God Loves Everyone
We know that God loves everyone. God loves me
and God loves you. God loves my neighbor and God loves my pastor. God loves all
of us without condition, just as we are. If God loves everyone, then God loves
Hitler also. God loves child molesters and rapists and terrorists and abortion
doctors just as much as he loves you and I and Christ, his beloved Son. Christ
loves everyone in the world that hates him and mocks him and blasphemes his
name just as much as he loves his bride, the Church. God loved Esau even though
the Bible says he hated Esau (Malachi 1.2). God loves those who shed innocent
blood, those with haughty eyes and a lying tongue even though Proverbs 6.16-17
says he hates these people. God is love and therefore God loves everyone
equally.
Obviously, this reasoning is incorrect. The Bible
says that “God is love,” (1 John 4.8) and “For God so loved the world…”, yet we
cannot simply toss aside verses that profess God’s hatred for a person or a
group. We must investigate further and attempt to reconcile scripture when
scripture seems to contradict itself. This doctrine that teaches that God loves
everyone raises serious questions. Why is repentance necessary if God loves us
as we are, sin and all? How can Christ possibly have the same love for his
bride that he has for sinners who hate him eternally? Why does Scripture
explicitly teach that God hates anyone (Malachi 1.3)? How can God allow a man
to perish eternally in hell if he loves him? If God grants repentance, then why
doesn’t he grant repentance to everyone he loves?
Other practical issues
emerge. The church has been preaching the universality of God’s love for well
over a hundred years, and yet the church struggles to remain relevant. Church
attendance falls[1]
while the world constantly calls our authenticity into question.[2]
Is attendance down because we have convinced everyone so well that God loves
them, that they no longer believe they need a Savior? Why do they need a Savior
that tells them how to live if he loves them just as they are? Why do we need
to be saved from our sins if our sins do not affect God’s love for us?
But God does not love us,
at least not outside of Christ. How can he? We are sinners and he hates sin. If
he hates sin, he most certainly hates the heart of the person that commits sin,
that loves sin and everyday lives eagerly to commit sin. The Psalmist says, “You
hate all who do iniquity” (Psalm 5.5, New American Standard Bible).
Every one of us commits iniquity (Psalm 53.1-3; Jeremiah 17.9). If God loves
righteousness and hates wickedness (Psalm 45.7), then God loves only One, and
that person can only be Christ. God’s mercies may be over all his works (Psalm
145.9), but all the wicked he will destroy (Psalm 145.20). God may be good to
all, but his goodness does not necessarily equal love.
God’s Universal “Love”
Theologians use many different verses to prove
that God loves everyone, but John 3.16 consistently stands apart from them all.
For
God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
God loves the world. In the New
Testament, however, this verse alone connects God’s love with the entire world
explicitly. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy that he “desires all men to be saved and
to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2.4). Peter tells us that God does not
wish for any to perish, “but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3.9). God
asks Ezekiel, “Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked, rather than
that he should turn from his ways and live?” (18.23), and then he answers
himself, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the
wicked turn from his way and live” (33.11). The apostle John declares that “God
is love” (1 John 4.16). John Frame quotes Frances Turretin to describe God’s
universal love:
There
are three degrees of one and the same love…First, there is the love of
benevolence by which God willed good to the creature from eternity; second, the
love of beneficence by which he does good to the creature in time according to
his good will; third, the love of complacency by which he delights himself in
the creature on account of the rays of his image seen in them.[3]
John Frame adds, “God’s love extends
to everyone, but in different ways…God loves everything that he has made,
including his enemies…Although only believers receive eternal life, God’s love
in sending Christ is directed to the world as a whole.”[4]
Henry Thiessen believes that God “is
unlike the gods of the heathen, who hate and are angry,” and that God “cannot
hate what he has made.”[5]
Turretin describes three degrees of love, but
while Frame confers this love on everyone, Turretin narrowly confers it only to
the elect. He adds
By
the love of benevolence, he loved us before we were; by the love of
beneficence, he loves us as we are; and by the love of complacency, he loves us
when we are (viz., renewed after his image). By the first, he elects us; by the second,
he redeems and sanctifies us; but by the third, he gratuitously rewards us as holy and just.[6]
These “variations” of love essentially
follow the same path, however. They all result in the salvation of the
creature. Christ tells us that God “sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous” (Matthew 5.45). Theologians refer to this as goodness or
benevolence. God does not elect everyone. Frame incorrectly broadens the scope
of God’s electing love, and Turretin confuses God’s benevolence with his love.
