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February 2010 issue

Does God Love Everyone?

By Randy Walter

John 3:16 might be the most quoted verse of the Bible: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Does that mean God loves everyone?

What does John mean by “the world”? As terra firma, it represents Creation. It is also the order of things around the globe. And it refers to Earth’s inhabitants.

The Bible says God is “no respecter of persons.” Does He love all persons equally?

Such a huge concept makes us wonder, “But what about the people who…?” We think of some who don’t believe in a loving God. Or they think they’re fine without Him. Or shame convinces them God only loves the “nice people.” Or their perception of exclusiveness or hypocrisy in churches keeps them away.

Suspicion that God does not love everyone prevents people from trusting Him. Scriptures describe a very different God. He is protective, merciful, gracious, wise, mighty, just, holy, pure, true and faithful. Along with God’s mercy comes discipline. Both are expressions of love because “the Lord disciplines those He loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

GOD’S NATURE

God described His nature to Moses: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:6-7).

To dread His judgment without receiving His love is to feel hopelessly condemned. This deception, which paints Him as a mean old man waiting to drop the hammer on anyone who steps out of line, is far from the truth. God’s greatest attribute is love. The Bible says God is love.

Satan, whose name means “accuser,” manipulates our emotions so we misinterpret God’s correction as rejection. Our feelings are wounded when we perceive ourselves as unlovable, ashamed, not worthy or capable of having a relationship with our Heavenly Father. That is not God’s plan.

God “is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance,” Peter wrote. The word “perish” indicates more than physical death. It means to be forever separated from God, in whom “we live and move and have our being,” according to Luke. Not to be in Him is to lack His life-giving sustenance for all eternity.

WHAT GOD HATES

God loves His Creation, yet there are things God hates. Proverbs 6:17-19 describes them—
“Arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that plots wicked schemes, feet eager to run to evil, a lying witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up trouble among brothers.”

God hates evil because He hates what it does to us. God hates sin because it separates men from Him. Are there also some people God hates?

God does not hate people who fall into sin and repent of it. That is the human condition. The Bible says that all of us come short of God’s standards and the glorious life He desires us to live. When we repent, He forgives us because He loves us.

Weigh that against Psalm 5—

“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity.”

The people God hates are wrongdoers who knowingly persist in disobeying Him because their hearts are hardened toward Him. In their bitterness, they openly reject His sovereignty, His truth and His love. By the way they live, they declare themselves enemies of God and become indistinguishable from sin itself. They pay a penalty for refusing His love, just as the generation of Israel which wandered in the wilderness and complained, “Because the Lord hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.” That generation never saw the promised land. Instead, God kept His promise to the next generation and brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey.

LOVE AND MERCY

There is a prevalent belief that God’s compassion is shown only in the New Testament, while the God of the Old Testament is angry and vengeful. On the contrary, the Old Testament is filled with accounts of God’s love and mercy. God sorrowed over the world He created when wickedness reached a tipping point at the time of the Great Flood; yet He spared Noah and his family to repopulate the earth. Abraham was told to sacrifice his only son, through whom God had promised to raise up descendants more plentiful than the stars in the sky; but as Abraham obeyed God, He provided a substitutionary sacrifice for the sake of those future generations. It was a foreshadowing of when God would send His Son to Earth to be the sacrifice which purchased forgiveness for the offenses of all mankind.

When God’s chosen people repeatedly broke their covenant with Him through immorality and idolatry, He allowed other kings to defeat them. When His people cried out to Him, He raised up deliverers to liberate them from their captors. And when they were carried away by other nations, God always spared a remnant of His people. Consequences are a check against arrogance. The prophet Hosea wrote that God uses captivity to deliver and brokenness to restore—

“Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces; now He will heal us. He has injured us; now He will bandage our wounds” (Hosea 6:1).

The enemy of our souls tries to convince us, “God can’t possibly love me because of the things I’ve done.” The Bible says otherwise: “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord is Isaiah 1:18. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

THE KEY

It’s one thing to know the love of God exists; it’s another to receive it. The key to receiving God’s love is to apologize with a sincere heart for the things we’ve done which separate us from Him; to ask His forgiveness; and to determine not to repeat them. This is repentance. In response, God says He will hear our prayers, forgive our sin and restore us and our nation.

The world views the love of God through the behavior of His people. So how do we hate sin and bring the love of God to the sinner? Consider the online ministry of Pastor Craig Gross, XXXChurch.com. It brings awareness, openness and accountability to people affected by pornography. On the last stop of his unconventional “Jesus Love You” tour, he attended the Atlanta Pride Festival to apologize for the way religious people have treated lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered persons. The simple message at his booth was, “We Are Sorry.”

Gross and Jason Harper have brought this message to overeaters, criminals, porn stars, the poor and even the religious. They have coauthored a book Jesus Loves You… This I Know, which asserts that the perception of Jesus’ love has been distorted by political and religious interests whose agenda differs from His. “Oftentimes, people don’t have a problem with Jesus. They just have a problem with the people who have spoken on His behalf,” according to Harper.

Paul wrote in Romans 5:5, “God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” God gave His love to His children not only for their benefit but to disperse it to those who do not know Him. It doesn’t matter if they look or believe or act differently.

It’s obvious that the world has not been changed for the better by threats of punishment or destruction. That is not how God intends us to rescue those who are perishing. God wants to use us as ambassadors of His love. We can’t draw water from an empty well. To love others with the love of God, we must first appropriate it for ourselves.