When the Pharisees exclaim, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!” (John 12:19), they certainly do not mean every single person without exception went after Jesus. Or when Jesus says to the high priest, “I have spoken openly to the world” (John 18:20), he clearly does not mean that he has spoken to every single person without exception. As a result, when texts such as John 1:29 speak of Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” it does not follow that this must and can only mean that Jesus makes atonement possible for every single
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