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Chapter 0
by George Sidney Hurd
How can God’s unconditional love for all be seen to be in harmony with His hatred?
(The following is an excerpt from the book, The Triumph of Mercy).
The Church of the Dark Ages, with the exception of a few dissenters, lost sight of the Scriptural revelation of God as a God of Love. The fear of a vindictive, hateful god ruled the day. The masses were fed a steady diet of sermons picturing God as an angry vengeful god who must be placated by sacrifices and offerings to the Church. Graphic paintings and dramatizations of Dante’s hell served the Church well to fill the coffers and maintain the masses in fearful subjection.
Martin Luther, the great reformer, as a young man was tormented the by fear of a hateful vindictive God and the torments of hell. While riding horseback he was almost struck by lightning, and understanding it to be a manifestation of the wrath of God, he swore he would become a monk. However, in spite of all his sacrifices and disciplined life, he always felt unworthy and fearful of God and an eternal flaming hell.
His transforming revelation came while, as a monk, he was doing penances, going up the steps to a cathedral on his knees. As he was engaged in the exercise of this penance, the truth of Romans 1:17 was enlightened to his understanding: “The just shall live by faith.” He, at that moment, discovered the truth of justification by grace through faith in the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This revelation would set in motion what we know today as the Reformation Movement.
However, in spite of the fact that he had discovered God’s love and forgiveness, he still, in many ways remained fettered by the Augustinian Dark Ages concept of God. Although he had experienced the transforming power of the love of God in his own life; because of his remaining roots in the traditional doctrines of the Church, he still maintained that God hated the majority of mankind. We can observe this in his writings:
“The love and hate of God towards men are immutable and eternal, existing, not merely before there was any merit or work of ‘free-will,’ but before the world was made; [so] all things take place in us of necessity, according as He has from eternity loved or not loved.... Faith and unbelief come to us by no work of our own, but through the love and hatred of God” [1]
According to Luther, and even some Christians to this very day, God, from eternity and unto all eternity has hatred towards the majority of mankind. And what’s worse, they say that He will never get over it – it is immutable. He will forever hate. Sadly, many Christians are uncompromising in their insistence that God is eternal hate and eternal wrath. They choose to compromise and contradict the love of God in order to protect their image of a hateful, angry God. However, as we have already seen, it is God’s love that never ceases and not His hatred and wrath:
“Love never ends…” (1Cor 13:8 ESV)
“For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made.” (Isa 57:16)
“For the Lord will not cast off forever. 32 Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. 33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” (Lam 3:31-33)
God is love. Love never ceases. Love does not willingly cause grief, as hatred does. It is compassionate and only afflicts for the purpose of correction – for removing the evil which is the object of His holy paternal hatred. The Lord will not cast off forever, as would be the case if His hatred were eternal and directed against the individual and not against the sin.
God is love and therefore does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. Because He is love He will not always be angry but will bring about reconciliation for all. Note that the children of men and the souls which I have made, refers to all mankind and not just the elect. The Calvinists would say that He will eternally torment the children of men whom He has created, not only willingly, but for His own pleasure. The Westminster Confession of Faith states:
“Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only… The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as He pleaseth, for the glory of His Sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice (emphasis mine).” [2]
According to them, God who is love, chose to redeem the elect only. This contradiction of divine character defies imagination. That is why they call it “the unsearchable counsel of His own will.” For the rest (90%), God was pleased to withhold mercy, reserving them for eternal torture for His own pleasure, and that is said to result in “the praise of His glorious justice.”? This outdoes all the pagan gods such as Zeus, Dagon or Molech. At least they didn’t claim that their gods were love.
I believe, based upon the overall testimony of Scripture, that God is love and therefore does not willingly afflict the children of men. I also firmly believe that we can say, based upon the Scriptures, that God loves the sinner while hating the sin. However, there are those who insist that God does indeed hate the sinner and they also have texts which seem to back up their affirmation. There are three main passages which refer to God’s hatred towards certain individuals. They are the following:
“The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.” (Ps 11:5)
“These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, 19 a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.” (Prov 6:16-19)
“As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” (Rom 9:13, cf. Mal 1:2-3)
How are we to understand these statements in the light of God’s nature as revealed throughout the Scriptures? Here we see clearly declared God’s hatred towards sinners. Hatred, in its strongest sense would be antonymous with love. The two are mutually exclusive. Does God really hate the sinner as we understand hatred? No. We can clearly see in numerous passages that God also loves the sinner. That is what redemption is all about. Paul makes it clear that God loved us even when we were sinners:
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)
For God so loved the world that He gave His Son so that through Him we might have life eternal. To say that God hated us, as we understand hatred, would make it impossible for Him to love us and send His only begotten Son to reconcile us to Himself.
Furthermore, Jesus tells us that we are like our Father in heaven when we love our enemies, instead of hating them:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matt 5:43-45)
How are we to reconcile these three passages declaring that God hates the sinner with the abundance of Scriptures that clearly declare God’s love for all? There are two considerations which harmonize these two seemingly antonymous statements: 1) The meaning of the word hate in the original text and 2) The temporary nature of His hatred.
Hate Defined
The Hebrew word for hatred in the Old Testament passages is sané. Vines Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words, notes that there are two different senses in which the word is employed:
“Sané represents an emotion ranging from intense ‘hatred’ to the much weaker ‘set against’ and is used of persons and things (including ideas, words, inanimate objects).” [3]
God’s hatred towards sinners is obviously in the milder sense of being “set against” an individual because of his sin and rebelliousness. Understanding it in this sense, we can readily identify with this emotion even towards our own children when they defy us or misbehave.
With this understanding in mind, let us personalize this hatred, expressing it towards our own children when they are disobedient. Applying the seven things the Lord hates in Proverbs 6 we could say: “I set myself against my child and do not tolerate it when he misbehaves. I will not tolerate it when he looks at me with defiance, when he lies, when he bullies his little brothers and sisters or causes them to fight among themselves, etc.”
If they were children of a stranger, we would actually be less likely to personally intervene in such a way, since they are not our responsibility. Understanding the Hebrew word sané in this sense, we see that it is actually an intervention of love towards another and not pure hatred, which would of itself exclude love. It is the act of setting oneself against someone, opposing them in order to correct their behavior. This is God’s purpose in all of His corrective punishments – He opposes us, setting Himself against us in order to separate us from evil:
“For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." (Heb 12:6)
In response to the statement: “God loves the sinner while hating the sin,” traditionalists would say that one cannot separate the sin from the sinner. However. that is precisely what God does in discipline:
“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 18 ‘Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; they are all bronze, tin, iron, and lead, in the midst of a furnace; they have become dross from silver. 19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have all become dross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. 20 As men gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in My anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you. 21 Yes, I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst. 22 As silver is melted in the midst of a furnace, so shall you be melted in its midst; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have poured out My fury on you…. Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,’ says the Lord God.” (Ezek 22:17-23,31)
Here we see that God’s hatred and even His wrath against His beloved Israel is in the form of the purifying fires of affliction. God sets Himself against His people and throws them into the fire as silver, bronze or lead. But the furnace of fire is in order to separate the dross or scum from their lives. The end result is that they come forth from the furnace pure and separate from sin. Just as is the case with a loving father disciplining his son, His hatred is actually His love acting against the sin in their lives. The end result is the peaceable fruit of righteousness, as we can see further along in Ezekiel 36:
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezek 36:24-26)
The end result of God’s opposition towards Israel is that they become cleansed of all their filthiness and are given a new heart. The same could be said concerning his affliction of any of the children of men whom He has created. He does not willingly afflict nor grieve them. What He does, He does only for their own benefit. Therefore, we can see that God’s hatred, correctly defined, refers to God’s dealing with His wayward, rebellious children, and is in no way incompatible with love.
We have also seen from God’s dealings with Israel that it is indeed possible to separate the sinner from the sin. That is the precise purpose for the furnace of fire. Hell is not a place designed for meaningless torment, for God’s pleasure and the praise of His glorious justice, as the traditionalists claim, but is rather a purifying furnace. In His time, His corrective opposition will have done its work in each individual, and the lake of fire, having served its purpose, will cease to exist along with the last enemy, the second death.
This brings us to the second consideration, which reveals that God’s hatred, rightly understood, is not incompatible with His loving nature.
The Temporal Nature of God’s Hatred
It is God’s love that never ceases. We have seen that His anger, wrath and even His abandonment, are temporal and for our correction. He will not cast off forever (Lam 3:31-33). All death – even the second death – the last enemy, will finally be done away with, having served its purpose.
The hatred of God will also cease when sin is finally and eternally separated from the last sinner – when every knee will have bowed, and all will have become subject to Him. There is no such thing as an eternal dualism in the plan of God for the ages. He will not always be angry, eternally lashing 90% of His creatures in an eternal torture chamber, which He was pleased to create for the praise of the glory of His justice. That is an invention of Greek mythology and a hangover from the Dark Ages that has been read into Christian theology, having been inspired by demons.
We can see from Scriptures that God will overcome those He hates by the power of His infinite love. Rather than eternally tormenting His enemies, He reconciles them to himself by the blood of His cross:
“Say to God, ‘how awesome are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power your enemies shall submit themselves to You. 4 All the earth shall worship You and sing praises to You; they shall sing praises to Your name’.” (Ps 66:3-4) [4]
“and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” (Col 1:20)
“Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” (1Cor 15:28)
Therefore, when all, having been reconciled to God through His own blood shed upon the cross, become subjected to Christ, Christ will then subject Himself to the Father and from that point on God shall eternally be all in all. All His anger, hatred and wrath, which were His holy loving nature acting against sin, will no longer have an environment in which to manifest. We, however, will retain the knowledge of His hatred of evil – something that Adam and Eve had no comprehension of.
Also, His grace, mercy, compassion and longsuffering will cease to manifest, since the only environment in which they could become evident was in the context of man’s fall and his sinful condition. Our comprehension of good and evil with its awful consequences, followed by God’s grace and mercy, made freely available by His sacrifice of love on the cross, will be retained in our hearts as an invaluable and eternal treasure of the experiential knowledge of God’s love – something Adam and Eve in their primitive state of innocence had no way of imagining.
Entering into the eternal state, when God shall be all in all, we will finally understand the manifold wisdom of God in creation. We will understand why He created Satan, why he set before man the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, knowing beforehand that they would fall. We will also see before us the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world for the reconciliation of all creation; the calling out of an elect people to be a first fruits of His new creation in Christ - the preordained Last Adam. We will also see how we, the Church, the assembly of the elect, were chosen as ambassadors of reconciliation for the rest of creation. We will finally see the last knee bow in humble loving submission to Christ, at which time Christ will deliver all to the Father and then, for all eternity, God will be all in all.
All found their origin in Him (Col 1:16 lit. “in Him”), they exist by Him, and they will finally return to Him and He will then be all in all. “For of (ek) Him and through (dia) Him and to (eis) Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:36).
The Relative Nature of Godly Hatred
We further see that the hatred we are told by Jesus we must have in order to be His disciples, is not absolute in the sense that we as sinners often manifest hatred towards God and our fellow man. The people Jesus commands us to hate are the very ones we are elsewhere commanded to love:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:26)
We are commanded to love and honor our parents (Matt 19:19; Eph 6:2). We are to love our wives even as Christ loves the Church (Eph 5:25). We are to exercise brotherly love, loving our neighbors as ourselves (Rom 12:10). If we were to understand hate in its absolute sense, as do our traditional brethren, then we would be confronted with a blatant contradiction.
However, Matthew’s account interprets what Jesus meant when He told us we must hate others in order to be His disciples:
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” (Matt 10:37)
Matthew’s rendering of Jesus’ words should make it very clear what He meant by hate. When we love someone with all our hearts, our lives revolve around that person, and all we want to do is please him. It is good and right that we should love our parents, our mates, our children and brothers. It is even right that we should love ourselves in the way that God loves us. However, our first love is to be reserved for God as we also see commanded by Jesus:
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)
Here we see that our love for our fellow man is commanded, but it must be subordinate to our first love – our love for God. Therefore, when someone we love would have us do something against the One we love the most, we must set ourselves against that individual, even though we love them as well, in order to do the will of God - our first love. Here again we see the word hate used in the sense of “setting oneself against” the individual who would impose his will upon us in opposition to the will of God.
