Jesus, in a manner, put the "credit card" on the table to be used by whoever wants it.
Just because most won't do what it takes to use that "credit card" doesn't make the "card" a failure.
The "credit card" is His suffering and death.
I am reminded of the wedding guest who showed up without a wedding garment in Jesus' parable in Matt. 22.
The man was invited, if not forced to attend, but there were still requirements to be met.
You used the word "whoever" in your opening sentence, and that seems to be a reference to John 3:16, so let's do talk about John 3:16, but first let's touch upon the other matters of your post.
In Jesus' magnificent parable recorded in Matthew 22:2-13, the Greek word καλέσαι and κεκλημένους (
Strong's 2564 - summon, call) translates properly to summons, not invite with the 20th century connotation of choosing whether to attend, but a royaln summons is an official demand for appearance, and a summons rejection raises the King's ire unto severe punishment as shown by Jesus' parable.
Also the parable at the beginning of Matthew 22 demonstrates that exclusively God chooses man without man choosing because my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ concludes with "
many are called but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14).
The Lord's teaching in the Matthew 22:2-13 parable is that while we humans may not recognize who is chosen by looking at another human, the Lord God Almighty always recognizes the chosen of God for the Word of God says:
- "you did not choose Me, but I chose you" (Lord Jesus Christ, John 15:16), so God chooses people to be friends (John 15:15, the prior verse) and to believe (John 6:29) and to be born again (John 3:3-8) and for righteous works (John 3:21, John 15:5) and to repent (Matthew 11:25) and to love (John 13:34) and unto salvation (John 15:19 the same passage).
- "I chose you out of the world" (Lord Jesus Christ, John 15:19, includes salvation), so God exclusively chooses people unto salvation.
- "What I say to you I say to all" (Lord Jesus Christ, Mark 13:37 - Jesus had taken the Apostles Peter, Andrew, James, and John aside in private and said this), so all the blessings of God mentioned above are to all believers in all time.
Now back to John 3:16
The first word of
John 3:16 is a conjunction that inextricably ties
John 3:14-15 to
John 3:16, and here are the Lord Jesus' words as recorded by the Apostle John:
"
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that every believing will in Him have eternal life, for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that every believing in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life" (
John 3:14-16).
Lord Jesus brings in history by way of mentioning "
the serpent in the wilderness"
John 3:14), so here is the contextually linked passage about history:
Then YHWH said to Moses, "Make a fiery [serpent], and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live." And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. (
Numbers 21:8-9).
Based on God's command about "
the serpent in the wilderness" (
John 3:14) and the results of the "bronze serpent" that Moses set on the standard (
Numbers 21:9), the population of persons that certainly were affected by God's command about "
the serpent in the wilderness" in order to live were ONLY each bitten person that looked at "
the serpent in the wilderness".
Furthermore, there is a different population of persons which includes persons that DID NOT LOOK AT "
the serpent in the wilderness".
Therefore, there are separate populations of persons identified in Jesus' words as recorded by the Apostle John (
John 3:14-16) with the first "population of bitten look to live" and there was the second "population of everyone else".
In the next four paragraphs, we see the Word of God speaking to Moses (
Numbers 21:8) in relation to the Word of God speaking to Nicodemus (
John 3:16).
- Notice how "everyone who is bitten" (Numbers 21:8) relates to "world" (John 3:16).
- Notice how "when he" (Numbers 21:8) relates to "that every one" (John 3:16, note that the singular (not plural) Greek word pas [Strong's 3956] translates accurately as "every one" not so much as the unfettered promiscuous connotation of "whosoever" [KJV] or "whoever" [NASB]).
- Notice how "look" (Numbers 21:8) relates to "believing" (John 3:16).
- Notice how "live" (Numbers 21:8) relates to "eternal life" (John 3:16).
Jesus sets the relation between differing populations of persons by way of Him including the "
the serpent in the wilderness" (
John 3:14,
Numbers 21:9), so the "population of bitten look to live" directly corresponds with the word "
world" as per Jesus' usage (
John 3:16).
The Word of God conclusively proves that the context establishes the word "
world" as used by Jesus in
John 3:16 includes ONLY the population of persons that currently believe in Jesus or will in the future believe in Jesus.
That long dead unbelieving Muslim man of 1502AD is not part of the "
world" as mentioned by Jesus in John 3:16.