In the last blog, it was claimed that God's love as portrayed in the Bible is more complicated (and multifaceted) than many of us realize. But unfortunately, most Christian people would sum up God's love with one simple word: unconditional. And it is from this label that has come the popular statement, "God hates the sin but loves the sinner." However, many Bible passages convey God's love as conditional toward sinners (Jude 21) and several passages even tell us point blank that God hates sinners (Psalm 5). And so we must ask ourselves, "Is 'unconditional' the best way to describe God's love?" I am convinced that this label is more confusing and misleading than helpful. Here's why...
THE DANGERS OF THE 'UNCONDITIONAL' LABEL
Those of us who defend God's love as being summarily 'unconditional' might unknowingly be encouraging universalism. Let me explain. If God's love is summarily 'unconditional' then the universalists have got the message of salvation right: Jesus died based on an unconditional love for all people and so no one can be eternally condemned based on any conditions. Why? That would violate the unconditionalness of God's love! And so Jesus lovingly saves everyone without condition; All roads must lead to God (and are actually irrelevant); Hell is just a myth; And a love devoid of justice ultimately wins; PERIOD. But we know that this is NOT what the Bible teaches. Maybe this is why the Bible never tells us that God's love is 'unconditional.' This label would contradict the very message of salvation, a message that encapsulates God's love for all of humanity! Why? Salvation has a condition: repentance from sin.
JOHN 3:16 AND GOD'S LOVE
But maybe you're thinking, "John 3:16 says that God loved the entire world and therefore sent His son to die for sinners. And Romans 5:8 tells us that Jesus died for us WHILE we were still sinners. Don't these verses indicate that God's love is unconditional?" Well, they certainly teach us that Jesus' death WAS an undeserved expression of God's love for ALL of humanity. But while this expression of love might demonstrate to us that God's love has 'unconditionally' PURSUED us, it doesn't seem to demonstrate that God's love 'unconditionally' ACCEPTS us. Because according to John 3:16, salvation has a condition: belief.
Additionally, while John 3:16 clearly teaches that God HAS extravagantly LOVED the world in the PAST through Jesus, we need to ask ourselves this question, "Does John 3:16 also teach us that God will ALWAYS love ALL of humanity without condition in the FUTURE?" John 3:17 certainly makes this a possibility. It indicates that God did NOT send Jesus in the past to condemn the world (but rather to save the world). But then John 3:18 tells us that whoever does not believe in Jesus stands condemned. This is reiterated in John 5:22 which teaches that IN THE FUTURE Jesus will judge and condemn the world. How are these seemingly contradictory verses to be held together? This (in my opinion) is where verses like Jude 21 and Psalm 5 bring further clarity to the nature of God's love.
And so John 3:16 clearly teaches us that God's love is AVAILABLE to all people in the world. That God's love is SELF-GIVING. That God's love has PURSUED sinners and saints alike. And that God's love is extremely GRACIOUS. But does it teach that God's love is SUMMARILY unconditional? I leave that conclusion up to you (but please don't ignore John 3:18!).
JEREMIAH 31:3 AND GOD'S LOVE
But wait a minute. God's love is said to be 'everlasting' (hb: olam) in Jeremiah 31:3. So how can an EVERLASTING love ever STOP loving humanity? Answer: It can't and it doesn't. But just because God's love is permanent (or everlasting) does not mean that His love is unconditional.
How can this be? Well, the permanence of God's love is expressed CORPORATELY (not individually) in Jeremiah 31:3. As we've already seen, God's everlasting love is CORPORATELY lavished on humanity (John 3:16a) but must be INDIVIDUALLY appropriated to be received (John 3:16b). And so this is why God can say in Exodus 20:6, "But I lavish UNFAILING (hb: olam) love (hb: hesed) for a thousand generations ON THOSE WHO LOVE ME AND OBEY MY COMMANDS." In this way, God never stops loving humanity even though He can stop loving defiantly disobedient INDIVIDUALS!
And so in Jeremiah 31:3, God's love has withstood Israel's CORPORATE acts of disobedience. But does this mean that God's love has been manifested without condition to every INDIVIDUAL Israelite person? NO. How do we know this? It appears that in the context of Jeremiah 31:3, God's everlasting love will only be experienced by those who "survived the sword" (31:2), to "Virgin Israel" (31:4), to "the remnant Israel" (31:7).
So who exactly are those who died by the sword? Who is the non-Virgin Israel? You have to go all the way back to Jeremiah 29:15-19 to find this out. They are those who did not listen to God's words (29:19) and did "outrageous things" such as commit adultery with their neighbors' wives (29:23). These Israelites were DEFIANT sinners. And so they were treated by the Lord like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire (29:22). Did these defiant INDIVIDUALS experience God's EVERLASTING love? It certainly doesn't sound like it.
So does this mean that God's love is really NOT everlasting? I don't think so. Let me explain. Imagine I told you that I will NEVER STOP loving my home state of Illinois but that I don't love the traffic in Chicago, does this mean that I have stopped loving Illinois? NO. Just because I love the state of Illinois does not mean that I am required to love ever INDIVIDUAL detail about the state. I can love Illinois and still hate the Chicago traffic. The same is true when it comes to God's everlasting love. Just because He loves THE WORLD does not mean that He is required to love every INDIVIDUAL in the world. In this way, God's love for humanity is EVERLASTING.
THE BOTTOM LINE
And so God can love the world with an everlasting love and still hate the defiant sinner. To some, this makes God sound mean and intolerant. And the truth is that God is intolerant when it comes to people who intentionally set out to ruin His world through their defiant sin. But we must not let God's intolerance of evil overshadow the greatness of His love. Because even though God's love may not be unconditional, it is still gracious, self-giving, available to all people, relentlessly pursuant, and everlasting (...and the list could go on). In short, God's love is extravagant even though it is not unconditional. So then why does rejecting the notion that God's love is unconditional make so many evangelical Christians uneasy? We'll look into this question in the next blog.
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