HOW SHOULD WE VIEW GOD'S LOVE
As I start out my day, usually. I view my Google Reader list. I then read as many as I have time for. Today I read the article "HOW TO DISTORT THE LOVE OF GOD:". What is interesting this has been my concern for a long time. Every time I hear a preacher say "GOD LOVES YOU AND WANTS TO SAY YOU." I in my theological mind say that is not necessary correct.
The article link me to D.A. Carson's article on this subject. He said the following:
The doctrine of the love of God is
difficult for at least five reasons:
1) The
overwhelming majority of those who believe in God, believe he, she, or it is a
loving being.
2) In
Western culture, the love of God is often separated from God’s sovereignty,
holiness, wrath, providence, and the personhood of God, which redefines the
love of God as something other than what Scripture says.
3) Some
elements of postmodernism relate to this problem in that people in the West
believe that all religions are the same; therefore, the only heresy is
believing that there is such a thing as heresy.
4) Due to
the sentimentalizing of God’s love, Christians have been swept along to the
extent that we have forgotten that within Christian confessionalism the
doctrine of God’s love poses difficulties. A sentimentalized doctrine of
the love of God finds difficulty meshing with the biblical doctrine of God’s
sovereignty and justice.
5) The
doctrine of the love of God is sometimes portrayed within Christian circles as
much easier and more obvious than it really is, and this is achieved by
overlooking some of the distinctions the Bible itself introduces when it
depicts the love of God.
The bible speaks of the love of God
in five distinguishable ways:
1) The
Bible speaks of the peculiar love of the Father for the Son (John 3:35, 5:20),
and of the Son for the Father (John 14:31).
2) Even
though the Bible avoids using the word “love,” the theme of love is evident in
God’s providential love over all He has made. He made everything “good”
(Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31; Matt. 10:29).
3) God has
a loving salvific stance toward His fallen world. According to John 3:16,
God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Some try to use “world”
here to only refer to the elect, but based on the rest of John’s gospel, that
will not do. God loves the whole world (1 John 2:2), and commands all
human beings to repent.
4) God has
a particular, effective, selective love toward His elect. The elect may
be the entire nation of Israel, or the church as a body, or individuals.
This is a discriminating feature of God’s love. God does not love the
non-elect in this way (Deut. 7:7-8, 10:14-15; Ma. 1:2-3; Eph. 5:25).
5) God
loves His own people in a conditional way based on their obedience. Jude,
for example, says to keep yourself in the love of God (Jude 1:21). This
is not the same type of love as the other four mentioned, since one cannot
escape those forms of God’s love. God’s people live under God’s love or
His wrath depending on their covenantal faithfulness. Jesus told His
disciples to remain in His love by keeping His commandments as He has kept His
Father’s commands and remains in His love (John 15:9-10).
Then as I was reading the comments to this article here is what one of those comment was:
- The fact of the matter is that God can love forever with a sovereign saving, gracious, forgiving, and elective love when you believe in Christ. And an eternal, saving love is more than a temporal, providential care God shows toward the good and the wicked alike who do not believe in Christ. If people think they can go on in their unbelief and rebellion and still have Him love them unconditionally, they are dead wrong, and the person who tells them that is either ignorant or a liar. And any pastor that implies that from the pulpit *without clarification* should receive the strongest possible rebuke. And now, we have become so careless in our thinking and biased in our theology that we have taken what is simply not true and made it the very heart of the gospel!
And this comment led to a number of other comments. There is a major gulf of thinking on this subject. One is that God loves everyone the same and He wants everyone of His creation saved. And the other thought is that God does not have the same kind of Love for all His creation.
But the point is when the preacher or evangelist is speaking and he says that God loves everyone and He wants you to be saved is not really giving the right idea about God's love.
The love of God does not necessarily mean that He loves everyone in the same way.
What could be worse than having an unbeliever sitting in the pew one Sunday, hardened in his rebellion to God’s Word, rejecting Christ and living his life as a fool and as if God didn’t matter one whit, only to hear some pastor babble this empty platitude, “God cannot love you any more than He loves you right now.” One’s natural reaction in hearing that would most likely be, “Well, I guess I don’t need to believe in Jesus or change anything I am doing then if He can’t love me anymore than he loves me right now, do I?” This is what I mean by *without clarification.*
What could be worse than having an unbeliever sitting in the pew one Sunday, hardened in his rebellion to God’s Word, rejecting Christ and living his life as a fool and as if God didn’t matter one whit, only to hear some pastor babble this empty platitude, “God cannot love you any more than He loves you right now.” One’s natural reaction in hearing that would most likely be, “Well, I guess I don’t need to believe in Jesus or change anything I am doing then if He can’t love me anymore than he loves me right now, do I?” This is what I mean by *without clarification.*
The
fact of the matter is that God *can* love you more than He
loves you right now. It all depends on what you mean when you say,
“God loves you.” He can love you forever with a sovereign saving,
gracious, forgiving, and elective love when you believe in Christ.
And an eternal, saving love is more than a temporal, providential
care God shows toward the good and the wicked alike who do not
believe in Christ.
loves you right now. It all depends on what you mean when you say,
“God loves you.” He can love you forever with a sovereign saving,
gracious, forgiving, and elective love when you believe in Christ.
And an eternal, saving love is more than a temporal, providential
care God shows toward the good and the wicked alike who do not
believe in Christ.
Too often preachers do not want to talk about the wrath of God, because they are afraid I guess that the sinner will not like that.
This
is why Calvin taught long ago that “God is our enemy until
He is reconciled to us through Christ.” Prior to our being in Christ:
• We are estranged from God through sin.
• We are heirs of wrath.
• We are subject to the curse of eternal death.
• We are excluded from all hope of salvation.
• We are beyond every eternal blessing of God.
• We are slaves of Satan, captives under the yoke of sin.
• We are destined finally for a dreadful destruction and
already involved in it.
He is reconciled to us through Christ.” Prior to our being in Christ:
• We are estranged from God through sin.
• We are heirs of wrath.
• We are subject to the curse of eternal death.
• We are excluded from all hope of salvation.
• We are beyond every eternal blessing of God.
• We are slaves of Satan, captives under the yoke of sin.
• We are destined finally for a dreadful destruction and
already involved in it.
