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[boxcar]

When "universal" terms are used in the bible, they need to be understood in their context, in terms of their different usage and also we must strive to understand God's revelation from the perspective of the original audience who received it and from the writer's intent.

It was ingrained in the vast majority of Jews that they were the Chosen People of God. They were his covenant people exclusively. They were well aware of God's covenants that he made with people in the Jewish scriptures, e.g. Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Circumcision, Mosaic, Davidic, even the promised New Covenant. And they were also very aware that God made no such covenants with the Gentiles per se, i.e. the rest of the nations of the world! Paul brings this truth out poignantly by telling the Gentile Church that they were formerly excluded from the covenants.

Eph 2:11-13
11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
NIV

So...if the Gentiles were without hope under the Old Covenant dispensation -- without God, without the covenants, and all these people died without any
salvific remedy back then...or as Paul said "at that time", then how could a just, righteous, holy, immutable God decide to save each and every person under this New Covenant dispensation?

At any rate...once we understand that the world consists of two kinds of people and that in turn both of these groups consists of two subsets, then it's easy, natural, reasonable and scriptural to believe (as the Jews would have) that the world that God "so loved" consisted of Jews and Gentiles. John 3:16 was telling the Jews of Christ's day that a new day has dawned and that God's tender mercies and love were no longer limited to just the Jews but now would extend to [believing] Gentiles as well, ergo "the world".