Monthly Archives: July 2011

Does God Love His Enemies?

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Does God love everybody? Does He love everyone in the same exact way? Before we rush in to answer, we need to research the biblical data. Emotions tend to run high when it comes to these questions because they go to the very heart of something intensely personal to us all, drug our very view of God.

From what I can glean of the Scriptures, I think it would be easy to prove that God has a measure of love for His Son that he does not have for Satan and the demons. That’s fairly obvious of course, but once stated, it does show that although God is love, He possesses the ability to love with differing degrees.

However one interprets the phrase “Jacob I loved, Esau I have hated” (Romans 9:13) I can see no way to avoid the conclusion that God had a different measure of love for one twin above the other.

I believe John 3:16 clearly reveals that God does love the world. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” I have written elsewhere concerning John’s use of the word “world.” He uses it at least 10 different ways in his gospel. Yet I believe the most natural interpretation of “world” in his famous verse (from what I can gather of the context) is that it refers to all the people on planet earth, rather than the elect. I believe the text teaches us that such is God’s love for the human race that He has given them His Son as the Savior. That does not imply a universal redemption for everyone in the world however, for as the rest of the verse teaches, the giving of the Son was for the purpose that the believing ones would in no way perish but instead have everlasting life. God gave His Son as the world’s only Savior. Only through Jesus will anybody be saved in this world, and yet, there is no possibility of a believing one perishing.

Elsewhere in the same chapter, in verses 35 and 36 we read, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

Just as a man is expected to have a different degree of love for his wife than every other man’s wife, or his child, rather than everyone else’s child, or his mother rather than the dog next door, so God has different degrees of love. God set His love on Israel in a way He did not for Egypt. He explains this love in Deut 7:

“6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

God loved Jacob in a way He did not Esau and this love manifested in his unconditional election (Romans 9:6-13). So God has a love for His elect sheep that is different in dimension to those who are merely goats. In John 17 He says, “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.”

There is much to consider on this topic. I would recommend Dr. R. C. Sproul’s book “Loved by God” as a great resource in this regard.

It is interesting that today I read the following from Tommy Clayton, Content Developer and Broadcast Editor at Grace to You.

I can still remember the chair I was sitting in years ago when I read a life-changing page in John MacArthur’s book The God Who Loves. In an economy of words, John exposed, confronted, and changed my thinking on one of the most critical areas of theology, the nature of God. My understanding of God’s love—specifically His love for the non-elect—was never the same.

For months, I had been wrestling with the question of whether God’s love extends beyond those He chose for salvation. “Does God love all humanity, even the Judas Iscariots and Adolf Hitlers of the world?” At the time, I couldn’t answer that question with any degree of certainty. And although I was sitting under sound biblical teaching, I had begun entertaining the idea that God’s elect have a monopoly on His love. I couldn’t reconcile the idea of God loving His enemies with the following texts:

• Psalm 5:5, “You hate all workers of iniquity.”
• Psalm 7:11, “God is angry with the wicked every day.”
• Psalm 26:5, “I have hated the assembly of evil doers.”

Beyond those troubling texts, I was grappling with God’s explicit statements about hating Esau found in Romans 9 and Malachi 1. “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” You have to admit, that’s a hard verse to refute. God’s hatred was unrelated to Esau’s conduct or character. It was rooted in His eternal, sovereign purposes.

The more I pondered those verses, the more resistant I became to acknowledging God’s love to all humanity. I failed to see the tragic effects such thinking had on my evangelistic fervency. I had adopted a self-righteous mindset, thinking God was absolutely repulsed by unbelievers—probably just as repulsed as I was. I became blind to all the Scriptures speaking to God’s steadfast love and compassion for the lost. Somewhere along the way, my love and compassion for sinners waned.

I was convinced in my own mind. God loves the elect and hates the non-elect. End of discussion.

But then, I read the following words by John MacArthur:

Scripture clearly says that God is love. “The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works” (Ps. 145:9). Christ even commands us to love our enemies, and the reason He gives is this: “In order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45). The clear implication is that in some sense God loves His enemies. He loves both “the evil and the good,” both “the righteous and the unrighteous” in precisely the same sense we are commanded to love our enemies.

