For God so loved the world

I was reading in a book by D.A. Carson the other day and he was talking about God’s salvific stance toward his fallen world. He was explaining John 3:16 and I don’t remember if this was the first time I had heard it explained like this or if I just forgot, but it sort of stood out to me.

He explained that “world” in John does not so much refer to bigness as to badness. Quoting Carson,

“In John’s vocabulary, “world” is primarily the moral order in willful and culpable rebellion against God. In John 3:16 God’s love in sending the Lord Jesus is to be admired not because it is extended to so big a thing as the world, but to so bad a thing; not to so many people, as to such wicked people. Nevertheless elsewhere John can speak of "the whole” (1 John 2:2), thus bringing bigness and badness together. More importantly, in Johannine theology the disciples themselves once belonged to the world but were drawn out of it(e.g., John 15:19). On this axis, God's love for the world cannot be collapsed into his love for the elect.

The same lesson is learned from many passages and themes in Scripture. However much God stands in judgment over the world, he also presents himself as the God who invites and commands all human beings to repent. He orders his people to carry the Gospel to the farthest corner of the world, proclaiming it to men and women everywhere. To rebels the sovereign Lord calls out,

As surely as I live ... I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but
rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil
ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel? - Ezek. 33:11

Every time I have heard or seen John 3:16 referred to it is always in the context of such a big a thing as the world instead of such a wicked thing as the world. That adds a whole other dimension. What you think? Am I the only one who has missed that?