SEEK
YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD
HOME ARTICLES THE KINGDOM FOUNDATIONS LINKS
SEEK
YE FIRST
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
HOME
ARTICLES
THE KINGDOM FOUNDATIONS
LINKS
God’s
Unconditional Love
By: Rick D. Wynn
Many people today are asking whether God’s love is unconditional. I believe the bottom line we must understand is that God is Love (1 John 4:8). There is absolutely no separation between Him and Love. What should we call God who loves some of the time but not “all” the time? God is not separated from Himself. He is love. If He were not to love even for an instant then He would be separated from Himself. In 1 Peter 4:8, the Bible tells us that the love of God covers a multitude of sins. Only His love conquers sin and darkness, nothing else does. What chance does anyone have at salvation without the love of God? Yet, God desires no one to be lost. Whether people reciprocate that love to God or not does not change His love toward them. The Bible says that He loved us first (1 John 4:19). His love remains, for He is the same yesterday today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
Remember, Jesus said that He came to save the lost, not the righteous (Luke 19:10; 1 Timothy 1:15). The lost are the sinners who dwell not in the light of the Father, but rather darkness. Jesus instructed us even to love our enemies. He commanded us to bless them even when they curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you; that you may be counted as a child of God who is our Father in heaven. Does He not make the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust? (Matthew 5:43-45). When God gave us the commandment to love one another as He has loved us (John 15:12), was this commandment specifically for the benefit of only loving those who were righteous in His eyes? Would God forsake His own commandment that He gave us by deliberately picking and choosing whom He would love based on their obedience, love, and commitment toward Him? If this is so, how can Jesus’ sacrifice for the sinners of the world be legitimate? Because God placed no conditions upon His love for His creation, He allowed His only begotten Son to die on the cross, not for the righteous but for those who literally and flagrantly hated Him and disobeyed Him, that they may have salvation in His Kingdom through the blood of Christ. In fact, Jesus said that He did not come to judge the world, but to “save” the world (John 12:47). (His judgment would come later.) How could God accomplish this without unconditional love? Before we sought Christ, confessed with our mouths, and received Him in our hearts as Lord and Savior we comprised of those who despised God, for we belonged to the family of darkness. Obviously, He loved us even in the midst of our sins, for He allowed Himself to be found and thus we walk with Him today. God’s love toward us is unconditional. BUT….
God’s unconditional love does not automatically spell salvation. We of course can understand that according to the Word of God, Jesus’ love toward His creation is unfathomable to us. Knowing this makes it easy for us to anchor ourselves in God, which is a good thing. I believe that the problem most believers run into, however, is that they tend to believe that because God’s love is unfathomable they are automatically exonerated regardless of their iniquitous choices to disobey God. God’s love being unfathomable to us is about His sovereignty. Believers tend to take advantage of God’s love by assuming they have the right to assess their position with God according to their own perception and standards. Thus, they say that because God’s love is unfailing toward them, they know in their heart that God will just forgive them for their sins. Even if this were true, it is not the believer’s call to make. Such sovereignty belongs only to God. Therefore, God’s unfathomable or unconditional love toward us does not negate the laws He has set down before us to follow and obey.
According to the Word of God, our salvation is based upon our willingness to accept and follow Christ, and obey the Word of God. Contrary to what most of us have been taught in the church, salvation is not based upon God’s unfathomable love toward us. If it were, then how could anyone escape the kingdom of Heaven, including Lucifer? God didn’t hate Lucifer or the fallen angels when He created them. According to the Word of God, they became evil. Their origination was not evil. Jesus nevertheless loved even the Pharisees who were responsible for His crucifixion. He prayed the Father that He would forgive them for “they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jesus loved Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. He said that He came to save that which was lost, yet He nevertheless spoke of damnation to some, where there would be no escape. He nevertheless said that some would be cast into outer darkness where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12). How could such things that Jesus said be true if our salvation was predicated upon the unfathomable love of God? The unconditional quality of God’s love is not the question we should be asking concerning our salvation with Him because His unconditional love is about His sovereignty. Perhaps because we don’t necessarily understand the “Sovereignty” of God, we label Him as a “conditional” loving God. God never said that he hated man; He has always despised sin. His warnings have always been to turn away from that which is an abomination to Him, which is sin. He will ultimately destroy all sin and those who refuse to turn away from it. Those who revel in sin without repentance and change however, choose to do so. Therefore, there is no contradiction in God’s love; He simply honors what He has given us—choice. God will not override a person’s will. He has given us choice to do with our will, as we will.
