RE: kosmos being translated as "Christians" or "God's people" or "the chosen"

From: Bill Ross (wross@farmerstel.com)
Date: Tue Apr 04 2000 - 22:23:24 EDT

I've been out of town, so this post may be cold, but...

<Jason>
Though some may feel this to be true according to their theology, is there
any proof for this based on possible definitions of kosmos?

<Bill>
I jotted this in reference to 1 John 2:2, but the same basic stuff applies
to John 3:16:

1 John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world.

First let's look at **word choice**. If John meant "elect only" then why
didn't he say EKLEKTON instead of KOSMWS? He used the word in 2 John.

Let's look at his **usage of the term**: He uses the word KOSMOS 15 more
times in this letter and *never* signifies the elect thereby.

Let's look at the use of the definite article: TOU KOSMOU = "THE world." As
in English, omitting the article the allows more freedom to refer to any
world, as in "a world of trouble." The article points to "the world" as in,
"you know, THE world."

Let's look at the qualifying words: hOLOU TOU KOSMOU = "the WHOLE world"
(or "ALL the world") as opposed to some subset.

Let's look at the context of the sentence "not ours only, but "...

So, context, usage, definite article, author-specific usage, etc militate
against a notion of a meaning other than "the whole world".

Bill Ross 

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