spoken of in this
same letter: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in
these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds” (Hebrews 1:1-2).
What confidence this fact should give us! What a stretching of our faith to think that in our world at war,
amidst global crises, there is the hope and promise that our world shall be revealed as “saved.” The worlds and
nations like ourselves are the inheritance of the Cross of Jesus Christ! Salvation is not just for me, but for the
whole world and indeed the worlds of the universe I know nothing about. Every tribe and every nation shall
bow the knee to this my Savior.
The battle of the ages may be upon us; fear may enter the unbeliever’s heart, but those of us who know the
Lord our God know that the battle for men and nations was won on a hill called Calvary.
It was early the next morning after He had been taken down from the Cross and laid in the tomb of Joseph
of Arimathea, when the women came to the tomb. They carried with them spices to prepare the body of Christ.
They came expecting to see death. What they found was life. What they had missed while they were sleeping was
the collision of death and life. They missed the moment when a sound came from heaven, the tomb of Christ
was shaken, and the Angel “sat down” proclaiming regained ownership of the world by Almighty God and the
establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth! (Matthew 28:1-2). Never again would heaven be closed to man
-- for what God has opened, no man can close!
When Adam and Eve disobeyed, they caused all that was created, along with mankind, to be plunged into
darkness -- separated, lost -- to the One who created them. What our eyes see among the lands of darkness is
men gone mad. We see minds that have been imprisoned by death, men whose hearts are full of death and hatred, and yet God loves them. He died that none would perish. Every radical Muslim and lost person is loved
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