We also see the same idea expressed concerning God’s hatred towards Esau:
“As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” (Rom 9:13, cf. Mal 1:2-3)
Paul explains that God’s hatred was not based upon something Esau had done during his lifetime, but rather was solely based upon His sovereign election (Rom 9:11). He chose Jacob over Esau before they had even been born in order that they both might fulfill a specific purpose. Just as He hardened Pharaoh in order to fulfill a specific temporal purpose in His plan for Israel, God chose Jacob over Esau.
However, election is not to the eternal exclusion of the non-elect, but rather they are chosen to be light for the reconciliation of the rest of creation. Paul, in response to those who would question the Lord’s justice in choosing some and passing over others, says that God, in the outworking of His own purposes, has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens (Rom 9:18). However, we see that, in the overall plan of God for the ages, He has determined to finally have mercy on all without exception:
“For God has committed them [5] all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all…. 36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:32,36) [6]
We can also see that the hatred that the Lord showed to Esau, preferring Isaac, is not different in nature from the hatred Jesus said we must have towards those we are also commanded to love. It is evident that Esau was also loved and favored, even though, temporally speaking, not to the degree Jacob was. We see God’s favor and love for Esau demonstrated when the time came for Israel, Jacobs’s descendants, to enter the land of Canaan:
“And the Lord spoke to me, saying: 3 ‘You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward. 4 And command the people, saying, ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. Therefore watch yourselves carefully. 5 Do not meddle with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as one footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.” (Deut 2:2-5)
Obviously, if God had hated Esau in a sinful way as mankind often does, He wouldn’t have given him any possession as an inheritance. Therefore, God’s hatred must be understood in the light of His eternal nature. God is love. All that He does is ultimately rooted and grounded in His love. His hatred, anger, wrath and even rejection are His loving response against all evil within us, disciplining us and even casting some in the lake of fire, in order that all may ultimately partake of the peaceable fruit of righteousness. God does not hate any individual in the sense in which many of us as sinners hate those who have wronged us. His hatred is His opposition to our sinful actions and becomes favor as soon as the sin has been separated from the object of His love.
[1] Martin Luther: The Bondage of the Will, pp. 226, 228-229.
[2] The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chap. 3 — Articles 6 and 7.
[3] Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[4] The word for “submit” in this verse normally refers to a feigned submission. However, there are no words in Hebrew which express true, voluntary submission. Here it is the context itself which determines its meaning as true submission and adoration in spite of its normal meaning, since feigned submission would never result in His enemies worshipping and praising Him.
[5] “them” is not in the original Greek text, but was added by the translators.
[6] Our English word “things” does not have an equivalent in Greek. Neither does the neuter form in Greek always indicate objects as in English. When the translators insert “things” in contexts that are evidently referring primarily to persons and not inanimate objects I take the liberty to cross it out in order to keep the focus where it belongs.
How can God’s unconditional love for all be seen to be in harmony with His hatred?
(The following is an excerpt from the book, The Triumph of Mercy).
The Church of the Dark Ages, with the exception of a few dissenters, lost sight of the Scriptural revelation of God as a God of Love. The fear of a vindictive, hateful god ruled the day. The masses were fed a steady diet of sermons picturing God as an angry vengeful god who must be placated by sacrifices and offerings to the Church. Graphic paintings and dramatizations of Dante’s hell served the Church well to fill the coffers and maintain the masses in fearful subjection.
Martin Luther, the great reformer, as a young man was tormented the by fear of a hateful vindictive God and the torments of hell. While riding horseback he was almost struck by lightning, and understanding it to be a manifestation of the wrath of God, he swore he would become a monk. However, in spite of all his sacrifices and disciplined life, he always felt unworthy and fearful of God and an eternal flaming hell.
His transforming revelation came while, as a monk, he was doing penances, going up the steps to a cathedral on his knees. As he was engaged in the exercise of this penance, the truth of Romans 1:17 was enlightened to his understanding: “The just shall live by faith.” He, at that moment, discovered the truth of justification by grace through faith in the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This revelation would set in motion what we know today as the Reformation Movement.
However, in spite of the fact that he had discovered God’s love and forgiveness, he still, in many ways remained fettered by the Augustinian Dark Ages concept of God. Although he had experienced the transforming power of the love of God in his own life; because of his remaining roots in the traditional doctrines of the Church, he still maintained that God hated the majority of mankind. We can observe this in his writings:
“The love and hate of God towards men are immutable and eternal, existing, not merely before there was any merit or work of ‘free-will,’ but before the world was made; [so] all things take place in us of necessity, according as He has from eternity loved or not loved.... Faith and unbelief come to us by no work of our own, but through the love and hatred of God” [1]
According to Luther, and even some Christians to this very day, God, from eternity and unto all eternity has hatred towards the majority of mankind. And what’s worse, they say that He will never get over it – it is immutable. He will forever hate. Sadly, many Christians are uncompromising in their insistence that God is eternal hate and eternal wrath. They choose to compromise and contradict the love of God in order to protect their image of a hateful, angry God. However, as we have already seen, it is God’s love that never ceases and not His hatred and wrath:
“Love never ends…” (1Cor 13:8 ESV)
“For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made.” (Isa 57:16)
“For the Lord will not cast off forever. 32 Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. 33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” (Lam 3:31-33)
God is love. Love never ceases. Love does not willingly cause grief, as hatred does. It is compassionate and only afflicts for the purpose of correction – for removing the evil which is the object of His holy paternal hatred. The Lord will not cast off forever, as would be the case if His hatred were eternal and directed against the individual and not against the sin.
God is love and therefore does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. Because He is love He will not always be angry but will bring about reconciliation for all. Note that the children of men and the souls which I have made, refers to all mankind and not just the elect. The Calvinists would say that He will eternally torment the children of men whom He has created, not only willingly, but for His own pleasure. The Westminster Confession of Faith states:
“Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only… The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as He pleaseth, for the glory of His Sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice (emphasis mine).” [2]
According to them, God who is love, chose to redeem the elect only. This contradiction of divine character defies imagination. That is why they call it “the unsearchable counsel of His own will.” For the rest (90%), God was pleased to withhold mercy, reserving them for eternal torture for His own pleasure, and that is said to result in “the praise of His glorious justice.”? This outdoes all the pagan gods such as Zeus, Dagon or Molech. At least they didn’t claim that their gods were love.
I believe, based upon the overall testimony of Scripture, that God is love and therefore does not willingly afflict the children of men. I also firmly believe that we can say, based upon the Scriptures, that God loves the sinner while hating the sin. However, there are those who insist that God does indeed hate the sinner and they also have texts which seem to back up their affirmation. There are three main passages which refer to God’s hatred towards certain individuals. They are the following:
“The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.” (Ps 11:5)
“These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, 19 a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.” (Prov 6:16-19)
“As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” (Rom 9:13, cf. Mal 1:2-3)
How are we to understand these statements in the light of God’s nature as revealed throughout the Scriptures? Here we see clearly declared God’s hatred towards sinners. Hatred, in its strongest sense would be antonymous with love. The two are mutually exclusive. Does God really hate the sinner as we understand hatred? No. We can clearly see in numerous passages that God also loves the sinner. That is what redemption is all about. Paul makes it clear that God loved us even when we were sinners:
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)
For God so loved the world that He gave His Son so that through Him we might have life eternal. To say that God hated us, as we understand hatred, would make it impossible for Him to love us and send His only begotten Son to reconcile us to Himself.
Furthermore, Jesus tells us that we are like our Father in heaven when we love our enemies, instead of hating them:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matt 5:43-45)
How are we to reconcile these three passages declaring that God hates the sinner with the abundance of Scriptures that clearly declare God’s love for all? There are two considerations which harmonize these two seemingly antonymous statements: 1) The meaning of the word hate in the original text and 2) The temporary nature of His hatred.
Hate Defined
The Hebrew word for hatred in the Old Testament passages is sané. Vines Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words, notes that there are two different senses in which the word is employed:
“Sané represents an emotion ranging from intense ‘hatred’ to the much weaker ‘set against’ and is used of persons and things (including ideas, words, inanimate objects).” [3]
God’s hatred towards sinners is obviously in the milder sense of being “set against” an individual because of his sin and rebelliousness. Understanding it in this sense, we can readily identify with this emotion even towards our own children when they defy us or misbehave.
With this understanding in mind, let us personalize this hatred, expressing it towards our own children when they are disobedient. Applying the seven things the Lord hates in Proverbs 6 we could say: “I set myself against my child and do not tolerate it when he misbehaves. I will not tolerate it when he looks at me with defiance, when he lies, when he bullies his little brothers and sisters or causes them to fight among themselves, etc.”
If they were children of a stranger, we would actually be less likely to personally intervene in such a way, since they are not our responsibility. Understanding the Hebrew word sané in this sense, we see that it is actually an intervention of love towards another and not pure hatred, which would of itself exclude love. It is the act of setting oneself against someone, opposing them in order to correct their behavior. This is God’s purpose in all of His corrective punishments – He opposes us, setting Himself against us in order to separate us from evil:
“For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." (Heb 12:6)
In response to the statement: “God loves the sinner while hating the sin,” traditionalists would say that one cannot separate the sin from the sinner. However. that is precisely what God does in discipline:
“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 18 ‘Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; they are all bronze, tin, iron, and lead, in the midst of a furnace; they have become dross from silver. 19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have all become dross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. 20 As men gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in My anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you. 21 Yes, I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst. 22 As silver is melted in the midst of a furnace, so shall you be melted in its midst; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have poured out My fury on you…. Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,’ says the Lord God.” (Ezek 22:17-23,31)
Here we see that God’s hatred and even His wrath against His beloved Israel is in the form of the purifying fires of affliction. God sets Himself against His people and throws them into the fire as silver, bronze or lead. But the furnace of fire is in order to separate the dross or scum from their lives. The end result is that they come forth from the furnace pure and separate from sin. Just as is the case with a loving father disciplining his son, His hatred is actually His love acting against the sin in their lives. The end result is the peaceable fruit of righteousness, as we can see further along in Ezekiel 36:
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezek 36:24-26)
The end result of God’s opposition towards Israel is that they become cleansed of all their filthiness and are given a new heart. The same could be said concerning his affliction of any of the children of men whom He has created. He does not willingly afflict nor grieve them. What He does, He does only for their own benefit. Therefore, we can see that God’s hatred, correctly defined, refers to God’s dealing with His wayward, rebellious children, and is in no way incompatible with love.
We have also seen from God’s dealings with Israel that it is indeed possible to separate the sinner from the sin. That is the precise purpose for the furnace of fire. Hell is not a place designed for meaningless torment, for God’s pleasure and the praise of His glorious justice, as the traditionalists claim, but is rather a purifying furnace. In His time, His corrective opposition will have done its work in each individual, and the lake of fire, having served its purpose, will cease to exist along with the last enemy, the second death.
This brings us to the second consideration, which reveals that God’s hatred, rightly understood, is not incompatible with His loving nature.
The Temporal Nature of God’s Hatred
It is God’s love that never ceases. We have seen that His anger, wrath and even His abandonment, are temporal and for our correction. He will not cast off forever (Lam 3:31-33). All death – even the second death – the last enemy, will finally be done away with, having served its purpose.
The hatred of God will also cease when sin is finally and eternally separated from the last sinner – when every knee will have bowed, and all will have become subject to Him. There is no such thing as an eternal dualism in the plan of God for the ages. He will not always be angry, eternally lashing 90% of His creatures in an eternal torture chamber, which He was pleased to create for the praise of the glory of His justice. That is an invention of Greek mythology and a hangover from the Dark Ages that has been read into Christian theology, having been inspired by demons.
We can see from Scriptures that God will overcome those He hates by the power of His infinite love. Rather than eternally tormenting His enemies, He reconciles them to himself by the blood of His cross:
“Say to God, ‘how awesome are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power your enemies shall submit themselves to You. 4 All the earth shall worship You and sing praises to You; they shall sing praises to Your name’.” (Ps 66:3-4) [4]
“and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” (Col 1:20)
“Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” (1Cor 15:28)
Therefore, when all, having been reconciled to God through His own blood shed upon the cross, become subjected to Christ, Christ will then subject Himself to the Father and from that point on God shall eternally be all in all. All His anger, hatred and wrath, which were His holy loving nature acting against sin, will no longer have an environment in which to manifest. We, however, will retain the knowledge of His hatred of evil – something that Adam and Eve had no comprehension of.
