Is God's Love Unconditional?

[Christian2]

Is God's love unconditional? I believe it is.

But how do we explain the following verses?

Psalm 5:5, "The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; Thou dost hate all who do iniquity,"

Psalm 11:5, "The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates."

Lev. 20:23, "Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I shall drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them."

Prov. 6:16-19, "There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: 17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 A heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, 19 A false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers."

Hosea 9:15, "All their evil is at Gilgal; indeed, I came to hate them there! Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more; All their princes are rebels."


Thank you.

[EssentialSacrifice]

Revelation 2:1-29 Penance solves these problems of yours and all the more you can find. Unconditional love to all who seek Him amd follow His ways.

[Christian2]

Revelation 2:1-29 Penance solves these problems of yours and all the more you can find. Unconditional love to all who seek Him amd follow His ways.

So, God loves you if you repent?

So God's love is conditional?

[Silvertusk]

Revelation 2:1-29 Penance solves these problems of yours and all the more you can find. Unconditional love to all who seek Him amd follow His ways.

So, God loves you if you repent?

So God's love is conditional?

No - Those are what we call an anthropomorphism. Where you apply human qualities to something doesn't really fit. He loves us all unconditionally - but hates sin.

[EssentialSacrifice]

So, God loves you if you repent?

So God's love is conditional?

God loves us all unconditionally, sinner, saint any and all in betwwen. The Penance part of it is how you want to spend eternity. If you sincerely repent, the unconditional love of God wants you with Him. If you don't the unconditional love of God let's you have your way unconditionally without love.

Your choice. with or without God in your existence, but His love for you is and always will be unconditional. It's what you decide to do with it that counts. Your observations in original post only show man's defiance and God's abhorance of that defiance. Doesn't mean He doesn't love you... only pointing out the problems if you don't love.

Don't mistake God's unconditional love for us with our iniquities before Him. There is also Divine Justice, meted out with absolute love for all. That love, put to the test as your original post defines as actions of mankind is still love, unconditionally but tempered with the Justice required for the sake of His sorrowful passion.

[PaulSacramento]

Yes, if God is love then His love is unconditional and if it is not then God can't be God because that would be putting a limitation of Him and if there is a limit, then He is not God.
The issue is what does "unconditional" mean and it means that it is not based on anything that we do to EARN His love.
It does not mean that He allows people to get away with stuff or that Hi love will somehow cancel out punishment.

I love my kids unconditionally, 100%, BUT that has nothing to do with whether or not they get disciplined or get away with things.

God's unconditional love is NOT a "get out of jail free" card.

[EssentialSacrifice]

Love the sinner (unconditionally) hate the sin (unconditionally). All your examples in 1st post are sins, not to be confused with the one who sins, who is loved unconditionally.

[Christian2]

I am working with two explanations of the verses I cited.

First one: https://carm.org/does-god-hate-anyone

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/gods-unc ... z3YnqV8CqP

They seem to contradict each other.

[B. W.]

Here is the problem: How do we define unconditional and love?

God's Love is defined by the Greek word agape. Agape is not a word that means unconditional as that would be another word altogether. The problem is this, folks began, back in the 1970's attached unconditional to agape and in doing this the word agape unintentionally has lost the meaning it once had during the 1970's thru early 1990's. To illustrate this, what does unconditional love actually mean to folks today?

Back in 1970's days it was popularized to add unconditional to describe God's agape (love); however, nowadays, God’s unconditional love has taken all the undertones of unconditional tolerance and blind acceptance as well as complete inability to punish anyone. It has taken on a more sloppy grace mentality to its meaning.

That is not what God’s love means. Think of it, unconditional is still a condition without conditions, yet, what 1 John 2:15-17 imply?

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 in meaning to giving, as it is today, but retains all the nuances of cherishing, fostering, nurturing i.e. parental fostering, edifying and chastening, helping little ones grow into his or her own self... building up - training one...

So when you read John 3:16 try reading it like this: 'God so cherished, fostered, busy nurturing the world that whosoever believes in Jesus Christ will find everlasting life' actually correlates to the future topic found in Romans 8:20-23 as regarding the actual world and those who believe. So there is a condition... be changed freely by God's Hands so one leaves their darkness and changed by God's nurturing, training, building up, chastening....

