John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”  This verse is loudly trumpeted by the Arminian world as proof that Jesus’ desire and purpose in dying on the cross was to save all mankind, and to make salvation possible for all mankind. However, in using this verse, they prove more than they want to prove.

They hang their hats on the word “world,” which they interpret to mean all mankind. Because his work is said to have been on behalf of the world, they assume that that means that he intended to take away the sin of all humanity. However, the verse does not say that Jesus came to die for the world, but that He took away the sin of the world. The particular verse deals not with his intentions, but with result of his work. It states what He accomplished, which was to take away the sin of “the world.” Whoever “the world” is, their sins were taken away by Jesus.

If Jesus took away the sin of the world, then the world has no sin. If the world whose sins Jesus took away is the entire human race, then the entire human race has no sin. If they have no sin, then they cannot justly be condemned, for to condemn a man who is without fault would be a gross miscarriage of justice. If the sin of every individual has been taken away, then every individual must be justified, and “whom he justified, them he also glorified;” and so all the race must inevitably arrive in heaven’s pure world – IF the world whose sins Jesus took away was the entire human race. That would mean that Universalism would be true, which the Bible certainly denies and which even most Arminians would reject.

If some people do not go to heaven, it is because their sin was not taken away. If their sin was not taken away, it was because Jesus did not die for them; for He was “made to be sin” for all for whom He died. If Jesus did not die for some individuals, then they could not have been in “the world” whose sins were taken away by the Lamb of God. Thus, scripturally and logically, it cannot have been the case that Jesus died for all the human race.