In fact, the second greatest commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk. 12:31; cf. Lev. 19:18), is a commandment for us to love everyone. We can be certain the scope of this commandment is universal, because Luke 10 records that a lawyer, “wishing to justify himself … said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (Lk. 10:29)—and Jesus answered with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The point? Even Samaritans, a semi-pagan race who had utterly corrupted Jewish worship and whom the Jews generally detested as enemies of God, were neighbors whom they were commanded to love. In other words, the command to love one’s “neighbor” applies to everyone. This love commanded here is clearly a universal, indiscriminate love.

Consider this: Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law in every respect (Matt. 5:17–18), including this command for universal love. His love for others was surely as far-reaching as His own application of the commandment in Luke 10. Therefore, we can be certain that He loved everyone. He must have loved everyone in order to fulfill the Law. After all, the apostle Paul wrote, “The whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14). He reiterates this theme in Romans 13:8: “He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.” Therefore, Jesus must have loved His “neighbor.” And since He Himself defined “neighbor” in universal terms, we know that His love while on earth was universal.

Do we imagine that Jesus as perfect man loves those whom Jesus as God does not love? Would God command us to love in a way that He does not? Would God demand that our love be more far-reaching than His own? And did Christ, having loved all humanity during His earthly sojourn, then revert after His ascension to pure hatred for the non-elect? Such would be unthinkable; “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever” (Heb 13:8) (John MacArthur, The God Who Loves, 102-03).

John’s simple explanation of those Scriptures compelled me to rethink my position on God’s love. Jesus was God. Jesus loved His neighbors—even His non-elect neighbors. Jesus was a friendto sinners. Jesus loved His enemies—all of them. How could I have missed that? What caused me to overlook such clear, vital truths about the character of God? The answer is pride, that hideous sin lurking in all of us, waiting for the opportunity to express itself.

If you wrestle with some of the verses I listed, or struggle to reconcile God’s love with his wrath, I’d recommend you pick up a copy of John’s book The God Who Loves.

So back to the opening two questions:

(1) Does God love everybody?

I would say “in a certain sense, yes.”

(2) Does He love everyone in the same exact way?

I would say “no, just as His love for Jacob was different from His love for Esau, and just as His love for Israel was different from His love for the other nations, so God has a different measure of love for His elect people than He does for others.”

“For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” – 1 Thess 1:4,5

God and Man on the Scales

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J. I. Packer:

“I think of the two pans of an old fashioned pair of scales. If one goes up, the other goes down.

Once upon a time folks new that God was great and that man by comparison was small. Each individual carried around a sense of his own smallness in the greatness of God’s world.

However, the scale pans are in a different relation today. Man has risen in his own estimation. He thinks of himself as great, grand and marvelously resourceful. This means inevitably that our thoughts about God have shrunk. As God goes down in our estimation, He gets smaller. He also exists now only for our pleasure, our convenience and our health, rather than we existing for His glory.

Now, I’m an old fashioned Christian and I believe that we exist for the glory of God. So the first thing I always want to do in any teaching of Christianity is to attempt to try and get those scale pans reversed. I want to try and show folks that God is the one of central importance. We exist for His praise, to worship Him, and find our joy and fulfillment in Him; therefore He must have all the glory. God is great and He must be acknowledged as great.

I think there is a tremendous difference between the view that God saves us and the idea that we save ourselves with God’s help. Formula number two fits the modern idea, while formula number one, as I read my Bible, is scriptural. We do not see salvation straight until we recognize that from first to last it is God’s work. He didn’t need to save us. He owed us nothing but damnation after we sinned. What he does, though, is to move in mercy. He sends us a Savior and His Holy Spirit into our hearts to bring us to faith in that Savior. Then He keeps us in that faith and brings us to His glory. It is His work from beginning to end. God saves sinners. It does, of course, put us down very low. It is that aspect of the gospel that presents the biggest challenge to the modern viewpoint. But we must not forget that it also sets God up very high. It reveals to us a God who is very great, very gracious and very glorious. A God who is certainly worthy of our worship.”

HT: JT

Letter to a Charismatic (2)

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I received a response from Malcolm by way of e-mail and I replied by interspersing comments in bold type below:

Hi John, thank you for your response. I know you love us and you speak from you heart with any and all types of concerns for God’s people.