Also, His grace, mercy, compassion and longsuffering will cease to manifest, since the only environment in which they could become evident was in the context of man’s fall and his sinful condition. Our comprehension of good and evil with its awful consequences, followed by God’s grace and mercy, made freely available by His sacrifice of love on the cross, will be retained in our hearts as an invaluable and eternal treasure of the experiential knowledge of God’s love – something Adam and Eve in their primitive state of innocence had no way of imagining.
Entering into the eternal state, when God shall be all in all, we will finally understand the manifold wisdom of God in creation. We will understand why He created Satan, why he set before man the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, knowing beforehand that they would fall. We will also see before us the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world for the reconciliation of all creation; the calling out of an elect people to be a first fruits of His new creation in Christ - the preordained Last Adam. We will also see how we, the Church, the assembly of the elect, were chosen as ambassadors of reconciliation for the rest of creation. We will finally see the last knee bow in humble loving submission to Christ, at which time Christ will deliver all to the Father and then, for all eternity, God will be all in all.
All found their origin in Him (Col 1:16 lit. “in Him”), they exist by Him, and they will finally return to Him and He will then be all in all. “For of (ek) Him and through (dia) Him and to (eis) Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:36).
The Relative Nature of Godly Hatred
We further see that the hatred we are told by Jesus we must have in order to be His disciples, is not absolute in the sense that we as sinners often manifest hatred towards God and our fellow man. The people Jesus commands us to hate are the very ones we are elsewhere commanded to love:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:26)
We are commanded to love and honor our parents (Matt 19:19; Eph 6:2). We are to love our wives even as Christ loves the Church (Eph 5:25). We are to exercise brotherly love, loving our neighbors as ourselves (Rom 12:10). If we were to understand hate in its absolute sense, as do our traditional brethren, then we would be confronted with a blatant contradiction.
However, Matthew’s account interprets what Jesus meant when He told us we must hate others in order to be His disciples:
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” (Matt 10:37)
Matthew’s rendering of Jesus’ words should make it very clear what He meant by hate. When we love someone with all our hearts, our lives revolve around that person, and all we want to do is please him. It is good and right that we should love our parents, our mates, our children and brothers. It is even right that we should love ourselves in the way that God loves us. However, our first love is to be reserved for God as we also see commanded by Jesus:
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)
Here we see that our love for our fellow man is commanded, but it must be subordinate to our first love – our love for God. Therefore, when someone we love would have us do something against the One we love the most, we must set ourselves against that individual, even though we love them as well, in order to do the will of God - our first love. Here again we see the word hate used in the sense of “setting oneself against” the individual who would impose his will upon us in opposition to the will of God.
We also see the same idea expressed concerning God’s hatred towards Esau:
“As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” (Rom 9:13, cf. Mal 1:2-3)
Paul explains that God’s hatred was not based upon something Esau had done during his lifetime, but rather was solely based upon His sovereign election (Rom 9:11). He chose Jacob over Esau before they had even been born in order that they both might fulfill a specific purpose. Just as He hardened Pharaoh in order to fulfill a specific temporal purpose in His plan for Israel, God chose Jacob over Esau.
However, election is not to the eternal exclusion of the non-elect, but rather they are chosen to be light for the reconciliation of the rest of creation. Paul, in response to those who would question the Lord’s justice in choosing some and passing over others, says that God, in the outworking of His own purposes, has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens (Rom 9:18). However, we see that, in the overall plan of God for the ages, He has determined to finally have mercy on all without exception:
“For God has committed them [5] all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all…. 36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:32,36) [6]
We can also see that the hatred that the Lord showed to Esau, preferring Isaac, is not different in nature from the hatred Jesus said we must have towards those we are also commanded to love. It is evident that Esau was also loved and favored, even though, temporally speaking, not to the degree Jacob was. We see God’s favor and love for Esau demonstrated when the time came for Israel, Jacobs’s descendants, to enter the land of Canaan:
“And the Lord spoke to me, saying: 3 ‘You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward. 4 And command the people, saying, ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. Therefore watch yourselves carefully. 5 Do not meddle with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as one footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.” (Deut 2:2-5)
Obviously, if God had hated Esau in a sinful way as mankind often does, He wouldn’t have given him any possession as an inheritance. Therefore, God’s hatred must be understood in the light of His eternal nature. God is love. All that He does is ultimately rooted and grounded in His love. His hatred, anger, wrath and even rejection are His loving response against all evil within us, disciplining us and even casting some in the lake of fire, in order that all may ultimately partake of the peaceable fruit of righteousness. God does not hate any individual in the sense in which many of us as sinners hate those who have wronged us. His hatred is His opposition to our sinful actions and becomes favor as soon as the sin has been separated from the object of His love.
[1] Martin Luther: The Bondage of the Will, pp. 226, 228-229.
[2] The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chap. 3 — Articles 6 and 7.
[3] Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[4] The word for “submit” in this verse normally refers to a feigned submission. However, there are no words in Hebrew which express true, voluntary submission. Here it is the context itself which determines its meaning as true submission and adoration in spite of its normal meaning, since feigned submission would never result in His enemies worshipping and praising Him.
[5] “them” is not in the original Greek text, but was added by the translators.
[6] Our English word “things” does not have an equivalent in Greek. Neither does the neuter form in Greek always indicate objects as in English. When the translators insert “things” in contexts that are evidently referring primarily to persons and not inanimate objects I take the liberty to cross it out in order to keep the focus where it belongs.
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Chapter 0
by George Sidney Hurd
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In the previous blog we saw that God loves simply because He is love – not because of something He sees in the objects of His love. In fact, He unconditionally loves all, including His enemies, and we are enjoined by Christ to likewise love our enemies in order that we may be children of our Father in heaven (Matt 5:44-48).
Therefore, those of us who believe in the whole testimony of the Scriptures, must seek to understand how these clear declarations concerning the unconditional nature of God’s love complement, rather than contradict, other statements in Scripture which place conditions upon God’s unconditional love. How can God’s love be understood as unconditional while at the same time being conditional? Jesus Himself, while teaching that God loves all unconditionally, on more than one occasion presented His love as being conditioned upon our response to His love. Here are the main examples:
“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (Jn 14:21)
“for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.” (Jn 16:27)
“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me.” (Jn 14:23-24)
All of the above statements indicate that there is a certain conditionality to God’s love. Many a casual reader would say that they are two distinct and irreconcilable truth-claims and conclude that Jesus was simply contradicting Himself. Others either ignore the unconditional passages, claiming that God only loves those who fulfill certain conditions, while those of the other extreme ignore the conditions altogether, claiming that God’s love is entirely one sided and that our lack of reciprocation does not in any way affect our relationship with God.
However, if we believe that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and that the entirety of His Word is truth (2Tim 3:16; Psa 119:160; Jn 17:17), we will often discover that what at first seems to be paradoxical and even contradictory, can actually be seen to be a complementary truth when rightly understood.
Keeping in mind that God, being love personified, loves all, including His enemies, it becomes evident that Jesus is saying that, while God loves all unconditionally, and nothing we have done or can do will change that, nevertheless, if we want to experience His love in a love relationship with Him, there are conditions.
If you want to positively experience His love as love, you must first love the Son and believe that the Father sent Him (Jn 16:27). In fact, Jesus warned those who were unwilling to recognize Him for who He was, being God the Son incarnate, the Savior of the world, that they would die in their sins unless they believed (Jn 8:24). Does that mean that God did not love them? No! God is love, and His love never ceases, and it is over all His works (Psa 145:9-10). However, they will not know His love until they receive His Son and have the love of God poured out in their hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5).
While God even loves the ungodly, Jesus said that if we want to experience His love in relationship with Him, we must keep His Word. That is what Jude meant when he said that we are to keep ourselves in the love of God, even though nothing nor anyone can ever separate us from His love, ontologically speaking (Jude 21; Rom 8:35-39). God’s love never ceases, but if we don’t obey His Word, we will not experience it as love, but rather it will manifest in the form of discipline or judgments which don’t seem like love to those who are undergoing them (Heb 12:10-11; 1Cor 11:31-32).
I find it helpful to keep in mind the fact that God’s love towards mankind is spoken of as being a paternal love. God is said to be the Father of the whole family, both in heaven and on earth, and He therefore loves all unconditionally, including His enemies (Eph 3:14-15; Mal 2:10; Matt 5:44-45).
Most of us understand paternal love to be unconditional. My parents weren’t perfect, but I always knew that they loved me and wanted the best for me, even during my rebellious years when I shamed their good name and caused them so much grief. I knew that nothing would have gladdened their hearts more than for me to come to myself and return home to them.
The parable of the Prodigal son illustrates beautifully the Father’s heart towards His wayward children. Although the Prodigal son did not appreciate his father’s love for him and didn’t enjoy his father’s love experientially in the far country, the father’s love for him had not diminished in the least. Some of my readers may have been abandoned by their earthly fathers, and others may have even been abandoned by their own mother. But Jesus said that we are evil fathers in comparison to our heavenly Father who is perfect love (Matt 7:9-11). The psalmist said: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me” (Ps 27:10). Such is the Father’s love for us. To those of you who have been abandoned by your mother, Isaiah speaks these words:
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Isa 49:15)
The amazing thing is that God spoke these words to His people at a time when He was judging them for their abominable deeds, including even sacrificing their own children as burnt offerings to Moloch. While it was necessary for God to judge them severely because they failed to heed His warnings through the prophets, He wanted them to know that His love for them was unconditional – even beyond a mother’s love for her own child!
Did they experience His love in a loving relationship while they were being invaded by their enemies and taken captive? No. But, did God’s love for them diminish during that time? Certainly not! For those of you who have children, I would ask: Were you ever angry with them because of their disobedience? Did you ever discipline them? Did your anger and disciplinary action mean you had stopped loving them? Quite the contrary! If you were not angered and failed to correct their rebellious actions, it would be an indication that you did not really love them (Pr 13:24).
The fact that your child is not enjoying a loving relationship with you while being disciplined by you, does not mean that you do not love him unconditionally. It is the same way in our relationship with God: “whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb 12:6 cf. Pr 3:12). Would the child interpret His anger and discipline as loving them? Probably not. But that does not mean that he does not love them, but simply that they are not experiencing His love as love toward them at the moment, but rather as discipline.
Just as with the father in the parable of the Prodigal son, God will at times give people over to their own desires, since they do not desire to retain the knowledge of Him (Rom 1:24-28). But does He ever stop loving them? No. He is even at times said to have indignation towards them because of their obstinate rebellion, and He may give them over to a reprobate mind (lit. “disapproved mind”) and cast them off for a time, but not forever, because He is love, and His love never ceases. He said of rebellious Israel, after assuring them in Isaiah 49 that His love for them is more faithful and enduring than that of a mother:
“With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.” (Isa 54:8)
So we see that, even in His wrath, His love for us never ceases. Even when He withdraws His presence and lets us suffer the consequences of our own stubborn willfulness, He will never reject anyone forever because His love never ceases. As Jeremiah said to Israel in Lamentations when they were undergoing God’s severe judgments and felt that God had forever abandoned them:
“The Lord will not cast off forever. 32 Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. 33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” (Lam 3:31-33, cf. Mic 7:18).
For my Calvinist friends who would argue that this promise only applies to the elect, I would point out that when Jeremiah says, “the children of men,” it speaks of the whole world of humanity and not just the elect of Israel. Here we see that God only casts off the obstinately wicked from His presence for a time in discipline as a last resort: He does not afflict anyone nor grieve them willingly, because He loves us all unconditionally in spite of our rebellion, just as any loving father loves his children, except that He loves us infinitely more than any father ever could.
So, taking into consideration all that we have seen, it becomes apparent that, when Jesus said that “God will love us if…,” or that “He loves us because…,” He does not mean that God stops loving us when we are disobedient – it simply means that we will not experience His love as love in a loving relationship. On the contrary, His disobedient children experience His correction and broken communion rather than His loving embrace. However, as soon as one of His children repents of His sin and rebellion, the Father again receives him with hugs and kisses, because He has always loved us with an everlasting unconditional love.
In the next blog, I will consider the passages which indicate that God hates some, while loving others. Some of our Calvinist brethren understand this as meaning that God only loves the elect and actually hates all those whom He has not sovereignly chosen unto salvation. Such a view must deny or explain away all that we have seen so far in these two blogs concerning the universal scope of God’s unconditional love. Does God really hate in the sense that sinful man shows hatred towards his enemies? That is what we will be considering in the next blog.
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In the previous blog we saw that God loves simply because He is love – not because of something He sees in the objects of His love. In fact, He unconditionally loves all, including His enemies, and we are enjoined by Christ to likewise love our enemies in order that we may be children of our Father in heaven (Matt 5:44-48).
