That is a poor philanthropy which can pity without helping: but ‘the philanthropy of God appeared’ in action. Love is as deeds, not words, desires, or feelings.
No purpose could be greater. We know the worth of life. "All that a man hath will he give for his life." It is the condition of all else that is prized. Salvation is life, not in figure, but in fact. There is a life of the flesh, of the soul, and of the spirit. This life in all its perfection is the end of God. Beginning in the finest portion of our nature it will spread and strengthen until it possesses the whole of it. Man redeemed and renewed is to live to the utmost of his capacity of life. This life is ‘everlasting’. Sin brought death and separated from the tree of life: Christ restored access to it.
The ‘world’ is not here used in a restrictive sense. It would be difficult to believe, did not facts prove it, that any could be so blinded as to make ‘the world’ signify the Church. For the fact is, whenever the ‘world’ is applied to a portion of mankind it always means the wicked. Wherever there is a man in the way to perish, there is the world God loved. There is nothing in the love or sacrifice of the Father and the Son to prevent the whole world being saved. God loved without limit of nation or condition.