God takes care of the world, overlooking faults of sinners, holding back his anger, bore witness too by the principle of how God makes the rain fall on just and unjust, granting them food, home, life (Romans 1:19-21). Yes God cherishes and takes care of the ungrateful and profane so hence is his love displayed toward all. However, how do people treat such love from God, mock it, manipulate his love that is slow to anger? or spend so much time putting God on personal trial so as to ignore him completely yet enjoy their mortal life?

Is it any reason that one day, God's agape, fully and rightly angered will condemn - unconditionally because some folks will of their own volition will reject 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) that God displays to all and proven by sending forth Jesus Christ into the world to save man from God’s just wrath (agape love angered) against those that look upon God’s agape as a means for self gain, exploitation, and leniency to sin freely and unashamedly, because God unconditionally seeks to cherish, foster,edify, give, care for, nurture the world of an ungrateful humanity?

God's agape (love) is not defined merely as only unconditional, after all, that does not define anything – grants no true deeper understanding at all of love. God’s love is deeper than being merely an unconditional condition.

Take the composite of the old Hebrew word for love and old Greek word Agape and you’ll discover what love is, how God loves, that causes us to love him because he loved first by proving it openly in dealing with humanities sin on that cross.

In the KJV translation 1 Co 13 uses the word Charity to translate agape. Back in 1611, Charity had a fuller, deeper meaning than merely giving alms or such but rather was the expression of living Cherishing, Nurturing, Training, Edifying, Chastening, Building up – a new Character within a person.

How? By a living Cherishing, Nurturing, Training, Edifying, Chastening, Building up kind of Love to his own people that is patient, is kind and is not jealous; does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; does not seek its own, is not easily provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, in order to build a new identity (character) within a believer in Christ. Note - 1Co 13:4-7 and Romans 8:29, Eph 4:24. Eph 5:1-7.

That is how God acts towards us and we are likewise to learn to express that to fellow believers in Christ and what it means to actually love one another as Christ so loved us.

Does this mean God overlooks sin of the unsaved because his loves does not take into account wrong doing ? No it does not. Does not take into account wrong doing implies slow to issue forth full wrath toward the unredeemed. God, as seen in Genesis chapter Six sure had the right to wipe us all off the planet. However he did not as he is slow in making a final just judgement on all people, even the future unborn. God's love contains all of God's attributes and each govern and balance each other as this best helps us get a brief taste of what God's agape is about.

So when you think of God's Love (Agape) please think of all the nuances of cherishing, fostering, nurturing i.e. parental fostering, edifying and chastening, helping little ones grow into his or her own self... building up - training one... he freely offers to all, even to the ones that reject him in order to win their hearts to trust Him. However, if one refuses His Love, then they love agape their darkness more than the light that God's love provides because they agape their dysfunction more than and way above anything else. Those folks will bear the judgment of God's Love evidenced by how they betray, mock, put on trial, steel, murder relationships, scheme, bring ruin, reject, abandon, others, family, self, God... because they seek to manipulate the principles of God's love that is slow to anger in order to remain as they are, unchanged, uncaring and undeserving of God's love. They love darkness, justify that darkness, more than freedom God's love brings. God's love judges, and punishes if not, then how can t be love?

Therefore in God's Love is angered and with fiery fury burns forth wrath that none can stand and hold such unrepentant to account forever. Why? He Loves his own so much, that he sealed them by blood and His Spirit that he desires for them to live forever with him where there is no more sin and its death, forever. His love protects us from that fate again. Once is enough to teach the wayward heart and love confronts the wayward heart to believe in Him and thus be eternally changed by God's agape revealed in living color. That is a love more profound then merely being unconditional...

Blessings to you all


Bryan W Melvin
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PS please note: 1 John 1:7-10 and 1 John 2:5 and Titus 2:11-15

[jlay]

God loves us all unconditionally, sinner, saint any and all in betwwen. The Penance part of it is how you want to spend eternity. If you sincerely repent, the unconditional love of God wants you with Him. If you don't the unconditional love of God let's you have your way unconditionally without love.