Therefore, those of us who believe in the whole testimony of the Scriptures, must seek to understand how these clear declarations concerning the unconditional nature of God’s love complement, rather than contradict, other statements in Scripture which place conditions upon God’s unconditional love. How can God’s love be understood as unconditional while at the same time being conditional? Jesus Himself, while teaching that God loves all unconditionally, on more than one occasion presented His love as being conditioned upon our response to His love. Here are the main examples:
“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (Jn 14:21)
“for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.” (Jn 16:27)
“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me.” (Jn 14:23-24)
All of the above statements indicate that there is a certain conditionality to God’s love. Many a casual reader would say that they are two distinct and irreconcilable truth-claims and conclude that Jesus was simply contradicting Himself. Others either ignore the unconditional passages, claiming that God only loves those who fulfill certain conditions, while those of the other extreme ignore the conditions altogether, claiming that God’s love is entirely one sided and that our lack of reciprocation does not in any way affect our relationship with God.
However, if we believe that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and that the entirety of His Word is truth (2Tim 3:16; Psa 119:160; Jn 17:17), we will often discover that what at first seems to be paradoxical and even contradictory, can actually be seen to be a complementary truth when rightly understood.
Keeping in mind that God, being love personified, loves all, including His enemies, it becomes evident that Jesus is saying that, while God loves all unconditionally, and nothing we have done or can do will change that, nevertheless, if we want to experience His love in a love relationship with Him, there are conditions.
If you want to positively experience His love as love, you must first love the Son and believe that the Father sent Him (Jn 16:27). In fact, Jesus warned those who were unwilling to recognize Him for who He was, being God the Son incarnate, the Savior of the world, that they would die in their sins unless they believed (Jn 8:24). Does that mean that God did not love them? No! God is love, and His love never ceases, and it is over all His works (Psa 145:9-10). However, they will not know His love until they receive His Son and have the love of God poured out in their hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5).
While God even loves the ungodly, Jesus said that if we want to experience His love in relationship with Him, we must keep His Word. That is what Jude meant when he said that we are to keep ourselves in the love of God, even though nothing nor anyone can ever separate us from His love, ontologically speaking (Jude 21; Rom 8:35-39). God’s love never ceases, but if we don’t obey His Word, we will not experience it as love, but rather it will manifest in the form of discipline or judgments which don’t seem like love to those who are undergoing them (Heb 12:10-11; 1Cor 11:31-32).
I find it helpful to keep in mind the fact that God’s love towards mankind is spoken of as being a paternal love. God is said to be the Father of the whole family, both in heaven and on earth, and He therefore loves all unconditionally, including His enemies (Eph 3:14-15; Mal 2:10; Matt 5:44-45).
Most of us understand paternal love to be unconditional. My parents weren’t perfect, but I always knew that they loved me and wanted the best for me, even during my rebellious years when I shamed their good name and caused them so much grief. I knew that nothing would have gladdened their hearts more than for me to come to myself and return home to them.
The parable of the Prodigal son illustrates beautifully the Father’s heart towards His wayward children. Although the Prodigal son did not appreciate his father’s love for him and didn’t enjoy his father’s love experientially in the far country, the father’s love for him had not diminished in the least. Some of my readers may have been abandoned by their earthly fathers, and others may have even been abandoned by their own mother. But Jesus said that we are evil fathers in comparison to our heavenly Father who is perfect love (Matt 7:9-11). The psalmist said: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me” (Ps 27:10). Such is the Father’s love for us. To those of you who have been abandoned by your mother, Isaiah speaks these words:
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Isa 49:15)
The amazing thing is that God spoke these words to His people at a time when He was judging them for their abominable deeds, including even sacrificing their own children as burnt offerings to Moloch. While it was necessary for God to judge them severely because they failed to heed His warnings through the prophets, He wanted them to know that His love for them was unconditional – even beyond a mother’s love for her own child!
Did they experience His love in a loving relationship while they were being invaded by their enemies and taken captive? No. But, did God’s love for them diminish during that time? Certainly not! For those of you who have children, I would ask: Were you ever angry with them because of their disobedience? Did you ever discipline them? Did your anger and disciplinary action mean you had stopped loving them? Quite the contrary! If you were not angered and failed to correct their rebellious actions, it would be an indication that you did not really love them (Pr 13:24).
The fact that your child is not enjoying a loving relationship with you while being disciplined by you, does not mean that you do not love him unconditionally. It is the same way in our relationship with God: “whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb 12:6 cf. Pr 3:12). Would the child interpret His anger and discipline as loving them? Probably not. But that does not mean that he does not love them, but simply that they are not experiencing His love as love toward them at the moment, but rather as discipline.
Just as with the father in the parable of the Prodigal son, God will at times give people over to their own desires, since they do not desire to retain the knowledge of Him (Rom 1:24-28). But does He ever stop loving them? No. He is even at times said to have indignation towards them because of their obstinate rebellion, and He may give them over to a reprobate mind (lit. “disapproved mind”) and cast them off for a time, but not forever, because He is love, and His love never ceases. He said of rebellious Israel, after assuring them in Isaiah 49 that His love for them is more faithful and enduring than that of a mother:
“With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.” (Isa 54:8)
So we see that, even in His wrath, His love for us never ceases. Even when He withdraws His presence and lets us suffer the consequences of our own stubborn willfulness, He will never reject anyone forever because His love never ceases. As Jeremiah said to Israel in Lamentations when they were undergoing God’s severe judgments and felt that God had forever abandoned them:
“The Lord will not cast off forever. 32 Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. 33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” (Lam 3:31-33, cf. Mic 7:18).
For my Calvinist friends who would argue that this promise only applies to the elect, I would point out that when Jeremiah says, “the children of men,” it speaks of the whole world of humanity and not just the elect of Israel. Here we see that God only casts off the obstinately wicked from His presence for a time in discipline as a last resort: He does not afflict anyone nor grieve them willingly, because He loves us all unconditionally in spite of our rebellion, just as any loving father loves his children, except that He loves us infinitely more than any father ever could.
So, taking into consideration all that we have seen, it becomes apparent that, when Jesus said that “God will love us if…,” or that “He loves us because…,” He does not mean that God stops loving us when we are disobedient – it simply means that we will not experience His love as love in a loving relationship. On the contrary, His disobedient children experience His correction and broken communion rather than His loving embrace. However, as soon as one of His children repents of His sin and rebellion, the Father again receives him with hugs and kisses, because He has always loved us with an everlasting unconditional love.
In the next blog, I will consider the passages which indicate that God hates some, while loving others. Some of our Calvinist brethren understand this as meaning that God only loves the elect and actually hates all those whom He has not sovereignly chosen unto salvation. Such a view must deny or explain away all that we have seen so far in these two blogs concerning the universal scope of God’s unconditional love. Does God really hate in the sense that sinful man shows hatred towards his enemies? That is what we will be considering in the next blog.
- Published on
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Chapter 0
by George Sidney Hurd
Do the Scriptures present God’s love as being conditioned upon our behavior, or is it unconditional? Does He love everyone universally, or does He only love those who love Him in return?
John presents love as being the essential attribute of God’s very nature (1Jn 4:8,16). Is His love for all therefore infinite, eternal and indivisible from all His other attributes, or does His love somehow cease in a heartbeat for those who didn’t appropriately correspond to His love while still living?
Those of us who believe in a universal restoration of all have less difficulty embracing the concept of God’s unconditional love. But Traditionalists who believe that those who, for one reason or other, do not positively respond to His love in this life will afterwards be subjected to His wrath forever, are faced with a logical and moral dilemma, and they typically either deny that His love is unconditional or else deny that His love for all is eternal. Some actually become indignant when they hear someone glorying in the love of God towards all.
While admittedly, many have misrepresented God’s love as being permissive and affirming of people living in willful sin, others have overreacted to this extreme by limiting God’s love, just as they often do with God’s grace.
Since I consider this to be such an important subject, being that it determines how we perceive God and relate to Him, in the next couple of blogs I will be considering what the Scriptures actually have to say concerning this vitally important subject.
The Unconditional Love of God
Those who deny that God’s love for us is unconditional often begin by pointing out that the term “unconditional love” never appears, per se, in Scripture. However, they themselves make use of terms such as “unmerited love,” “abounding love” and “sacrificial love,” terms which likewise are not found in the Scriptures, yet all would acknowledge that they are descriptive of God’s love. The real question we must answer is whether or not God’s love is presented as being unconditional in Scripture, and I hope to demonstrate that it most certainly is. In the very declaration of John where he said that God is love, he defines His love as not being conditioned upon anything in us. He said:
“God is love… 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1Jn 4:8,10)
Here we see that God loves simply because He is love, not because the objects of His love fulfilled some preconditions. If love is conditional, what condition did we fulfill in order for God to love us and send His Son to be the propitiating sacrifice for our sins? I would remind those who would argue that this verse only applies to the elect, that He also loved the whole world and made propitiation even for those whom He knew would not correspond to His love this side of the grave (Jn 3:16; 1Jn 2:2). He loved us while we were yet dead in our trespasses and sins. In Romans, Paul is even more emphatic in stating that, in contrast to man’s love, God’s love is unconditional, when He says:
“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:6-8)
The greatest demonstration of God’s unconditional love was when He sent His Son to die for us, being ungodly sinners. Rather than us fulfilling a precondition in order to merit His love, He showed His love toward us even while we were His enemies (Rom 5:10). Jesus further tells us that if we want to be like our Father in heaven, we must likewise love our enemies. He said:
“You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt 5:43-48)
Conditional love only loves those who love us in return. But Jesus says that, if we only love in that way, then we are no different than the tax collectors, since even they love those who love them in return. We only become perfected in the love of the Father when we love even our enemies, just as He does. Conditional love says, “I love you because…,” “I will love you if…” or “I will love you as long as…” But unconditional love says, “nothing you can do or say will cause me to stop loving you.” Every human being – indeed, every rational being, has an innate need for unconditional love which only God can supply, yet religion all too often robs us of the assurance of His love for us.
Some Calvinists, when confronted with the undeniably unconditional nature of the Father’s love in this passage, attempt to categorize the love of God, saying, “Yes God has a ‘general love’ for His enemies in that he sends the rain, even upon the unjust, but it is not the ‘effectual or redemptive love,’ which He has towards His elect only.” According to this view, God loves His enemies unconditionally until they draw their last breath, but then His unconditional love somehow becomes unending wrath the moment they die.
They argue that God’s justice requires His eternal wrath. While that is a subject beyond the scope of this blog, God’s attributes are indivisible. His love and His justice have never been in conflict with each other due to the fact that Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice on the cross has eternally been an accomplished reality with God. Jesus was the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). His righteousness and peace kissed one another at the cross, reconciling all of creation unto Himself (Psa 85:10; Col 1:16,20). God was demonstrated to have been just in justifying those who previously sinned at the cross when Christ became the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (Rom 3:25-26 ). And the gospel is said to be eonian (Rev 14:6). Whatever that means, it certainly means that it continues being good news beyond one’s last breath (1Peter 4:6). The blood of Christ does not have an expiration date (Heb 9:12; 7:25).
God’s love even reaches beyond the grave into Sheol or Hades itself. Since God is love and He is present in all of creation, there is no escaping His love. The psalmists says:
“The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. 10 All Your works shall praise You, O Lord...” (Ps 145:9-10)
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell (Sheol), behold, You are there.” (Ps 139:7-8)
Given that God’s tender mercies are over all His works, including Sheol itself, how can anyone continue denying that God’s love is unconditional? As we will see in the next blog, while many are not experiencing God’s love, relationally speaking, His love for them is nevertheless inescapable and never ceases (1Cor 13:8). An old hymn I often find myself singing is “The Love of God.” It is still sung in many churches to this day, but those who believe that hell eternally separates man from the love of God must sing it tongue in cheek. The first stanza reads:
“The love of God is greater far,
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The wandering child is reconciled
By God’s beloved Son.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWnvmKoLWUU
The first line of the hymn is taken from Paul’s prayer for us in Ephesians 3 which says:
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named… 17that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:14,17-19)
What Paul is saying is that we need a revelation of His love which exceeds our mental capacity to conceive – a knowing which goes beyond a mere intellectual comprehension to have His love actually being poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5). This inevitably results in us being “filled with all the fullness of God,” since God is love. This is glorious! Those who think God’s love is conditional should ask Him to reveal to them just how wide is the expanse of His love; how high it reaches and how low it will go to reach out to the lost. I can assure you that they will never be the same.