Throughout the Bible, In His love and mercy, God gave His people the option to repent and then He would forgive and restore them. In every instance, from Adam and Eve throughout the New Testament, He carried out His Word exactly as He said He would despite His unfathomable love toward His creation. Those who repented were forgiven, those who did not, fell from His grace. If you will notice, God did not “pull away” His grace; the people fell away or moved themselves from His grace. Jesus said that though our lips are full of praise toward Him, our hearts are far removed from Him (Isaiah 29:13). God does not move away from us. We move away from Him. We came from Him. He is still the place where we came from. He said in His Word that He would never leave nor forsake us even until the end of the world. What is also not being taught in the church is that Jesus “is” the righteous path; He is not on the righteous path. Therefore, those who sincerely follow Christ are on this path. Because they are on the path there is no way a separation can exist between them and God for they have join with Him in spirit as one. They are in Him—sealed up in Christ. They are thus “on” the path, which is Christ. If one should sin, this signifies that he is not on the righteous path. You cannot be in sin and on the righteous path at the same time. They are two separate paths. Thus, we step off the righteous path practically everyday. God doesn’t break the seal that we have in Christ as born again believers, we do. We break that seal everyday, which is why repentance is crucial. True repentance to God gets us back on the righteous path.
God cannot forsake what He is. Therefore, when He spoke the blessing that He would never leave nor forsake us, He was talking about those being joined with Him in spirit who was “on” the path of righteousness. His love is about the righteous path. No one existing on another path can dwell in His love because as God and love are synonymous, so too are He and the righteous path. This is why sinners often cannot understand how God actually loves them. Sin blinds people’s view and understanding of God’s love. God’s love always exists but until you are willing to step away from sin, you cannot experience His love. Because people don’t experience His love, they assume that He hates. Jesus mentioning that some would be cast into outer darkness where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth was not about hate. He was making it known that there is a place of light, which is the dwelling place of God’s love, and there is a place of darkness, which is separation from God; thus this place is void of His love. The “hope” of salvation is what motivates us toward the light. Thus, we come to Christ. He doesn’t come to us because we are in sin. Jesus doesn’t dwell or even make pit stops where sin is. The path of righteousness does not move. It is immovable. When Jesus walked the earth, people followed Him. He didn’t follow them. People move away from God’s love, but His love is immovable, solid, and eternal. I have four children, for example. Though I may punish them through discipline when they get out of line, my love for them does not cease. If they were even to stray in to a world foreign to myself and even God, still my love for them would never cease. I would hate the sin that they do because of the darkness in them, but I could not hate them. They are my children. When the prodigal son returned home, his father did not kick him off the land because he wasted his inheritance. He received his son in love with open arms. Jesus explained this parable because this is exactly what God does with us. If the son had chosen never to return, he would have met his inevitable end, but how does this change the love of his father? We tend to confuse anger and wrath with hate. I may get angry with my wife and vice versa sometimes, but we don’t hate each other. We may anger God to the extent that He disciplines us, but He even said in His Word that He disciplines us because He loves us (Hebrews 12:6).
God does not hate the person who sins, but the evil within the person who causes him to sin. The path of righteousness beckons those who are not on it to come into the light, which is Christ. God beckons us because He loves us despite our sins. He proved this to us when He allowed Jesus to die on the cross. One of the most harmful things in Christianity today is our lack of understanding that despite God’s unfathomable love toward His creation, He still expects us to take notice that He is both kind and severe. He is severe to those who disobey, but kind to those who trust and follow His Word, yet His love remains solid. Our sins do not change His love. God is God regardless of us. We have no power to neither move nor change Him. We can only please Him by faith. If we choose to sin, His love does not change. If it did, then who could possibly enter heaven? Either people venture off the path of righteousness or they never get on it, but God who is both love and the righteous path remains the same.