Elsewhere, Frame uses Matthew 5.43-48 to declare that God “loves everything
that he has made, including his enemies.”[7]
This inference, however, does not necessarily follow from this passage. Jesus
commands his audience to love their enemies, but this entire sermon served to
contrast the Jews’ understanding of the Law against God’s perfect intent. Jesus
preached this sermon primarily to demonstrate their ignorance of God’s Law and
not primarily as a theological statement on God’s character. The sermon also
described the behavior of those who wished to belong to the Kingdom of God. D.
Martyn Lloyd Jones says, “The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a great and
grand and perfect elaboration of what our Lord called His ‘new commandment.’
... Whenever Christ is enthroned as King, the kingdom of God is come...The
great purpose of this Sermon is to give an exposition of the kingdom as
something which is essentially spiritual.”[8]
We know that Christ himself pronounced judgment against his enemies (Matthew
11.21; 18.7; 23-13-16); he called them fools and blind men (23.17), hypocrites
(23.23), and vipers (23.33). We can hardly describe his attitude toward the
Pharisees as “loving.”
Regarding God’s hate, the
Psalmist tells us that God “hates all who do iniquity” (Psalm 5.5), and those
who love violence, “his soul hates” (Psalm 11.5). Thiessen ignores the biblical
testimony when he states that God cannot hate what he has created. Paul says, “The
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1.18). God must hate
not only sin, but the sinner, if he will remain holy. Psalm 145 repeatedly
declares God’s majesty and his glory, and in this context, also declares “The
Lord is good to all, and his mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 145.9).
God’s goodness glorifies his name, and that is its purpose. R.C. Sproul
distinguishes the different aspects of God’s love, referring to God’s goodness
toward all as his “love of benevolence”, and his love toward the saints as his “love
of complacency.”[9]
Theologians call this goodness, “love”, but if God does not grant the faith
that leads to salvation (Acts 5.31; 11.18), how can we truly call this love? God
does not allow those he loves to perish forever. The end of Psalm 145 says, “The
Lord keeps all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy” (145.20).
God’s goodness glorifies him, just as his love for his people, and his hatred
and wrath upon the wicked also do (Romans 9.17,22,23).
If we look again at
scripture which professes God’s universal saving love for mankind, we find that
this love may not be universal after all. Peter says that God does not wish to
save all men. In speaking of those who stumble over Christ by disobedience, he
says, “to this doom they were also appointed” (1 Peter 2.8). Paul makes a
similar statement in Romans, when he says, “[God] has mercy on whom he desires,
and he hardens whom he desires” (Romans 9.18). God has no desire to save
everyone. In light of these verses, those that proclaim God’s love for all must
be reevaluated. Peter addresses the members of the church in 2 Peter 3.9. He
says, “God is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for
all to come to repentance.” (emphasis added). God speaks only to Israel in
Ezekiel 18 and 33. He says, “Hear, you Israelites,” (18.25), “Therefore, you
Israelites,” (18.30) and “Why will you die, people of Israel?” (33.11). In 1
Timothy 2.4, “all men” refers to men both in authority and not. If God hardened
Pharaoh (Romans 9.17,18), and he does not grant repentance to everyone, then
obviously he does not desire all men and women throughout history to be saved.