In 1982, after my studies in seminary, I experienced this glorious fullness which comes from the love of God having been poured out in one’s heart by His Spirit as described by Paul. At that point in my life, I felt spiritually dry and realized that a mere intellectual knowledge of Scripture could not satisfy my thirst for God. I longed to experience His love and enjoy intimate communion with Him as I did when I first came to know Him. I determined to set aside my theological studies and seek the Lord to restore unto me my first-love.
One night I was lying in bed reading from Andrew Murray’s book “Abiding in Christ” when the Holy Spirit poured out the love of God in my heart in a way much too glorious to express with mere words. I have never been very emotional, but I felt so overwhelmed by His fullness that I could not contain the joy. All I could do was laugh and cry at the top of my voice. I could see as never before that I was one spirit with the Lord and that Christ was my very life. The Scripture came alive to me as never before as the Spirit opened my understanding.
Space will not allow me to go into more detail here, but this open heaven experience continued for some three months, at which time I cried out to God and said: “Lord, I want to make you known as I am knowing you right now.” I have always been painfully shy, and when I did get the courage to share with others what I was experiencing they just looked at me like there was something wrong with me. The Lord responded to me from John 12:24 where Jesus said: “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” He showed me that, just like the grain of wheat, I needed to allow Him to remove things from my life that were keeping His life trapped inside of me, and that I would not feel His presence in the same way I had been experiencing it for a time, but that He would never leave me nor forsake me.
Gradually, the sense of His presence diminished, and I no longer saw clearly as I did in His presence. In the fullness of His presence, sinful habits fell by the wayside, and I felt free from all temptations. However, little by little, as I lost the conscious awareness of His presence, I once again began to struggle with temptations. I pleaded and pleaded with the Lord to restore to me that open heaven experience. I wanted to see as I saw in His presence, but the heavens seemed like brass. Then, one day at work, as I was agonizing over my condition, the Lord spoke to me, simply saying: “Isaiah 42:16,” “Isaiah 42:16.” As soon as I went for my 10:00 break, I opened my Bible to the text He gave me, and this is what it said: “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.”
I knew in my spirit that the Lord was reassuring me that, even though it wasn’t in His purposes to remove my blindness at that time, He would never forsake me, and that, in His time, He would perfect the good work which He began in me. That glorious experience of God’s unconditional, unfailing love for me has given me the strength and assurance I needed to trust in His love through the many ways in which He has worked death in me over the last 40 years. I share more fully this encounter I had with the Lord in my book: “The True Grace of God.”
I believe with Paul, that we all need to know the width and length and depth and height of His love in an experiential way which goes beyond mere knowledge. We need to be fully convinced of God’s unconditional love towards us, just as Paul says in Romans 8:
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:35-39)
Are you persuaded as Paul that nothing nor anyone in all of creation will ever be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ? If not, get before the Lord and ask Him to open your understanding and pour out His love in your heart by the Holy Spirit. I assure you; you will never be the same.
Some would rob us of this full assurance by saying: “True, no created thing can separate you from the love of God, but sin is not a created thing, and sin can separate you from God’s love forever.” However, it is very obvious that that is not what Paul would have us understand in his all-comprehensive declaration. Throughout the entire epistle up to this point, Paul has been demonstrating how the sin problem has been dealt with once and for all for the believer through Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice. In chapter 8 he begins with “no condemnation” for those who are in Christ Jesus and ends with “no separation” from His love. There is no condemnation because we have been justified from all sin through faith in Christ (Rom 5:1).
That Paul didn’t mean to say that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ except for sin in Romans 8:35-39 is evident from what he said just before that in verses 33 and 34. He said:
“Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” (Rom 8:33-34)
Paul here poses the rhetorical question: “Who shall bring a charge (of sin) against God's elect? The obvious answer is no one, since it is God Himself who declared us righteous. He then asks, “Who is he who condemns (because of sin) if Christ Himself has died and rose and intercedes for us, being Himself the propitiation for our sins?” (cf. 1Jn 2:1-2). Again, the answer is that no one nor nothing (not even sin) shall be able to separate us from His love.
Mankind would have never been at enmity with God if we were not sinners, and Jesus says that God loves His enemies, and He loved us while we were yet in our sins. To say that God loved us unconditionally in our sin before being justified, but now loves us conditionally after being justified, goes against everything that Paul has been saying up to this point. Additionally, Peter says that love will cover a multitude of sins (1Peter 4:8). God’s love can cover a multitude of sins because of Christ’s expiatorial sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, and not only our sins, but the sins of the whole world. Therefore, His love for all is constant and unconditional. Just as with the Prodigal son, the Father is waiting with open arms to receive each and every one of His wayward children the moment they come to themselves and return to Him – even those who despised their inheritance.
Contemporary Misunderstandings of God’s Unconditional Love
Much of the opposition to the truth of God’s unconditional love is due to the way in which many today have misrepresented it, presenting it as if it meant that God’s love was a permissive or all-affirming love. A love that does not hate evil and oppose evildoers is not really love at all, but indifference. A righteous love cannot love evil and injustice. While God loves all unconditionally and therefore will not reject evildoers forever nor will He retain His anger against them forever as traditionally taught, His righteous love is angered by the obstinate rebellion of His people and when we fail to judge sin in our lives He often intervenes with judgments, even at times resulting in one’s premature death (1Cor 11:28-32). Just as any loving father corrects his son and is angered by the child’s rebellion, even so our heavenly Father disciplines His children and even scourges them if necessary in order that we may partake of His holiness (Heb 12:6-11). However, His mercies are new every morning and His love never ends because He doesn’t simply love – He is love.
In the next blog: “What is Conditional about God’s Unconditional Love?” I will be considering passages which many misconstrue as being a denial of God’s unconditional love. How are we to understand passages stating that God actually hates and abhors certain individuals? Do these statements somehow contradict or negate all we have seen so far concerning the unconditional nature of God’s love? Some statements made by Jesus also seem to present God’s love as conditional, such as John 14:21-24 and John 16:27. How are we to understand these passages? That will be the subject of the next blog.
Do the Scriptures present God’s love as being conditioned upon our behavior, or is it unconditional? Does He love everyone universally, or does He only love those who love Him in return?
John presents love as being the essential attribute of God’s very nature (1Jn 4:8,16). Is His love for all therefore infinite, eternal and indivisible from all His other attributes, or does His love somehow cease in a heartbeat for those who didn’t appropriately correspond to His love while still living?
Those of us who believe in a universal restoration of all have less difficulty embracing the concept of God’s unconditional love. But Traditionalists who believe that those who, for one reason or other, do not positively respond to His love in this life will afterwards be subjected to His wrath forever, are faced with a logical and moral dilemma, and they typically either deny that His love is unconditional or else deny that His love for all is eternal. Some actually become indignant when they hear someone glorying in the love of God towards all.
While admittedly, many have misrepresented God’s love as being permissive and affirming of people living in willful sin, others have overreacted to this extreme by limiting God’s love, just as they often do with God’s grace.
Since I consider this to be such an important subject, being that it determines how we perceive God and relate to Him, in the next couple of blogs I will be considering what the Scriptures actually have to say concerning this vitally important subject.
The Unconditional Love of God
Those who deny that God’s love for us is unconditional often begin by pointing out that the term “unconditional love” never appears, per se, in Scripture. However, they themselves make use of terms such as “unmerited love,” “abounding love” and “sacrificial love,” terms which likewise are not found in the Scriptures, yet all would acknowledge that they are descriptive of God’s love. The real question we must answer is whether or not God’s love is presented as being unconditional in Scripture, and I hope to demonstrate that it most certainly is. In the very declaration of John where he said that God is love, he defines His love as not being conditioned upon anything in us. He said:
“God is love… 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1Jn 4:8,10)
Here we see that God loves simply because He is love, not because the objects of His love fulfilled some preconditions. If love is conditional, what condition did we fulfill in order for God to love us and send His Son to be the propitiating sacrifice for our sins? I would remind those who would argue that this verse only applies to the elect, that He also loved the whole world and made propitiation even for those whom He knew would not correspond to His love this side of the grave (Jn 3:16; 1Jn 2:2). He loved us while we were yet dead in our trespasses and sins. In Romans, Paul is even more emphatic in stating that, in contrast to man’s love, God’s love is unconditional, when He says:
“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:6-8)
The greatest demonstration of God’s unconditional love was when He sent His Son to die for us, being ungodly sinners. Rather than us fulfilling a precondition in order to merit His love, He showed His love toward us even while we were His enemies (Rom 5:10). Jesus further tells us that if we want to be like our Father in heaven, we must likewise love our enemies. He said:
“You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt 5:43-48)
Conditional love only loves those who love us in return. But Jesus says that, if we only love in that way, then we are no different than the tax collectors, since even they love those who love them in return. We only become perfected in the love of the Father when we love even our enemies, just as He does. Conditional love says, “I love you because…,” “I will love you if…” or “I will love you as long as…” But unconditional love says, “nothing you can do or say will cause me to stop loving you.” Every human being – indeed, every rational being, has an innate need for unconditional love which only God can supply, yet religion all too often robs us of the assurance of His love for us.
Some Calvinists, when confronted with the undeniably unconditional nature of the Father’s love in this passage, attempt to categorize the love of God, saying, “Yes God has a ‘general love’ for His enemies in that he sends the rain, even upon the unjust, but it is not the ‘effectual or redemptive love,’ which He has towards His elect only.” According to this view, God loves His enemies unconditionally until they draw their last breath, but then His unconditional love somehow becomes unending wrath the moment they die.
They argue that God’s justice requires His eternal wrath. While that is a subject beyond the scope of this blog, God’s attributes are indivisible. His love and His justice have never been in conflict with each other due to the fact that Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice on the cross has eternally been an accomplished reality with God. Jesus was the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). His righteousness and peace kissed one another at the cross, reconciling all of creation unto Himself (Psa 85:10; Col 1:16,20). God was demonstrated to have been just in justifying those who previously sinned at the cross when Christ became the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (Rom 3:25-26 ). And the gospel is said to be eonian (Rev 14:6). Whatever that means, it certainly means that it continues being good news beyond one’s last breath (1Peter 4:6). The blood of Christ does not have an expiration date (Heb 9:12; 7:25).
God’s love even reaches beyond the grave into Sheol or Hades itself. Since God is love and He is present in all of creation, there is no escaping His love. The psalmists says:
“The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. 10 All Your works shall praise You, O Lord...” (Ps 145:9-10)
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell (Sheol), behold, You are there.” (Ps 139:7-8)
Given that God’s tender mercies are over all His works, including Sheol itself, how can anyone continue denying that God’s love is unconditional? As we will see in the next blog, while many are not experiencing God’s love, relationally speaking, His love for them is nevertheless inescapable and never ceases (1Cor 13:8). An old hymn I often find myself singing is “The Love of God.” It is still sung in many churches to this day, but those who believe that hell eternally separates man from the love of God must sing it tongue in cheek. The first stanza reads:
“The love of God is greater far,
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The wandering child is reconciled
By God’s beloved Son.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWnvmKoLWUU
The first line of the hymn is taken from Paul’s prayer for us in Ephesians 3 which says:
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named… 17that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:14,17-19)
What Paul is saying is that we need a revelation of His love which exceeds our mental capacity to conceive – a knowing which goes beyond a mere intellectual comprehension to have His love actually being poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5). This inevitably results in us being “filled with all the fullness of God,” since God is love. This is glorious! Those who think God’s love is conditional should ask Him to reveal to them just how wide is the expanse of His love; how high it reaches and how low it will go to reach out to the lost. I can assure you that they will never be the same.
In 1982, after my studies in seminary, I experienced this glorious fullness which comes from the love of God having been poured out in one’s heart by His Spirit as described by Paul. At that point in my life, I felt spiritually dry and realized that a mere intellectual knowledge of Scripture could not satisfy my thirst for God. I longed to experience His love and enjoy intimate communion with Him as I did when I first came to know Him. I determined to set aside my theological studies and seek the Lord to restore unto me my first-love.
One night I was lying in bed reading from Andrew Murray’s book “Abiding in Christ” when the Holy Spirit poured out the love of God in my heart in a way much too glorious to express with mere words. I have never been very emotional, but I felt so overwhelmed by His fullness that I could not contain the joy. All I could do was laugh and cry at the top of my voice. I could see as never before that I was one spirit with the Lord and that Christ was my very life. The Scripture came alive to me as never before as the Spirit opened my understanding.