When we say that God’s love is conditional we may be well intentioned, but what we say may grind deeper in meaning than we actually realize. How should someone foreign to Christianity perceive such an idea? When we say that God’s love is conditional, we are promoting a weaker God who is literally moved not according to His Word or Sovereignty, but by the actions of people. His governing commandments toward us in addition to even His identity are then predicated upon emotional impetuousness. Such characteristics are common among people, but certainly not God. If God’s love is conditional, then where does He draw the line where the person is lost? And how can one be lost entirely if he is alive, has not committed the unpardonable sin, and lives in the age of grace? Does not God’s grace represent hope? Remember, we were not entitled to salvation. By God’s grace, we received it freely as a gift. If we believe that God’s love is conditional, then our hope in Him becomes weakened. If a person cannot absolutely depend upon God’s love, then what hope has he? What else can save that person? When Moses interceded on behalf of the children of Israel and turned God’s heart from destroying them due to their “sins,” God remembered His promise. His promise was predicated upon His love for His people even though His people had sinned before Him with their idols and debauchery. God had no desire to destroy the people, but when they engaged in the evil worship of their idolatrous God, they had joined themselves with darkness and no longer belonged to God. God never changed, they did. A sinful heart without repentance is an abomination to God. This abomination is what the children of Israel had become to God in the wilderness. God never stopped loving the people; they stepped off the righteous path and chose to walk on a path of darkness. Had not Moses interceded to God, God would have destroyed them all. Yet we must understand that God put the love in Moses for his people and gave him the unction to pray on their behalf. God loves you so much that He goes beyond reason to save you, but ultimately it is your choice to be saved.
If you will notice, the argument concerning God’s unconditional love is two sided, yet both sides are incorrect according to Scripture. One side of the argument is that God’s love is conditional. When we obey His commandments, we receive His love, when we disobey His commandments we are void of His love. From this concept, people get the notion that God casts people into hell as opposed to people “choosing” to go there themselves. The other side of the argument says that God’s love is not only unconditional, but that our salvation is predicated upon His unconditional love. From this concept, we get the idea of once saved always saved or Eternal Security. Christians tend to forget that Satan works both sides of the path. If you stray too far to the right, he’s got you. If you stray too far to the left, he’s got you. Jesus said that the righteous path was narrow. If you were paying close attention to what was said in this article, perhaps you will have seen that I have just shown you how Satan will take something true and something false, combine it with a perverted twist, and cause you to either reject everything including God’s Word or accept only the lie, which looks like the truth. Either way, Satan wins. My experience in Christ has taught me that if you truly desire to hear God, you must be willing to shut out every other voice. You must be willing to be that outcast, the rebuked, ridiculed, ostracized, and the stoned. The voice of the world, the voice of the church, people’s ideas, concepts, reasons and even the seemingly irrefutable arguments from the most intelligent minds must be cast aside. The only voice you must be willing to hear is God. He will not compete with the voices of others whom we tend to allow ourselves to be entertained.
Though our entrance into the kingdom of God is conditional, that condition is entirely based upon us, not God. What He said He etched in stone. His Word is true and His Word is final. We don’t have to speculate that Jesus died on the cross and redeemed us by His blood. The Word of God tells us that He did. Therefore, we know that if we confess with our lips, believe in our hearts that He is Christ and that He died for us on the cross, and that God raised Him from death, then we are able to pass through the gate of righteousness. But. . . we still have the righteous path to walk until we get to the kingdom of God. Walking the righteous path is all about relationship with Christ, seeking and understanding His truth, and being willing to count the cost of following Him all the way. All of God’s blessings upon our lives are conditional, yet those conditions are entirely based upon us, not God. God already established His covenant with us through Christ with the stipulation that we follow and obey His Word. If we comply His promises are a given. The choice is entirely ours to make. The love of God however, is something much more profound because the love of God is the foundation or the root of salvation. God is love. Therefore, we know that everything that God does, He does because of love and in love. He cannot contradict His own nature. God never replies evil for evil. He overcomes evil with good—with love, which is the ultimate goodness. For the sinner, His love manufactures the hope that there even is a Christ and a kingdom of heaven, which he can escape to from the evils that have infiltrated the earth.
End.
Rick Wynn's book, "It's
Not About You: A Study of the Last Church Generation Volume One," was
published in March of 2007, and is available at most on-line bookstores.