Hi Malcolm, I am so glad you caught the spirit in which I wrote. Yes.

When I first encountered God when visiting your church that experience took me way outside of the box, the church box. You preached the Gospel

Yes.. and still do today.. though I feel I have greater insights into it.. I am a Gospel preacher and seek to be nothing else.

and displayed a life encounter with God contrary to anything I had seen or experienced myself. Being under your mentorship was the beginning of God encounters, visions, a trip to heaven, open eyes into the spiritual realm and demonic encounters. I didn’t pick and choose these but they happen. God has always been careful to place people into my life to walk with me, correct me and stand with me when no one else wanted anything to do with who I was.

Yes.. these things do happen.. they have happened many times in church history as God has poured out His Spirit. Jonathan Edwards, mightily used by God in the Great Awakening here in America, write a book about such things called religious affections. He made it clear though that these experiences should not be sought. There is not one New Testament verse that tells Christians to look for trips to heaven this side of the grave. If you remember, I have never taught on such things or encouraged people to seek such things. Even though my understanding of the Scriptures has increased greatly on some things, and even though there is still limitless things I dont know, I have always sought to root people in the word of God and not experience. That was Peter’s whole point in 2 Peter 1.. The text says:

16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

having witnessed the transfiguration of Christ with his own eyes, something only 3 human beings ever did, on top of the mountain, he said “we have a more sure word of prophecy.” In other words, “the word of God is surer than any experience we have – even though I have had the greatest.”

When I share the Gospel with people I have the opportunity to see the majority of them receive Christ as their Savior but some do choose to say no, not now or how can you expect me to believe that?

Yes, I have always been aware of your gifting and passion as an evangelist.

I have no idea what they have been through so I know it may be hard for some to accept. When I share my encounters with people as I did in this last email I share them with believers. They don’t need to believe me or choose to accept that what I say can possibly be true just as some of the lost people don’t accept the Gospel I just shared with them but the fact remains the encounters are real and I share them as an encouragement to people. They may never have those experiences but why should I not testify about them. The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophesy.

There can be a strong tendency for people to think their Christian life is sooo sub par if they dont have those experiences.. People can say “why dont I have them like Ron does?” Can you not see that? Experiences have to be tested, the word of God does not… the word of God is the diet of the Christian, all else is sinking sand. Yet the Christian who struggles sometimes to read their Bible and pray is just as loved as you.. just as cherished by the Father.. why not share your insights into His word, rather than your experiences? My mother has seen the Lord.. she could have made a movie about her experience.. she could have milked it for all it was worth – but instead she wants Christians to base their lives on the written word of God and in services here and abroad, has always just taught the word of God.

I don’t just want to lead the lost to Christ, I desire to lead those who are discouraged even as believers to a deaper relationship with Christ.

Deeper relationship – yes.. amen.. dramatic experiences – no – that is none of your or my business.. Leave that to God – our task is to preach the word.. in season and out of season..

Until God tells me different this is how I will continue to do it.

He already has said differently in the Bible Malcolm.

My story was not a Gospel presentation it was a story about Jesus sharing something of value to him with me. As for Jenn Johnson, I have not attended any of her classes that are taught at the Bethel School of Supernatual Ministry. That video was one of those classes. I don’t attend this school but I do attend this church. The teachings and the move of God durring these services remind me of a great preacher I have had the opportunity to learn under, You.

I am now at Bethel because I asked God to take me out of my comfort zone to a place I have never been before just like he did when I first encountered your church. A lot of people use to ask me about my comfort zone cause it was a place too hard for them yet it still intriqued them. That part of my life is behind me and I am reaching for more. Bethel Church doesn’t teach their people to bring the lost to church to get saved, they train them to lead the lost to Christ and then get them into a church that will minister to their own needs. I don’t see Bethel Church as a place of signs and wonders, it truely is a place that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is taught and it so happens that signs and wonders do follow, but its happening all over this nation and the lost are coming to Christ in a way I have never seen before.

I seek none of these experiences you mention.. I seek to spend time with my Lord and in His word each day and to feed the flock He has entrusted to me. All else is foolishness.

Because you have shared this with me I will be dillegent to keep my eyes and ears open to what is being preached to everyone here. You are a true friend..

I hope so – I remain very deeply concerned.