Space will not allow me to go into more detail here, but this open heaven experience continued for some three months, at which time I cried out to God and said: “Lord, I want to make you known as I am knowing you right now.” I have always been painfully shy, and when I did get the courage to share with others what I was experiencing they just looked at me like there was something wrong with me. The Lord responded to me from John 12:24 where Jesus said: “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” He showed me that, just like the grain of wheat, I needed to allow Him to remove things from my life that were keeping His life trapped inside of me, and that I would not feel His presence in the same way I had been experiencing it for a time, but that He would never leave me nor forsake me.
Gradually, the sense of His presence diminished, and I no longer saw clearly as I did in His presence. In the fullness of His presence, sinful habits fell by the wayside, and I felt free from all temptations. However, little by little, as I lost the conscious awareness of His presence, I once again began to struggle with temptations. I pleaded and pleaded with the Lord to restore to me that open heaven experience. I wanted to see as I saw in His presence, but the heavens seemed like brass. Then, one day at work, as I was agonizing over my condition, the Lord spoke to me, simply saying: “Isaiah 42:16,” “Isaiah 42:16.” As soon as I went for my 10:00 break, I opened my Bible to the text He gave me, and this is what it said: “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.”
I knew in my spirit that the Lord was reassuring me that, even though it wasn’t in His purposes to remove my blindness at that time, He would never forsake me, and that, in His time, He would perfect the good work which He began in me. That glorious experience of God’s unconditional, unfailing love for me has given me the strength and assurance I needed to trust in His love through the many ways in which He has worked death in me over the last 40 years. I share more fully this encounter I had with the Lord in my book: “The True Grace of God.”
I believe with Paul, that we all need to know the width and length and depth and height of His love in an experiential way which goes beyond mere knowledge. We need to be fully convinced of God’s unconditional love towards us, just as Paul says in Romans 8:
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:35-39)
Are you persuaded as Paul that nothing nor anyone in all of creation will ever be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ? If not, get before the Lord and ask Him to open your understanding and pour out His love in your heart by the Holy Spirit. I assure you; you will never be the same.
Some would rob us of this full assurance by saying: “True, no created thing can separate you from the love of God, but sin is not a created thing, and sin can separate you from God’s love forever.” However, it is very obvious that that is not what Paul would have us understand in his all-comprehensive declaration. Throughout the entire epistle up to this point, Paul has been demonstrating how the sin problem has been dealt with once and for all for the believer through Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice. In chapter 8 he begins with “no condemnation” for those who are in Christ Jesus and ends with “no separation” from His love. There is no condemnation because we have been justified from all sin through faith in Christ (Rom 5:1).
That Paul didn’t mean to say that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ except for sin in Romans 8:35-39 is evident from what he said just before that in verses 33 and 34. He said:
“Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” (Rom 8:33-34)
Paul here poses the rhetorical question: “Who shall bring a charge (of sin) against God's elect? The obvious answer is no one, since it is God Himself who declared us righteous. He then asks, “Who is he who condemns (because of sin) if Christ Himself has died and rose and intercedes for us, being Himself the propitiation for our sins?” (cf. 1Jn 2:1-2). Again, the answer is that no one nor nothing (not even sin) shall be able to separate us from His love.
Mankind would have never been at enmity with God if we were not sinners, and Jesus says that God loves His enemies, and He loved us while we were yet in our sins. To say that God loved us unconditionally in our sin before being justified, but now loves us conditionally after being justified, goes against everything that Paul has been saying up to this point. Additionally, Peter says that love will cover a multitude of sins (1Peter 4:8). God’s love can cover a multitude of sins because of Christ’s expiatorial sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, and not only our sins, but the sins of the whole world. Therefore, His love for all is constant and unconditional. Just as with the Prodigal son, the Father is waiting with open arms to receive each and every one of His wayward children the moment they come to themselves and return to Him – even those who despised their inheritance.
Contemporary Misunderstandings of God’s Unconditional Love
Much of the opposition to the truth of God’s unconditional love is due to the way in which many today have misrepresented it, presenting it as if it meant that God’s love was a permissive or all-affirming love. A love that does not hate evil and oppose evildoers is not really love at all, but indifference. A righteous love cannot love evil and injustice. While God loves all unconditionally and therefore will not reject evildoers forever nor will He retain His anger against them forever as traditionally taught, His righteous love is angered by the obstinate rebellion of His people and when we fail to judge sin in our lives He often intervenes with judgments, even at times resulting in one’s premature death (1Cor 11:28-32). Just as any loving father corrects his son and is angered by the child’s rebellion, even so our heavenly Father disciplines His children and even scourges them if necessary in order that we may partake of His holiness (Heb 12:6-11). However, His mercies are new every morning and His love never ends because He doesn’t simply love – He is love.
In the next blog: “What is Conditional about God’s Unconditional Love?” I will be considering passages which many misconstrue as being a denial of God’s unconditional love. How are we to understand passages stating that God actually hates and abhors certain individuals? Do these statements somehow contradict or negate all we have seen so far concerning the unconditional nature of God’s love? Some statements made by Jesus also seem to present God’s love as conditional, such as John 14:21-24 and John 16:27. How are we to understand these passages? That will be the subject of the next blog.
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Chapter 0
A Critical Assessment of the Gospel of Inclusion
by George Sidney Hurd
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What must I do to be saved? The correct answer to this question is by far the most important issue in life. And the simple answer given by the followers of Christ from the very beginning has been, “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
In the past, this simple gospel of “only believe” was often compromised by adding works to the equation, thereby invalidating grace (Gal 5:4). However, today, in our all-inclusive Postmodern society, some Evangelicals have sought to be more inclusive and accommodating to the prevalent cultural norms, even when it comes to this most vital question: “What must I do to be saved?”
At one extreme, we see the Pluralists who deny that Jesus is the only way of salvation, saying that He is only one of many paths, all of which lead to God. A somewhat more reserved view is that of the Inclusivists who, while insisting that Christ is the only way to God, argue that it is not necessary for one to explicitly place faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. To them, one can be saved by implicit faith in a general revelation of God without ever having heard and positively responded to the gospel. They reason that one’s faith need not be cognitive as long as it is sincere and reverent. In this manner it becomes possible for one to be saved without having ever even heard of Christ. A sincere Buddhist, Muslim, or even an Atheist, can be saved through the once and for all sacrifice of Christ at Calvary without ever having consciously believed on Him – or even heard of Him, for that matter. These individuals who are said to be Christians without even knowing it are sometimes referred to as “anonymous Christians.”
Inclusivism is a relatively new doctrine which cannot be found within the Church prior to the Enlightenment in the 16th century. The Church has historically believed that one must hear and positively respond to the gospel in order to be saved. It wasn’t until the 20th century that Inclusivism began to be embraced by many, primarily due to the far-reaching influence of C.S. Lewis who was an Evangelical Inclusivist. Also, in an interview with Robert Schuller in 1997, the evangelist Billy Graham expressed that he had come to believe that people of other religions can be saved without ever hearing the gospel. [i] This also contributed to the popularity of Inclusivism in our day.
Under the broad umbrella of Universalism we also see both Pluralists and Inclusivists, as well as biblical Exclusivism, which I hope to demonstrate in this blog to be the actual teaching of Scripture on the subject. The main difference between the Traditional Partialists (those who believe that only some will be saved), and Universalists, is that Universalists believe that ultimately all will be saved and reunited in God, whereas the Partialists do not believe that all will be saved in the end – not even those among them who are Pluralists.
Universalists do not face the same logical and moral dilemma as do the Partialists concerning those who never had the opportunity to hear the gospel in order to believe and be saved in this life, since Universalists see no biblical justification for the belief that one’s opportunity to repent and believe the gospel forever ends the moment one’s heart stops beating.
It is imperative that one come to salvation prior to the commencement of the Day of the Lord at Christ’s Second Coming in order to be among the elect firstfruits, taking part in the first resurrection and reigning with Christ during the Millennium (1Cor 5:5; Matt 25:10-13; Rev 20:5-6). That is why we must preach the gospel to the ends of the earth prior to the Second Coming of Christ. That is why I have been serving as a missionary in the Colombian Amazon Jungle for the past 22 years. I consider why it is imperative that we as Universalists preach the gospel in my blog: “Is Universalism a Deterrent to Evangelism?” While Christ is the Savior of all, the greatest reward is for those who believe in this age (1Tim 1:10). Ultimately every knee will have bowed, confessing Jesus Christ as Lord (Php 2:10-11, c.f. Isa 45:22-24; Ps 22:27). In the final Dispensation of the Fullness of the Times, all in heaven and earth will have been reunited in Him (Eph 1:10). But those who are not saved and sanctified in this life will be hurt by the second death – the death to the flesh and the self-life in the purifying lake of fire (Rev 2:11; 21:8). I consider this subject with more detail in my blog: “Sulfur, Salt and the Refiner’s Fire.”
The primary objective of this blog is to counter a new variation of Inclusivism being promoted by some Universalists which teaches that it is not necessary for one to believe in Christ for salvation since everyone was already saved at the cross 2,000 years ago. This teaching was first popularized among Liberal and Progressive Universalists by Carlton Pearson with the publication of his book: “The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Religious Fundamentalism to the True Love of God and Self,” published in 2007. According to his own testimony, his deconstruction from Evangelical Christianity began when the healing evangelist T.L. Osborn said to him: “Everyone is already saved; they just don’t know it yet.” This began a journey which eventually led him away from the authority of Scripture into New Age Expanded Consciousness and New Thought. The following is a consideration of some of the affirmations made by those who hold to the Gospel of Inclusion.
“Everyone is already saved.”
The advocates of this Gospel of Inclusion say that everyone was saved at the cross 2,000 years ago; they just don’t know it yet. William Paul Young, in his book, “Lies We Believe About God,” entitled each of his chapters with what he considers to be one of the lies we have believed about God. One of his chapters is entitled, “You need to get saved.” According to him and other Universalistic Inclusivists, those of us who say that one must repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved are preaching a false gospel, since everyone was already saved at the cross. He says:
“We don’t offer anyone what has already been given; we simply celebrate the Good News with each one: We have all been included.” [ii]
What is misleading about this statement is that it is a half-truth. It is true that all were included in Christ’s atonement upon the cross, and salvation has been extended to all as a free gift of grace. All were indeed included in Christ’s death and resurrection, and as the Last Adam, all who died in the first Adam will ultimately be justified and made alive in Him (Rom 5:18; 1Cor 15:22).
However, that being said, there is a great difference between the gift of salvation being offered and the gift of salvation being received. There is a difference between provision and appropriation. For example, imagine that a deadly pandemic were to spread across the entire planet which would have eventually killed off the entire population, except that one man’s blood was immune to the virus. He offered his blood, providing a vaccine that would totally reverse the effects of the deadly virus for everyone. The vaccine was freely offered to all, but in order for them to become immune to the virus, each individual had to receive the vaccine.
In a similar manner, the blood of Christ justifies us, or makes us immune to condemnation and cleanses us from all sin. However, just as those bitten by the serpents in the wilderness had to look at the bronze serpent in faith to be healed, we are not justified without first placing faith in His blood to propitiate us unto God:
“being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, THROUGH FAITH, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of THE ONE WHO HAS FAITH in Jesus.” (Rom 3:24-26)
“in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col 1:14)
It is important to note that justification and forgiveness were provided on the cross when Christ shed His blood for the propitiation of the sins of the whole world (1Jn 2:2). However, just as one must receive the vaccine in order to become immune, so also one is not justified and forgiven prior to the moment we receive by faith the justification and forgiveness offered, even though it was provided by His blood on the cross 2,000 years ago. When Jesus commissioned us to preach the Gospel, He said:
“He who BELIEVES and is baptized will be saved; but he who does NOT BELIEVE will be condemned.” (Mark 16:16)
So, we see that the prerequisite to being saved and justified (free from condemnation), is faith. In fact, Jesus said in John 3:18, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, BECAUSE HE HAS NOT BELIEVED in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Throughout the entire New Testament, we see it repeatedly emphasized that one must appropriate Christ’s provision of salvation by personally placing faith in Him in order to be saved. He must be received by faith in order for one to benefit from His propitiatory sacrifice (Jn 1:12-13; 3:16; 8:24; Rom 3:22; 3:28; 3:30; Gal 2:16; 3:8; 3:24; Eph 2:8; Php 3:9; 2Tim 3:15, etc.).
