Is the saving love of God unconditional or conditional? As we saw in my last article, the love of God for humanity in a temporal, physical as well as in a compassionate sense, is unconditional. But in His saving love is there a difference?
It is often said; “God loves everyone the same.” But if that was the case, why are not all saved and why does the Scriptures in John 3:36 tell us that those who are outside of Christ, that God’s wrath “abides” (KJV, NKJV, NASB), “rests” (RSV) or “remains” (ESV, HCSB) on them. This verse makes clear as do others (Psalm 7:11, 26:5; 139:21-22; Proverbs 28:14; Romans 2:5) that God’s hatred and judgment are upon the unrepentant. But at the same time, God’s general love in compassion for the lost is also evident as seen in Jesus love and compassion for the unrepentant rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-21). And, in what was meant to be an insult, Jesus was described as a “friend of sinners” (Luke 7:34).
But is there, as we look at God’s salvific love, a real sense of degrees in His love? Does He love everyone the same or does He have a special love for His redeemed? The answer to those questions was answered for me one day as I read Ephesians 1 and came across verse 3-6.
Ephesians 1:3-6 (ESV) 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
It is clear that those who have received Christ (John 1:12) are in a category by themselves. The redeemed are in the “Beloved.” Those who have been blessed with every spiritual blessing (vs.3), those whom God chose before the foundation of the world (vs.4), those who in love, whom He had predestined to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ “according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us [are] in the Beloved.” The word that is used here for “Beloved” is “agapaō”. It is used here as a perfect, passive participle. This is a love by the determined will of God that the child of God receives (passively), based on the absence of earning God’s pleasure or any righteousness found within him (2 Corinthians 3:5). It is unconditional. God in Christ was not predisposed to save based on any merit of our own. This is not the general love of God but rather a definite act of God in love to redeem apart from any worthiness in and of ourselves (Romans 3:24; 11:6; Galatians 2;21; Ephesians 2:8-10; Titus 3:5). We are declared righteous and in the “Beloved” solely by the grace of God. God saves us unconditionally, apart from any works.
And again, we see that special love that Jesus had for His own, His disciples, at that Passover meal. In John 13:1, knowing what laid before Him, we are given a description of His love for His disciples. He clearly loved them with a greater degree of love. He would soon die for them. They were His and He “loved them to the end.”
John 13:1 (ESV) 1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
This is a love, His saving love, that is eternal in contrast to the general love or common grace of God which ends at the White Throne judgment (Revelation 20:11) with the unrepentant under the eternal judgment and wrath of God. God’s saving love bring the redeemed into a joyous relationship that will span the length of eternity. This is a love that seeks out a people for Himself who will worship and love God and upon whom He will shower His blessings for all eternity.
It is also a love that is limited in its extent (the redeemed), and unlimited in its degree (His perfect love and eternity).
But the saving love of God is also conditional in that it requires repentance[1] and faith[2] in the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross alone (Romans 3:23-27; 1 John 2:2). And at the same time uninfluenced by any of man’s supposed worthiness or good works. It is a love of redeeming grace wrought through the fire of God’s wrath poured out on His Son (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10).
Even while God’s salvific love is conditional based on repentance and faith in the full sufficiency of the work of Christ, even that repentance and faith are a gift of God in regeneration (2 Timothy 2:25; Ephesians 2:9). While the unbeliever is required to repent and believe it is by God’s grace that he is even capable. As a creation born with the image of God as a moral agent, the unbeliever is held responsible for his or her sin, repentance and belief or unbelief. God’s saving love is not unconditional in its efficacy to save, it requires repentance and faith in Christ.
If repentance and faith were born out of the will of man we would have something to boast in (Romans 3:27). No, man is redeemed by any works of his own. If man could conjure up saving faith and repentance, then it would become a moral work of man. But the apostle Paul made it clear that there is none righteous, there is none that understands, and none that seeks God (Romans 3:10-11). All our efforts and self-righteousness are worthless before a holy, pure and just God (vs.12).
If it were not for the God of love who seeks us out and draws us to Himself (John 6:44) and “unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:65) no one would come. The saving love of God is clearly by the determined will of God to call a people for Himself “according to the purpose of His will” (Ephesians 1:5), to the praise and glory of His grace” (vs.6) and His glory (vs.11). In this salvific love He “lavished” His grace on us in “all wisdom and insight (vs.8) and He did this of His own accord without the influence of anything man has done.
It must also be said without qualification, that the saving love of God is the ultimate demonstration of God’s love toward man.
1 John 4:9 (ESV) 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. (John 3:15-16)
John 10:28 (NKJV) 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
And unlike God’s general love for mankind, this is a love that is loyal love in which, in His high priestly prayer of John 17 He prays not for the world but for those the Father has given Him.
John 17:9-12 (ESV) 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
He is the Good Shepherd of the sheep and He lays down His life for the sheep.
John 10:14-17 (ESV) 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason, the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
His saving love is a love that is impenetrable. It is a love for His own that is so strong that we nor anyone or anything can separate us from it, EVER!
Romans 8:31-39 (ESV) 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
-Michael Holtzinger
[1] Matthew 3:2; Mark 1:15 ; Luke 13:1,3,5; Acts 3:19; 17:30; 26:20
[2] John 1:7; 3:15-16, 5:24; 7:38, 11:25-27;12:36, 44, 46; 14:1, 12; 18; 20:31; Acts 16:31; Romans 1:16; 3:22; 4:3; 10:4, 9-13; Galatians 3:22; Ephesians 1;13; 1 Thessalonians 4:14; 1 Timothy 1:16; 4:10; Hebrews 4:3, 6; 1 Peter 2:6; 1 John 3:23; 5:1, 13
Some resources:
The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
By D.A. Carson
The God Who Loves: He Will Do Whatever It Takes To Draw Us To Him
By John MacArthur
Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God
By John Piper