Reevaluating John 3.16 reveals
a similar distinction between those who trust and those who do not. In this
chapter, Christ describes unbelievers as “condemned,” lovers of darkness, and
evildoers (3.18-20), but “the world” is “saved” (3.17) and “loved” (3.16). We
know that God grants repentance (Acts 11.18) and therefore faith is a gift
(Ephesians 2.8) for those he will love (Romans 5.8). God decides who will be
saved (John 1.13), but D.A. Carson does not believe we can limit the scope of
the phrase “the world” in John 3.16.[10]
The scope of this phrase varies in the book of John depending on the context,
however. In a single verse, “world” may mean the physical world or simply those
who do not believe in Christ (1.10). In the same chapter, the scope of “the
world” only includes those who place their trust in Christ, as John the Baptist
says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John
1.29). In John 4.42, 6.33, 6.42, and 8.12, the scope of the phrase again
includes only those who trust in Christ. In chapter 15, Christ limits the phrase
to those who hate him and his disciples. Christ tells his disciples, “The world
has hated Me... the world hates you” (15.18,19). Of John 3.16, Leon Morris
says, “The Jew was ready enough to think of God as loving Israel, but no … Jewish
writer maintains that God loved the world.”[11]
Nicodemus expected Christ to say, “For God so loved the Jews,” but instead he
said, “For God so loved the world.” Christ brackets “the world” with two
repetitions of “whoever believes” in him, and later in verse 17, he says that
he did not come “to judge the world, but that the world might be saved.” In
every instance in this passage, “the world” refers to those who believe in
Christ, and not merely the Jews, but Gentiles also. John later repeats this in
his first epistle when he says, “He is the propitiation for our sins [Jews];
and not for ours only, but also for the whole world [Jews and Gentiles]” (1
John 2.2). Christ intended not to expand the scope of God’s love to include
believers and unbelievers, but specifically the Gentiles and Jews who would
believe in him. In John, as in the rest of scripture, God loves his people
exclusively.
God Loves His Bride
The Hebrew word hesed
best describes God’s love for his people. The New American Standard Bible translates
hesed as “lovingkindness” in Psalm 136, which repeats the phrase “For
His lovingkindness is everlasting” as it describes the great works of the Lord
in relation to creation (4-9) and his deliverance of Israel (10-22). “God’s
covenantal relationship with his people” is the basis for God’s hesed.[12]
Baer and Gordon say, “Divine hesed is abundant…hesed fills the
earth (Psalm 33.5; 119.64).”[13]
God’s hesed “rises above” his wrath through its “superior quantity and
permanence.”[14] God’s
lovingkindness reaches to humanity in general[15],
but we find “the importance of a prior commitment or bond.”[16]
God’s lovingkindness “demands service, fear, and even a corresponding exercise
of hesed in return.”[17]
God loves Israel alone in the Old Testament. God
chose Israel to be the object of His love, and none of the other nations
(Deuteronomy 7.7-8). God led her through the wilderness (Psalm 68.7; 78.15),
conquered Canaan for her (Joshua 24.11-13), and established her kingdom (2
Samuel 5.12). God performed none of these works for any other nation. When
Israel ignored God’s commands and worshipped other gods, God disciplined her
out of love (Hosea 2.8-13), yet promised her a future salvation (Jeremiah
24.6,7; 29.10-14). God used the other nations as tools to chastise her (Jeremiah
26.8-11), but he never entered into covenant with them. God belonged to Israel
alone, yet in spite of this overwhelming evidence of God’s exclusive love for
his chosen people, Christians still insist that God loves the entire world in
this same way. If God suddenly loved a people outside of a covenant, unholy
(not separate from the world), and openly hostile to him, this would signify a
great change in God’s character from Old Testament to New Testament, but John
tells us that God loves the world that believes in him (John 3.16). Paul also tells
us that God has expanded his love to include the Gentiles (Acts 28.28), and it
is in this sense that God loves the world.
A Special People
Speaking at a concert to a small congregation,
Rich Mullins described how believers witnessed to him before he became a
Christian:
I remember when I was a kid, and people would always
say—you know because I was one of those typical depressed adolescents. I wrote
poetry. That’s how morose I was as a kid—people would go around saying, “Oh,
cheer up, man because God loves you!” and I would always say, “Big Deal! God
loves everybody. That don’t make me special.”[18]
I loved this video clip, but as I
listened to it, I have always wondered, “Aren’t we special? Isn’t that the
whole point of Israel? Isn’t that the point of love, that someone is special,
and that others are not?” If a man loves every woman that he knows in the same
way he loves his wife, how can he say he loves his wife at all? If a man loves
any and every woman, he becomes an adulterer. His wife is not special, and
neither is anyone else.