How does one "sincerely" repent. Can you make yourself "mean" it?

Would you mind taking a moment to define repent and penance? Thanks

[jlay]

God is always loving in the same amount (unlimited) in the same way.
God is always hating sin in the same amount in the same way.

Our problem is that we assume God is like us. God doesn't "get" angry. He doesn't fall in love. He is love. The earth cools at night. Did the sun cool? No. It is still burning. The same sun that gives us life giving warmth and light is also the same sun that can blind and burn. There is no difference in the radiance of the sun that has the power to give life and destroy. Why do we assume that God has different attributes (love/anger) that ebb and flow like human emotions? The same bible you quote is the same one that states God is unchanging.
If someone goes from a state of non anger to anger, guess what? They changed. Same goes for love.

[EssentialSacrifice]

How does one "sincerely" repent. Can you make yourself "mean" it?

I can, as compared to saying your sorry and getting back to the card game, or sincerely penetrating your personal sin and it's consequences to your soul, the hurt it put on Jesus, the backwash it may have created with others and the effects thereof ... yes, i can know the difference and consequences of taking it seriously or not.

Would you mind taking a moment to define repent and penance? Thanks

repent is to feel sorry or remorseful
penance is an atonement, a reperation for an offense.

like this... during your life and all the way until the pearly gates it's either you saying to God "Thy will be done"...or...
as an unrepentent sinner , at the end, God says "Thy will be done".... His unconditional love is salvation for you or ,your choice, His unconditional love is rejected by you.

[jlay]

I can, as compared to saying your sorry and getting back to the card game, or sincerely penetrating your personal sin and it's consequences to your soul, the hurt it put on Jesus, the backwash it may have created with others and the effects thereof ... yes, i can know the difference and consequences of taking it seriously or not.

I didn't ask you if you can know the difference. I said, can you MAKE yourself "mean" it. How do you make yourself take it seriously? Do you clinch your teeth and squint? (being facetious) Can you make yourself feel grief? The answer is no. A person either feels sorrow or they don't.

repent is to feel sorry or remorseful
penance is an atonement, a reperation for an offense.

like this... during your life and all the way until the pearly gates it's either you saying to God "Thy will be done"...or...
as an unrepentent sinner , at the end, God says "Thy will be done".... His unconditional love is salvation for you or ,your choice, His unconditional love is rejected by you.

The Greek word metanoia (translated repent) literally means change (meta) thought (noia). For example our word metamorphosis has an etymology from actual Greek. It literally means change/shape/process. There is nothing inherent in the word metanoia about sorrow or grief. Although, depending on the context it could apply to regret. But that is the point. The word has no inherent direct object and as is typical of the Greek it is dependent on the context to know what one is repenting of.

I would also ask you to do a NT word study on atonement.

[cled]

Repent means to go in a new direction. Totaly foresaking your old ways and imbracing a brand new way of doing things. Turning away from destructive things and embracing everthing godly, I am today a new creation in Christ , the old me died yesterday , and he is no longer around, Because I know live my life on godly principles and handle things diffrently. You cant do it on your own, you need the Holy Spirit and the Word to guide you and support you.

[jlay]

Repent means to go in a new direction. Totaly foresaking your old ways and imbracing a brand new way of doing things. Turning away from destructive things and embracing everthing godly, I am today a new creation in Christ , the old me died yesterday , and he is no longer around, Because I know live my life on godly principles and handle things diffrently. You cant do it on your own, you need the Holy Spirit and the Word to guide you and support you.

It is interesting that over time words can be redefined to mean something different than what they originally meant. I think it's true that for many the word repent means this. It's a popular definition within Christendom. The problem is that the word repent is not found in the original texts. It isn't a Greek word or even rooted in Greek.

So, here is the question, what did the Greek word metanoia mean to 1st century Greek speaking people? It didn't mean what you state above. We know this because we can examine the usage of the word. For example, the Septuagint translators applied the word metanoia when the OT was translated into Greek. The English translations then translate this into "repent." Guess who is the subject of repentance more than any other in the OT? God himself. So, what you are saying is that these Greek and Hebrew speaking linguists believed that God needed to forsake his old ways, turn from his sin and embrace everything godly.