In accordance with the Great Commission, whenever the gospel is presented in Acts and in the epistles, we see that one must respond in faith to the gospel in order to be saved. When the Philippian jailor asked Paul, “what must I do to be saved?” Paul didn’t respond saying: “You are already saved; you just need to know it.” No. He said: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you SHALL BE saved.” Contrarywise, Paul says in 2Thessalonians 2:12 that those who do not believe will be condemned.
Paul said that the Gospel he preached was the “word of faith,” meaning that it must be received by faith in order for one to benefit from it. He continues by explaining what the “word of faith” is:
“…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you WILL BE saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Rom 10:9-10)
There is no such thing as an “anonymous Christian.” There are no non-believing Christians. One must believe in the gospel in order to be saved. Paul continues by saying that, in order for one to believe they must first hear the gospel, and for that reason it is imperative that we preach the gospel to those still outside the fold (Rom 10:13-17). Paul begins the chapter saying: “Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved” (Rom 10:1). Certainly, Paul did not understand everyone to have already been saved and simply needing to discover that they were unknowingly and involuntarily saved, independent from repentance and faith on their part!
In 1Corinthians 15, Paul makes it clear that one must not only believe in the gospel in order to be saved, but also that it is necessary to have a persevering faith in order to be saved. He said:
“Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.” (1 Cor 15:1-2)
Paul here says that we are saved by receiving the gospel into our hearts by faith, and anyone who does not continue in the faith had an empty or vain faith which was mere mental assent and not of the heart. He also told the carnal Corinthians to make sure that they were truly in the faith:
“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you are disqualified.” (2 Cor 13:5)
This is a far cry from the claim of those who hold to the “Gospel of Inclusion,” saying that the “Christ Spirit” already dwells in everyone, and they only need to discover that truth. Paul says that if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him (Rom 8:9). We were without Christ until we received Him by faith, at which time we were born again of the Spirit with Christ’s own resurrection life, thereby becoming one spirit with Him (Eph 2:12 cf. 1Cor 6:17).
Universalistic Inclusivists say that all of humanity is already in Christ. However, Paul says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” clearly indicating that all are not already in Him (2 Cor 5:17). Also, in Romans 16:7, Paul sends greetings to Andronicus and Junias, “who also were in Christ before me,” meaning that they had received the gospel of Christ before him.
“Everyone was already Born Again the moment Christ rose from the Dead.”
Another claim made by many Universalistic Inclusionists is that everyone was born again when Christ arose from the dead. However, since it is nonsensical to say that someone is born again before being born the first time, they usually try to argue that γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν (genethe anothen), rendered “born again” in the Authorized Version, should read “born from above” since that is an alternate meaning of anothen.
However, while it is certainly true that the new birth originates from above, the context in which the term is used indicates that it should be understood as “born again,” as can be seen by Nicodemus’ puzzled reply in John 3:4. He asked Jesus: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Nicodemus clearly understood Jesus to be saying that it was necessary for one to be born a second time. He didn’t understand Jesus to be speaking of being born from above.
Jesus went on to explain to him that the second birth was not as the watery birth when we were first born into this world, but rather that it was by the Holy Spirit that our spirit, which was dead to God, must be born again. Jesus said to him:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5-6)
Jesus equates being born physically of flesh to being born of water, and the new birth of our spirit being brought about by the Holy Spirit. This new birth was made possible by Christ’s resurrection, but we are not born again until we receive Christ. John says:
“He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11-13)
So, it is only upon receiving Him by faith that one is born of God, becoming children of God (τέκνα Θεοῦ, tecna Theou, lit. “born-ones of God”) in His new creation. Paul says that, prior to receiving Christ by faith, we “were children of wrath, even as the rest” (Eph 2:3), or to use Jesus’ own words, the wrath of God abides upon those who do not believe (Jn 3:36). Therefore, it is a grave error to tell those who have not received Christ that they were already born from above in Christ 2,000 years ago.
“All were saved by the Faithfulness of Jesus.”
Another claim made is that we are not saved by our faith, but rather by the faithfulness of Jesus. Again, this is a half-truth, since no-one could ever be saved unless Jesus had been
obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:8-11). However, as with many half-truths, this is a dangerous half-truth, since it leaves the unrepentant sinner under the false impression that he has already been saved without the need for repentance and faith on his part. As we have already seen, Christ’s work on the cross is only applied to us when we personally believe on Him for salvation.
This error is the result of rendering the phrase “the faith of Jesus” (πίστεως ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, pisteos tou Iesous) as “the faithfulness of Jesus,” rather than rendering pistis as “faith,” which is the normal meaning. I demonstrate why the reading “the faith of Jesus” is the correct rendering, rather than “the faithfulness of Jesus” or “the faith in Jesus” in my blog: “The Faith of Jesus.”
In reality, saving faith is not of ourselves, but rather it is granted unto us to believe by His grace, and the saving faith imparted to us in the day of our visitation when we come to repentance is nothing less than the faith of Jesus, who from the moment of regeneration becomes our very life, our all. His righteousness, wisdom and faith are imparted to us the moment we become one spirit with the Lord when our spirit is regenerated. Once His faith has been imparted to us, it becomes ours, and for that reason it is also often referred to as “our faith,” just as His salvation becomes “our salvation,” His righteousness becomes “our righteousness” and Christ’s life is referred to as “our life” (Php 2:12-13; Jer 23:6 Col 3:3-4). We have become joint heirs with Christ in all things.
So, while it is true that Christ’s faithfulness provided salvation for all, it is necessary that we personally believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved, and to tell sinners otherwise is to fail to proclaim the true Gospel, the word of faith.
“There is no Them and Us.”
In the Scriptures we see a clear distinction between the saved and the lost, the elect and the non-elect, the just and the unjust. Universalistic Inclusivism ignores these distinctions, claiming that, since all were included in the atonement, there is no them and us; no distinction between those who are in Christ and those who are without Christ. Don Keathley is representative of them when he says:
“There was never a time when you were not in Christ. That’s where you were created… This will change your world. We need to see every person also created in that position. That eliminates all the them and us… That eliminates all the boasting that says, ‘well I invited Jesus into my life as my personal Savior and you didn’t. I made wise choices on my behalf and if you’re smart, you’ll be like me and do what I have done. And if you don’t, you’re ‘gon ta hail.’” [iii]
Keathley says that everyone was created in Christ from the beginning, and that eliminates all the them and us – it eliminates all the boasting. In contrast, Paul says that not many were chosen; that in this age God primarily chooses the foolish, weak, base and those who are as nothing in their own eyes, so that none should boast. Boasting isn’t eliminated by awakening to the reality that we are all very good as to our essential being, as Inclusionists affirm, but by recognizing that we are foolish, weak, base and as nothing without Him, and that it is only by Him that we came to be in Christ, who is now our righteousness.
The distinction between the saved and the unsaved is so often repeated in Scripture that Inclusivists cannot deny it without making the Word of God void in order to maintain their unbiblical doctrine. Jesus indicated in Luke 13 that initially few would be saved:
“Then one said to Him, ‘Lord, are there few who are saved?’ And He said to them, 24 ‘Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” (Luke 13:23-24)
Especially at the close of this age, during the Great Tribulation, Jesus says that the love of many will grow cold, and only the elect who endure to the end will be saved (Matt 24:9-14). He also said of that time:
“For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” (Matt 24:24)
“And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.” (Matt 24:21)
Jesus said: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt 22:13). He said of His disciples: “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (Jn 15:19). One cannot insist that everyone is elect, as the Inclusivists claim, without ignoring these and many other such exclusive statements in the Scriptures.
The examples of distinctions being made between the saved and unsaved are too numerous to cite in this blog, so I will just cite a couple more. In 1Corinthians 6:9-11 Paul makes a clear distinction between the unrighteous and those who have been justified. He said:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such WERE some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6:9-11)
The believers at Corinth were once among the unrighteous or unjust, but they were justified, washed and sanctified upon believing by the Spirit of God. My last example is from 1 John 3 where John distinguishes between those who are born of God and those who are still under the power of the devil:
“No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9 NO ONE WHO IS BORN OF GOD PRACTICES SIN, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” (1 John 3:6-10 NASU)
John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says that there are those who have been born of God, as opposed to those who have not, and for that reason continue living in sin under the power of the god of this age. As Jesus said, we are no longer of this world. We are to be light and salt in the world, marking the difference between the darkness and the light.
In conclusion, the “Gospel of Inclusion” is a deceptive half-truth, making it a heretical false gospel which will keep many on the broad path leading to destruction. Those of us who believe in the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and the final restoration of all, need to take a clear stand, insisting upon the true gospel, the word of faith which we preach.
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INPyY0QjgpY
[ii] Young, Wm. Paul. Lies We Believe About God. Kindle Edition loc. 917.
[iii] Don Keathley. Unmasking the Gospel. Video 29:10
by George Sidney Hurd
--
What must I do to be saved? The correct answer to this question is by far the most important issue in life. And the simple answer given by the followers of Christ from the very beginning has been, “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
In the past, this simple gospel of “only believe” was often compromised by adding works to the equation, thereby invalidating grace (Gal 5:4). However, today, in our all-inclusive Postmodern society, some Evangelicals have sought to be more inclusive and accommodating to the prevalent cultural norms, even when it comes to this most vital question: “What must I do to be saved?”
At one extreme, we see the Pluralists who deny that Jesus is the only way of salvation, saying that He is only one of many paths, all of which lead to God. A somewhat more reserved view is that of the Inclusivists who, while insisting that Christ is the only way to God, argue that it is not necessary for one to explicitly place faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. To them, one can be saved by implicit faith in a general revelation of God without ever having heard and positively responded to the gospel. They reason that one’s faith need not be cognitive as long as it is sincere and reverent. In this manner it becomes possible for one to be saved without having ever even heard of Christ. A sincere Buddhist, Muslim, or even an Atheist, can be saved through the once and for all sacrifice of Christ at Calvary without ever having consciously believed on Him – or even heard of Him, for that matter. These individuals who are said to be Christians without even knowing it are sometimes referred to as “anonymous Christians.”
Inclusivism is a relatively new doctrine which cannot be found within the Church prior to the Enlightenment in the 16th century. The Church has historically believed that one must hear and positively respond to the gospel in order to be saved. It wasn’t until the 20th century that Inclusivism began to be embraced by many, primarily due to the far-reaching influence of C.S. Lewis who was an Evangelical Inclusivist. Also, in an interview with Robert Schuller in 1997, the evangelist Billy Graham expressed that he had come to believe that people of other religions can be saved without ever hearing the gospel. [i] This also contributed to the popularity of Inclusivism in our day.
Under the broad umbrella of Universalism we also see both Pluralists and Inclusivists, as well as biblical Exclusivism, which I hope to demonstrate in this blog to be the actual teaching of Scripture on the subject. The main difference between the Traditional Partialists (those who believe that only some will be saved), and Universalists, is that Universalists believe that ultimately all will be saved and reunited in God, whereas the Partialists do not believe that all will be saved in the end – not even those among them who are Pluralists.
Universalists do not face the same logical and moral dilemma as do the Partialists concerning those who never had the opportunity to hear the gospel in order to believe and be saved in this life, since Universalists see no biblical justification for the belief that one’s opportunity to repent and believe the gospel forever ends the moment one’s heart stops beating.
It is imperative that one come to salvation prior to the commencement of the Day of the Lord at Christ’s Second Coming in order to be among the elect firstfruits, taking part in the first resurrection and reigning with Christ during the Millennium (1Cor 5:5; Matt 25:10-13; Rev 20:5-6). That is why we must preach the gospel to the ends of the earth prior to the Second Coming of Christ. That is why I have been serving as a missionary in the Colombian Amazon Jungle for the past 22 years. I consider why it is imperative that we as Universalists preach the gospel in my blog: “Is Universalism a Deterrent to Evangelism?” While Christ is the Savior of all, the greatest reward is for those who believe in this age (1Tim 1:10). Ultimately every knee will have bowed, confessing Jesus Christ as Lord (Php 2:10-11, c.f. Isa 45:22-24; Ps 22:27). In the final Dispensation of the Fullness of the Times, all in heaven and earth will have been reunited in Him (Eph 1:10). But those who are not saved and sanctified in this life will be hurt by the second death – the death to the flesh and the self-life in the purifying lake of fire (Rev 2:11; 21:8). I consider this subject with more detail in my blog: “Sulfur, Salt and the Refiner’s Fire.”
