This is what John Gill said: [4]
- And he is the propitiation for our sins,.... For the sins of us who now believe, and are Jews:
- and not for ours only; but for the sins of Old Testament saints, and of those who shall hereafter believe in Christ, and of the Gentiles also, signified in the next clause:
- but also for [the sins] of the whole world; the Syriac version renders it, "not for us only, but also for the whole world"; that is, not for the Jews only, for John was a Jew, and so were those he wrote unto, but for the Gentiles also. Nothing is more common in Jewish writings than to call the Gentiles עלמא, "the world"; and
- כל העולם, "the whole world"; and אומות העולם, "the nations of the world" {l}; [See comments on John 12:19]; and the word "world" is so used in Scripture; see Joh 3:16; and stands opposed to a notion the Jews have of the Gentiles, that אין להן כפרה, "there is no propitiation for them" {m}: and it is easy to observe, that when this phrase is not used of the Gentiles, it is to be understood in a limited and restrained sense; as when they say {n},
- "it happened to a certain high priest, that when he went out of the sanctuary, כולי עלמא, "the whole world" went after him;''
- which could only design the people in the temple. And elsewhere {o} it is said,
- "amle ylwk, "the "whole world" has left the Misna, and gone after the "Gemara";''
- which at most can only intend the Jews; and indeed only a majority of their doctors, who were conversant with these writings: and in another place {p},
- "amle ylwk, "the whole world" fell on their faces, but Raf did not fall on his face;''
- where it means no more than the congregation. Once more, it is said {q}, when
- "R. Simeon ben Gamaliel entered (the synagogue), כולי עלמא, "the whole world" stood up before him;''
- that is, the people in the synagogue: to which may be added {r},
- "when a great man makes a mourning, כולי עלמא, "the whole world" come to honour him;''
- i.e. a great number of persons attend the funeral pomp: and so these phrases, כולי עלמא לא פליגי, "the whole world" is not divided, or does not dissent {s}; כולי עלמא סברי, "the whole world" are of opinion {t}, are frequently met with in the Talmud, by which, an agreement among the Rabbins, in certain points, is designed; yea, sometimes the phrase, "all the men of the world" {u}, only intend the inhabitants of a city where a synagogue was, and, at most, only the Jews: and so this phrase, "all the world", or "the whole world", in Scripture, unless when it signifies the whole universe, or the habitable earth, is always used in a limited sense, either for the Roman empire, or the churches of Christ in the world, or believers, or the present inhabitants of the world, or a part of them only, Lu 2:1; and so it is in this epistle, 1Jo 5:19; where the whole world lying in wickedness is manifestly distinguished from the saints, who are of God, and belong not to the world; and therefore cannot be understood of all the individuals in the world; and the like distinction is in this text itself, for "the sins of the whole world" are opposed to "our sins", the sins of the apostle and ot...
