Trapp:

Verse 16. God so loved the world,] This is a sic without a sicut, there being nothing in nature wherewith to parallel it. The world, that is, all mankind fallen in Adam. This the Apostle fitly calls God’s Philanthropy, Tit. 3.4. it being a sweet favor to the whole kind of us, that any be saved by Christ.

John Trapp, A Brief Commentary or Exposition Vpon the Gospel According to St John (London: Printed by G.M. for John Bellamy, and are to be sold his his Shop, at the Signe of the three Golden-Lyons in Cornehill, near the Royal Exchange, 1646), 16.

Charnock:

Fourthly, Punishment is not the primary intention of God. It is his goodness that he hath no mind to punish; and therefore he hath put a bar to evil by his prohibitions and threatenings, that he might prevent sin, and consequently any occasions of severity against his creature. The principal intention of God in his law was to encourage goodness, that he might reward it; and when, by the commission of evil, God is provoked to punish, and takes the sword into his hand, he doth not act against the nature of his goodness, but against the first intention of his goodness in his precepts, which was to reward. As a good judge principally intends, in the exercise of his office, to protect good men from violence, and maintain the honour of the laws; yet consequently to punish bad men, without which the protection of the good would not be secured, nor the honour of the law be supported. And a good judge, in the exercise of his office, doth principally intend the encouragement of the good, and wisheth there were no wickedness that might occasion punishment; and when he doth sentence a malefactor in order to the execution of him, he doth not act against the goodness of his nature, but pursuant to the duty of his place; but wisheth he had no occasion for such severity. Thus God seems to speak of himself: Isa. xxviii. 21, he calls the act of his wrath, his ‘strange work,’ his ‘strange act;’ a work not against his nature, as the governor of the world, but against his first intention as creator, which was to manifest his goodness. Therefore he moves with a slow pace in those acts, brings out his judgments with relentings of heart, and seems to cast out his thunderbolts with a trembling hand. ‘ He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men,’ Lam. iii. 33. And therefore he ‘delights not in the death of a sinner,’ Ezek. xxxiii. 11. Not in death as death, in punishment as punishment, but as it reduceth the suffering creature to the order of his precept, or reduceth him into order under his power, or reforms others who are spectators of the punishment upon a criminal of their own nature. God only hates the sin, not the sinner, if He desires only the destruction of the one, not the other. The nature of a man doth not displease him, because it is a work of his own goodness; but the nature of the sinner displeaseth him, because it is a work of the sinner’s own extravagance. Divine goodness pitcheth not its hatred primarily upon the sinner, but upon the sin; but since he cannot punish the sin without punishing the subject to which it cleaves, the sinner falls under his lash. Who ever regards a good judge as an enemy to the malefactor, but as an enemy to his crime, when he doth sentence and execute him?

Stephen Charnock, “God’s Goodness,” in The Works of Stephen Charnock (Edinburgh: James Nicole, 1864), 2:302.

[This is one of my favorite comments from Charnock, as it strikes at the very heart of all equal-ultimacy doctrines, whether supralapsarianism, symmetrical reprobation, or hypercalvinism.]

Davenant:

1) The Doctors of the Reformed Church also from the beginning spoke in such a manner on the death of Christ, that they afforded no occasion of reviving the contest. For they taught, That it was proposed and offered to all, but apprehended and applied to the obtaining of eternal life only by those that believe. At the same time, they judged it improper to mingle the hidden mystery of Election and Preterition with this doctrine of the Redemption of the human race through Christ, in such a manner as to exclude any one, before he should exclude himself by his own unbelief. Let us hear their own words. Philip Melancthon constantly admonishes that we should not unseasonably mix the speculation of predestination with the promises of the Gospel. In his Common-places, “On the promises of the Gospel, page 195, he writes thus: As it is necessary to know that the Gospel is a gratuitous promise, so it is necessary to know that the Gospel is an universal promise, that is, that reconciliation is offered and promised to all mankind. It is necessary to hold that this promise is universal, in opposition to any dangerous imaginations on predestination, lest we should reason that this promise pertains to a few others and to ourselves. But we declare, that the promise of the Gospel is universal. And to this are brought those universal expressions, which are used constantly in the Scriptures, such as, GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD HOT PERISH, BUT RAVE EVERLASTING LIFE. And the reason why all do not obtain the promises of the Gospel, is because d do not believe it.” Calvin in many places gives his opinion in the same manner. On the same words, John iii. 16, God so loved the world, &c. he says, “He hath put an universal mark, both that he might invite all men promiscuously to the participation of life, and that he might leave the unbelieving without excuse. For this is the meaning of the word WORLD. For although there is nothing found in the world worthy of the Divine favor, yet he shows himself to be propitious to the whole world; since he calls all without exception to believe in Christ.” A little afterwards: “It appears that Christ is set before all, but God opens the eyes of the elect alone to seek him in faith. And on Rom. v. 18, He makes grace common to all, because it is set before all. not because it M actually extended to all. For although Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, and through the goodness of God is offered to all indifferent, yet all do not apprehend him.”  John Davenant, “A Dissertation on the Death of Christ,” in An Exposition of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians, (London: Hamilton, Adams, And Co. 1832), 336-337.

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Cotton:

In these words we have Jesus Christ described: -1. By his external function, as being an advocate and a propitiation for our sins. -2. By his inward qualification, as being righteous. We have studied his office of advocate; we come now to his second office. “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.”

Doct. Jesus Christ is the propitiation for the sins not only of believing Jews, but likewise of believing Christians all the world over.

Some translations render it, “He is the reconciliation; but that does not express the full meaning. Propitiation includes three things.

-1. It requires that he should expiate our sins, that is, make satisfaction for them. A man may be a means of reconciliation without satisfaction, but he cannot be a propitiation without offering satisfaction for the wrong done. Now Christ did make satisfaction for our sins (Heb, 2:17); and to make satisfaction, he offered a satisfactory sacrifice for our sins (1 Pet. 2:24). Since he bore the sin and punishment due to it, it is as much as if we had done it.

-2. To be a propitiation it is required that he make peace and reconciliation; for though a man sometimes may recompense and satisfy a wrong, yet the party wronged will not be at peace with him. But Christ has taken it upon him to reconcile God to us, so that his wrath is turned from us and his favor restored (Col. 1:21). Now this reconciling implies three things: that once we were friends with God, that we fell out with God, and that, having fallen out, we are reconciled again and made at peace with him. Now this last is procured by Christ; whereas we were once friends with God in Paradise, and fell from him and his favor, Christ has come and made up that breach and reconciled us again.

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