The primary objective of this blog is to counter a new variation of Inclusivism being promoted by some Universalists which teaches that it is not necessary for one to believe in Christ for salvation since everyone was already saved at the cross 2,000 years ago. This teaching was first popularized among Liberal and Progressive Universalists by Carlton Pearson with the publication of his book: “The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Religious Fundamentalism to the True Love of God and Self,” published in 2007. According to his own testimony, his deconstruction from Evangelical Christianity began when the healing evangelist T.L. Osborn said to him: “Everyone is already saved; they just don’t know it yet.” This began a journey which eventually led him away from the authority of Scripture into New Age Expanded Consciousness and New Thought. The following is a consideration of some of the affirmations made by those who hold to the Gospel of Inclusion.
“Everyone is already saved.”
The advocates of this Gospel of Inclusion say that everyone was saved at the cross 2,000 years ago; they just don’t know it yet. William Paul Young, in his book, “Lies We Believe About God,” entitled each of his chapters with what he considers to be one of the lies we have believed about God. One of his chapters is entitled, “You need to get saved.” According to him and other Universalistic Inclusivists, those of us who say that one must repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved are preaching a false gospel, since everyone was already saved at the cross. He says:
“We don’t offer anyone what has already been given; we simply celebrate the Good News with each one: We have all been included.” [ii]
What is misleading about this statement is that it is a half-truth. It is true that all were included in Christ’s atonement upon the cross, and salvation has been extended to all as a free gift of grace. All were indeed included in Christ’s death and resurrection, and as the Last Adam, all who died in the first Adam will ultimately be justified and made alive in Him (Rom 5:18; 1Cor 15:22).
However, that being said, there is a great difference between the gift of salvation being offered and the gift of salvation being received. There is a difference between provision and appropriation. For example, imagine that a deadly pandemic were to spread across the entire planet which would have eventually killed off the entire population, except that one man’s blood was immune to the virus. He offered his blood, providing a vaccine that would totally reverse the effects of the deadly virus for everyone. The vaccine was freely offered to all, but in order for them to become immune to the virus, each individual had to receive the vaccine.
In a similar manner, the blood of Christ justifies us, or makes us immune to condemnation and cleanses us from all sin. However, just as those bitten by the serpents in the wilderness had to look at the bronze serpent in faith to be healed, we are not justified without first placing faith in His blood to propitiate us unto God:
“being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, THROUGH FAITH, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of THE ONE WHO HAS FAITH in Jesus.” (Rom 3:24-26)
“in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col 1:14)
It is important to note that justification and forgiveness were provided on the cross when Christ shed His blood for the propitiation of the sins of the whole world (1Jn 2:2). However, just as one must receive the vaccine in order to become immune, so also one is not justified and forgiven prior to the moment we receive by faith the justification and forgiveness offered, even though it was provided by His blood on the cross 2,000 years ago. When Jesus commissioned us to preach the Gospel, He said:
“He who BELIEVES and is baptized will be saved; but he who does NOT BELIEVE will be condemned.” (Mark 16:16)
So, we see that the prerequisite to being saved and justified (free from condemnation), is faith. In fact, Jesus said in John 3:18, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, BECAUSE HE HAS NOT BELIEVED in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Throughout the entire New Testament, we see it repeatedly emphasized that one must appropriate Christ’s provision of salvation by personally placing faith in Him in order to be saved. He must be received by faith in order for one to benefit from His propitiatory sacrifice (Jn 1:12-13; 3:16; 8:24; Rom 3:22; 3:28; 3:30; Gal 2:16; 3:8; 3:24; Eph 2:8; Php 3:9; 2Tim 3:15, etc.).
In accordance with the Great Commission, whenever the gospel is presented in Acts and in the epistles, we see that one must respond in faith to the gospel in order to be saved. When the Philippian jailor asked Paul, “what must I do to be saved?” Paul didn’t respond saying: “You are already saved; you just need to know it.” No. He said: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you SHALL BE saved.” Contrarywise, Paul says in 2Thessalonians 2:12 that those who do not believe will be condemned.
Paul said that the Gospel he preached was the “word of faith,” meaning that it must be received by faith in order for one to benefit from it. He continues by explaining what the “word of faith” is:
“…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you WILL BE saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Rom 10:9-10)
There is no such thing as an “anonymous Christian.” There are no non-believing Christians. One must believe in the gospel in order to be saved. Paul continues by saying that, in order for one to believe they must first hear the gospel, and for that reason it is imperative that we preach the gospel to those still outside the fold (Rom 10:13-17). Paul begins the chapter saying: “Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved” (Rom 10:1). Certainly, Paul did not understand everyone to have already been saved and simply needing to discover that they were unknowingly and involuntarily saved, independent from repentance and faith on their part!
In 1Corinthians 15, Paul makes it clear that one must not only believe in the gospel in order to be saved, but also that it is necessary to have a persevering faith in order to be saved. He said:
“Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.” (1 Cor 15:1-2)
Paul here says that we are saved by receiving the gospel into our hearts by faith, and anyone who does not continue in the faith had an empty or vain faith which was mere mental assent and not of the heart. He also told the carnal Corinthians to make sure that they were truly in the faith:
“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you are disqualified.” (2 Cor 13:5)
This is a far cry from the claim of those who hold to the “Gospel of Inclusion,” saying that the “Christ Spirit” already dwells in everyone, and they only need to discover that truth. Paul says that if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him (Rom 8:9). We were without Christ until we received Him by faith, at which time we were born again of the Spirit with Christ’s own resurrection life, thereby becoming one spirit with Him (Eph 2:12 cf. 1Cor 6:17).
Universalistic Inclusivists say that all of humanity is already in Christ. However, Paul says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” clearly indicating that all are not already in Him (2 Cor 5:17). Also, in Romans 16:7, Paul sends greetings to Andronicus and Junias, “who also were in Christ before me,” meaning that they had received the gospel of Christ before him.
“Everyone was already Born Again the moment Christ rose from the Dead.”
Another claim made by many Universalistic Inclusionists is that everyone was born again when Christ arose from the dead. However, since it is nonsensical to say that someone is born again before being born the first time, they usually try to argue that γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν (genethe anothen), rendered “born again” in the Authorized Version, should read “born from above” since that is an alternate meaning of anothen.
However, while it is certainly true that the new birth originates from above, the context in which the term is used indicates that it should be understood as “born again,” as can be seen by Nicodemus’ puzzled reply in John 3:4. He asked Jesus: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Nicodemus clearly understood Jesus to be saying that it was necessary for one to be born a second time. He didn’t understand Jesus to be speaking of being born from above.
Jesus went on to explain to him that the second birth was not as the watery birth when we were first born into this world, but rather that it was by the Holy Spirit that our spirit, which was dead to God, must be born again. Jesus said to him:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5-6)
Jesus equates being born physically of flesh to being born of water, and the new birth of our spirit being brought about by the Holy Spirit. This new birth was made possible by Christ’s resurrection, but we are not born again until we receive Christ. John says:
“He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11-13)
So, it is only upon receiving Him by faith that one is born of God, becoming children of God (τέκνα Θεοῦ, tecna Theou, lit. “born-ones of God”) in His new creation. Paul says that, prior to receiving Christ by faith, we “were children of wrath, even as the rest” (Eph 2:3), or to use Jesus’ own words, the wrath of God abides upon those who do not believe (Jn 3:36). Therefore, it is a grave error to tell those who have not received Christ that they were already born from above in Christ 2,000 years ago.
“All were saved by the Faithfulness of Jesus.”
Another claim made is that we are not saved by our faith, but rather by the faithfulness of Jesus. Again, this is a half-truth, since no-one could ever be saved unless Jesus had been
obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:8-11). However, as with many half-truths, this is a dangerous half-truth, since it leaves the unrepentant sinner under the false impression that he has already been saved without the need for repentance and faith on his part. As we have already seen, Christ’s work on the cross is only applied to us when we personally believe on Him for salvation.
This error is the result of rendering the phrase “the faith of Jesus” (πίστεως ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, pisteos tou Iesous) as “the faithfulness of Jesus,” rather than rendering pistis as “faith,” which is the normal meaning. I demonstrate why the reading “the faith of Jesus” is the correct rendering, rather than “the faithfulness of Jesus” or “the faith in Jesus” in my blog: “The Faith of Jesus.”
In reality, saving faith is not of ourselves, but rather it is granted unto us to believe by His grace, and the saving faith imparted to us in the day of our visitation when we come to repentance is nothing less than the faith of Jesus, who from the moment of regeneration becomes our very life, our all. His righteousness, wisdom and faith are imparted to us the moment we become one spirit with the Lord when our spirit is regenerated. Once His faith has been imparted to us, it becomes ours, and for that reason it is also often referred to as “our faith,” just as His salvation becomes “our salvation,” His righteousness becomes “our righteousness” and Christ’s life is referred to as “our life” (Php 2:12-13; Jer 23:6 Col 3:3-4). We have become joint heirs with Christ in all things.
So, while it is true that Christ’s faithfulness provided salvation for all, it is necessary that we personally believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved, and to tell sinners otherwise is to fail to proclaim the true Gospel, the word of faith.
“There is no Them and Us.”
In the Scriptures we see a clear distinction between the saved and the lost, the elect and the non-elect, the just and the unjust. Universalistic Inclusivism ignores these distinctions, claiming that, since all were included in the atonement, there is no them and us; no distinction between those who are in Christ and those who are without Christ. Don Keathley is representative of them when he says:
“There was never a time when you were not in Christ. That’s where you were created… This will change your world. We need to see every person also created in that position. That eliminates all the them and us… That eliminates all the boasting that says, ‘well I invited Jesus into my life as my personal Savior and you didn’t. I made wise choices on my behalf and if you’re smart, you’ll be like me and do what I have done. And if you don’t, you’re ‘gon ta hail.’” [iii]
Keathley says that everyone was created in Christ from the beginning, and that eliminates all the them and us – it eliminates all the boasting. In contrast, Paul says that not many were chosen; that in this age God primarily chooses the foolish, weak, base and those who are as nothing in their own eyes, so that none should boast. Boasting isn’t eliminated by awakening to the reality that we are all very good as to our essential being, as Inclusionists affirm, but by recognizing that we are foolish, weak, base and as nothing without Him, and that it is only by Him that we came to be in Christ, who is now our righteousness.
The distinction between the saved and the unsaved is so often repeated in Scripture that Inclusivists cannot deny it without making the Word of God void in order to maintain their unbiblical doctrine. Jesus indicated in Luke 13 that initially few would be saved:
“Then one said to Him, ‘Lord, are there few who are saved?’ And He said to them, 24 ‘Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” (Luke 13:23-24)
Especially at the close of this age, during the Great Tribulation, Jesus says that the love of many will grow cold, and only the elect who endure to the end will be saved (Matt 24:9-14). He also said of that time:
“For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” (Matt 24:24)
“And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.” (Matt 24:21)
Jesus said: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt 22:13). He said of His disciples: “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (Jn 15:19). One cannot insist that everyone is elect, as the Inclusivists claim, without ignoring these and many other such exclusive statements in the Scriptures.
The examples of distinctions being made between the saved and unsaved are too numerous to cite in this blog, so I will just cite a couple more. In 1Corinthians 6:9-11 Paul makes a clear distinction between the unrighteous and those who have been justified. He said:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such WERE some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6:9-11)
The believers at Corinth were once among the unrighteous or unjust, but they were justified, washed and sanctified upon believing by the Spirit of God. My last example is from 1 John 3 where John distinguishes between those who are born of God and those who are still under the power of the devil:
“No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9 NO ONE WHO IS BORN OF GOD PRACTICES SIN, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” (1 John 3:6-10 NASU)
John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says that there are those who have been born of God, as opposed to those who have not, and for that reason continue living in sin under the power of the god of this age. As Jesus said, we are no longer of this world. We are to be light and salt in the world, marking the difference between the darkness and the light.
In conclusion, the “Gospel of Inclusion” is a deceptive half-truth, making it a heretical false gospel which will keep many on the broad path leading to destruction. Those of us who believe in the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and the final restoration of all, need to take a clear stand, insisting upon the true gospel, the word of faith which we preach.
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INPyY0QjgpY
[ii] Young, Wm. Paul. Lies We Believe About God. Kindle Edition loc. 917.
[iii] Don Keathley. Unmasking the Gospel. Video 29:10