About God's love

[NicoleK]

I'm new here and what has attracted me here is on the website for this board which talks about God loving everyone and his love being unconditional.

Elsewhere by some I've been told God's love is conditional, and people seemed to think that he only loves certain people.

When you hear that "God is Love", do you actually believe it? Do you believe he withdraws his love from most in order to shower it on a few? Do you believe his love is unconditional? What is your reason for believing this if you do?

[Felgar]

I absolutely believe that God is love, and that His love is entirely unconditional. One of my favourite passages (says it all really):

1 John 4:7-10
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

And a kind welcome to the board Nicole.

Edit:
I was recently reminded of an awesome expression of God's love for us, written by a fellow board member. See here http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... .php?t=774 .

[bizzt]

Agree with Felgar

[Deborah]

Yes Gods love is unconditional, remember he does not want any of his children lost, and he wants his children to come to him in their own time of their own free will. What is more he expects us to learn to have that same unconditional love for our fellow man. he even provides the steps carefully detailed in his word, which is also planted in our hearts.
All we need is the wisdom to understand the knowledge we have already been entrusted with.

[NicoleK]

Thanks for answering and for the welcome.

Sometimes I just want to know that there christians other than those in my own church believe as I do.

To me it only makes sense that God is love. Some people say that he is not loving because not everyone will be saved. But its also said that if you love someone you'll let them go and if they love you they'll come back to you. Well I think that is a good analogy to what he does with us. He doesn't force anyone to come to him, but offers himself and what he did on the cross to all.

take care,
Nicole

[Christian2]

I absolutely believe that God is love, and that His love is entirely unconditional. One of my favourite passages (says it all really):

1 John 4:7-10
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

And a kind welcome to the board Nicole.

Edit:
I was recently reminded of an awesome expression of God's love for us, written by a fellow board member. See here http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... .php?t=774 .

I have been studying the topic of whether God's love is conditional or unconditional and was pleased to find a topic already started on this subject.

I always believed God's love was unconditional, but now I am not so sure.

I found this article:

http://truthseeker2.tripod.com/uncondlove.html

What about verses like the following?

Psalms 5:
6 The boasters shall not stand in Thy sight; Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

Psalms 11:
5 The LORD trieth the righteous; but the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth.

Psalms 34:
17 The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

And in the ten commandments in Exodus 20:
5 and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments

John 15:10
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

John 14: 21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

John 14: 23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

Thank you.

[B. W.]

Unfortunately the modern definition of God’s unconditional love has taken on another meaning that would have been unknown in the 1970’s. Back in those days it was used to help define one of the four Greek words for love - Agape.. Nowadays, God’s unconditional love has taken all the undertones of unconditional tolerance.

That is not what God’s love means. Unconditional is a condition without conditions, yet, 1 John 2:15-17 implies what?

In old English in the King James bible, Agape, was translated as Charity/cherish/cherisheth. In several translations of the bible, the word agape is still translated as charity in 1 Cor 13. Why was it translated charity? In old English, charity was not limited to giving, as it is today, but retains all the nuances of cherishing, fostering, nurturing i.e. parental fostering, nurturing, helping little ones grow into his or her own self...

So when you read John 3:16 – 'God so cherished, fostered, nurturing the world that whosoever believes in Jesus Christ will find everlasting life' actually correlates to the topic of Romans 8:20-23 as regarding the actual world and those who believe.

Those that do not believe – are, as John 3:18-21,36, says, condemned. Why? They rejected all of God’s fostering, nurturing, (bore witness by the principle of God making the rain fall on just and unjust, granting them food, home, life – Romans 1:19-21) that God displays to all and proven by sending forth Jesus Christ into the world to save man from God’s just wrath against those that look upon God’s agape as a means for self gain, exploitation, and leniency to sin freely and unashamedly, cause God loves unconditionally, etc…
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PS please note - 1 John 1:7-10 and 1 John 2:5 and Titus 2:11-15

[Christian2]

Thanks for your comments, B.W.

I look at it like a parent who loves his children unconditionally. We may expect them to obey and are upset when they don't, but we never stop loving them.

[Glen]

Thanks for your comments, B.W.

I look at it like a parent who loves his children unconditionally. We may expect them to obey and are upset when they don't, but we never stop loving them.

Agree, Gods love is beyond mans intellectual standerds or mans inability to forgive all who transgress against him, not so with God he knows what is in all men and has a purpose for saving some and letting the rest die in unbelief, but there is always a hope for them.

Mans theology has made him into an ego maniac, once he thinks he is part of the club from some lucky star he was born under, or just happened to be smart enough to understand the foolishness of the cross while others who couldn't overcome their natural instinct to reject it, who get to take the next train to everlasting hell, God tried though just couldn't overcome their wills.

Grace, Glen.