Thomas Watson, 17th century
Puritan, describes our state before we believe:
Before this covenant there was nothing but enmity. God
did not love us, for a creature that offends cannot be loved by a holy God; and
we did not love him, since a God that condemns cannot be loved by a guilty
creature; so that there was war on both sides. But God has found out a way in
the new covenant to reconcile differing parties, so that it is fitly called the
covenant of peace.[19]
We read the parable of
the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (Luke 15), but we ignore the
implication of the meaning of being lost. For something to be lost, it first
must belong. The sheep belongs to the shepherd. The coin belongs to the woman. The
son belongs to the father. God’s children are God’s children, and he loves us
and us alone. If he loved the children of another, we could not say that he
honestly loved us. God’s love should always strengthen us to live holy lives,
not just by the greatness of mercy he has shown us, but by the fear that it
inspires, for as the author of the epistle to the Hebrews said, “It is a
terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10.31).
Bibliography
Bradley, Jayson. “All Christians Are Hypocrites”, May
23, 2016. Retrieved from
https://relevantmagazine.com/god/all-christians-are-hypocrites.
Bruce, F.F., General Editor. New International Commentary of the New
Testament: John, by Leon Morris. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1971).
Frame, John. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief,
(Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2013)
Lloyd-Jones,
D. Martyn. Studied in the Sermon on the Mount, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981).
Mullins, Rich. “Rich Mullins – Step
by Step (Sometimes by Step) Live.” Published at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OW-gjjwsag on January 26, 2012.
Outreach Magazine, “7 Startling
Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America”, April 10, 2018.
Retrieved from https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html.
Robinson, Jeff. “Does God Love
Everyone the Same?”, adapted from D.A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the
Love of God, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000). Retrieved from
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/does-god-love-everyone-the-same/
R.C. Sproul, “Is it biblical to say
that God loves everyone?”, adapted by Nathan Bingham, June 28, 2017. Retrieved
from https://www.ligonier.org/blog/biblical-say-god-loves-everyone/
Thiessen, Henry C. Lectures in Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1979).
Turretin, Frances. Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume 1 (Phillipsburg: P&R
Publishing, 1992).
VanGemeren, Willem A., General
Editor. New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology: Volume 2,
D.A. Baer and R.P. Gordon, “hesed” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997).
Watson,
Thomas. Body of Divinity, (Carlisle:
The Banner of Truth Trust, 1890).
[1] Statistics
report between 20-40% of Americans regularly attend church. Specifically, only
23-25% of Americans attend church 3 out of every 8 Sundays. From Outreach
Magazine, “7 Startling Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America”,
April 10, 2018. Retrieved from https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html.
[2]
Relevant Magazine describes the struggle of the Church to maintain a consistent
witness to the world and remain honest at the same time: Jayson Bradley, “All
Christians Are Hypocrites”, May 23, 2016. Retrieved from https://relevantmagazine.com/god/all-christians-are-hypocrites.
[3] John
Frame, Systematic Theology: An
Introduction to Christian Belief, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2013),
236, quoting Frances Turretin, Institutes
of Elenctic Theology: Volume 1 (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992),
242.
[4] Ibid,
237.
[5]
Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic
Theology, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), 86.
[6]
Frame, 236 again quoting Turretin, 242, emphasis added.
[7]
Frame, 237.
[8] D.
Martyn Lloyd Jones, Studied in the Sermon on the Mount, (Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981), 15-16.
[9]
R.C. Sproul, “Is it biblical to say that God loves everyone?”, adapted by
Nathan Bingham, June 28, 2017. Retrieved from
https://www.ligonier.org/blog/biblical-say-god-loves-everyone/
[10]
Jeff Robinson, “Does God Love Everyone the Same?”, adapted from D.A. Carson, The
Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000).
Retrieved from
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/does-god-love-everyone-the-same/
[11]
F.F. Bruce, General Editor, New
International Commentary of the New Testament: John, by Leon Morris. (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1971), 229.
[12]
Willem A. VanGemeren, General Editor, New International Dictionary of Old
Testament Theology: Volume 2, D.A. Baer and R.P. Gordon, “hesed” (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 211.
[13] Ibid,
217.
[14]
Ibid.
[15]
Ibid, 211.
[16]
Ibid, 213.
[17]
Ibid.
[18]
Rich Mullins, “Rich Mullins – Step by Step (Sometimes by Step) Live.” Published
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OW-gjjwsag on January 26, 2012.
[19]
Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity,
(Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1890), 154.
