THE DIFFICULT DOCTRINE OF THE LOVE OF GOD Part 2

Last week I mentioned that there is much ignorance and misunderstanding about the love of God both outside the church and inside the church. The unbeliever has a very different conception of the love of God than a Christian. If they believe in God, they generally tend to believe that He is a loving, benevolent being; but tend to not believe in his holiness, justice, wrath, sovereignty, or providence. I also mentioned that sometimes the love of God is reduced in Christian circles to something that is less and easier and simpler than it really is.

The Bible speaks of the love of God in several distinguishable ways. So we discussed…

1. The Peculiar Love of God the Father for His Son
2. God’s General and Providential Love for His Creation
3. God’s Love in His Saving Stance to the Whole World
4. God’s Particular, Effective, Selecting Love for His Chosen, Covenant People

Finally,

5. God's love is sometimes said to be directed toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way-conditioned on obedience. Often times it is spoken in Christian circles that “God’s love is totally and always unconditional.” Is that statement true? In one sense yes, but in another sense no. You might say, “It depends”. How does God love unconditionally?

We saw last week that there are at least two ways or contexts that God loves unconditionally:
• He loves His people with electing love unconditionally. “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world . . . for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:4-5). He does not base this election on foreseeing anyone’s faith. On the contrary, our faith is the result of being chosen and appointed to believe, as Acts 13:48 says, “As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” Romans 9:16 says, "It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy."

• He loves His people with regenerating love before they meet any condition. The new birth is not God’s response to our meeting the condition of faith. On the contrary, the new birth enables us to believe. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been [already!] born of God,” (1John 5:1). “[We] were born, not . . . of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

So there is one sense in which God’s love is totally unconditional but there is another sense that scriptures teach God’s love is sometimes conditional. In short, there is a context to God’s unconditional love and there is a context to God’s conditional love. Unconditional love is not a saving love that he has for everybody. Else everybody would be saved, since they would not have to meet any conditions, not even faith. But Jesus said everybody is not saved (Matthew 25:46). It’s not the love that justifies sinners since the Bible says we are justified by faith, and faith is a condition (Romans 5:1). It’s not the love of working all things together for our good because Paul says that happens “to those who love God” (Romans 8:28). It’s not the love of the most intimate fellowship with the Father because Jesus said, “He who loves me will be loved by my Father” (John 14:21). And James said, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). Not unconditional. It depends upon certain things. This means that there is a precious experience of peace, assurance, harmony, and intimacy that is It’s not the love that will admit us into heaven when we die because John says, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). And faithfulness is a condition.

D.A. Carson says, “It is part of the relational structure of knowing God; it does not have to do with how we become true followers of the Irving God, but with our relationship with him once we do know him.” Jude exhorts us to "keep yourselves in God's love," (v. 21), leaving the unmistakable impression that someone might not keep himself or herself in the love of God. Now this is different than God’s providential love; God's yearning love, nor is it His eternal, elective love. BUT, The Lord commands His disciples to remain in his love (John 15:9), adding, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love" (John 15:10).

Carson draws an analogy,
Although there is a sense in which my love for my children is immutable, so help me God, regardless of what they do, there is another sense in which they know well enough that they must remain in my love. If for no good reason my teenagers do not get home by the time I have prescribed, the least they will experience is a bawling out, and they may come under some restrictive sanctions. There is no use reminding them that I am doing this because I love them. That is true, but the manifestation of my love for them when I ground them and when I take them out for a meal or attend one of their concerts or take my son fishing or my daughter on an excursion of some sort is rather different in the two cases. Only the latter will feel much more like remaining in my love than falling under my wrath.

This conditional love is taught throughout the scriptures. God says that He shows His love "to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Exodus 20:6). “From everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him . . . with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts" (Psalm 103:9-11, 13, 17-18). This is the language of relationship between God and His covenant people.

So is God’s love conditional, unconditional, or both? Carson says, "God's love is unconditional in the fourth sense, with respect to God's elective love. But it is certainly not true in the fifth sense: God's discipline of his children means that he may turn upon us with the divine equivalent of the "wrath" of a parent on a wayward teenager. Indeed, to cite the cliché "God's love is unconditional" to a Christian who is drifting toward sin may convey the wrong impression and do a lot of damage. Such Christians need to be told that they will remain in God's love only if they do what he says."

We must declare that God loves all men in his providence and in His saving stance towards the whole world. But we also must declare that God particularly loves His elect in a way that is different than the whole of mankind. God's election and calling are totally unconditional (Romans 9:11; 11:5-6; Ephesians 2:5). Finally, we must say that the enjoyment of all the benefits of that election and calling in its effect upon our lives is conditioned upon certain things like forsaking sin, faith, obedience, and pursuing intimacy with Jesus Christ.

The incredible thing is that in love God is the initiator and the enabler of our ability to meet these very conditions (Philippians 2; 12-13; 1 Corinthians 15:10; 1 Peter 4:8; 1 John 4:19). So the conditions are there and real and we are responsible, but we do them with God’s enabling. We must understand this or our faith will be fragile, shallow, and weak.

So there is a sense that God loves everyone the same and another sense that it is not true. There is a sense that God’s love is unconditional and there is another sense that His love is totally conditional. Obviously, then, it is very important for us “to know and to understand what passages and themes to apply to which people at any given time.”

Basking in the depth and wisdom of God’s love,
Pastor Bill