Introduction to God's Love

I have done my best to establish that scripture alone guides us, above and beyond any concern of human reason, that God is sovereign over all of Creation, including our thoughts, intentions, desires, and that man is not only completely impotent regarding any God-ward effort, but depraved and enslaved to sin apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in his heart. If man is to make any progress toward his Creator, the Holy Spirit must recreate his heart and give him life, implant a desire for God and set him free from his sin. Man must be completely reborn by the Spirit before he can seek after God (John 3). This initiative must come from God because man is incapable of it, but the question is, who? We know that “the gate is small and the road is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7.14). If few find the way to life, and God must lead them because they refuse to even seek it on their own, then God must decide who he leads to him. How does he decide? Who does he choose? Clearly, he does not choose everyone.

We know, however, that God loves the world (John 3.16). God must want everyone to be saved, yet why does he not cause everyone to be saved? If salvation rests in God’s work and not in our own, why is every person not saved? Arminians solve this problem concretely and succinctly—God does not choose; man does. God chooses men who choose him (Wesley). God loves all men but since all men are free to believe or not, men ultimately decide their eternal fate. But we have seen that this is impossible. Given the choice, all men will choose eternal fire. Calvinists have a much more profound problem. God loves everyone but he does not save everyone. Why? John Piper believes God has two separate wills: one will to declare and one will to act. Piper believes that God says, “I love all men but I will allow/ordain/choose many men (that I love) to perish eternally.”[1] Arminians refuse to accept this, for good reason. This notion is the exact opposite of love. Piper tells us that God’s ultimate goal is to magnify his glory[2], just as he allowed his Son to die for our sins, a despicable event that resulted in grace for us and glory for God, but this hardly satisfies. Not that we should seek for satisfaction per se as we pursue theological truth, but at the very least, we should seek to reconcile apparent contradictions.

If men cannot choose to believe but God must give them faith, and God loves everyone but does not save everyone, what options do we have?

• All men can choose to believe in God. This is clearly denied in scripture.
• God does not love everyone. So far, we have not established the universality of God’s love. We cannot assume it outright, no matter how well we believe we know scripture. We must diligently investigate every belief, assumption, and philosophy till we know by faith and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit that we have arrived at spiritual truth.
• God saves everyone. I will explore this later.

This issue drives perhaps the deepest wedge into Christian theology, yet not in the Arminian camp, but in the Calvinist. Little in Creation can be known with complete certainty, but I feel safe in declaring that all Arminians believe that God loves all men equally and without condition. It is a simple belief requiring little investigation or thought. Christ has said that “God loves the world,” after all. This verse forms the cornerstone of God’s universal love and let no one dare contend with it.

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[1] John Piper, Does God desire all to be saved?, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2013).

[2] Ibid, 54.