Many think it quite sacrilegious for us to even approach this question, for it is assumed with such arrogance.
We are attacking the very bedrock, and for many the entire structure, of man’s presumed knowledge of God!
This is all most people know, and think they need to know, about God. All else is subordinate to this theme.
They think it horrible to limit God’s love to men, for they presume man is lovable and God must love him.
They cannot stand the God of the Bible, for they have imagined a God that is much more to their sinful liking.
What men may teach about God does not have any necessary connection to truth without valid confirmation.
Men teach there is no God, He is a woman, He watches from a distance, and He couldn’t send anyone to hell.
There is only one absolute, complete, final, and true source of information about Jehovah – the Holy Bible.
What men may wish about God does not have any necessary connection to truth without valid confirmation.
Men wish God was a sugar daddy, Who would forgive all men just to be nice and take them all to heaven.
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, especially in matters about God (Jer 17:9).
Natural creation only shows God’s glory, handiwork, eternal power, and Godhead (Ps 19:1-6; Rom 1:19-21).
We need much more than that to discover His redeeming love, the objects of His love, and the fruits of it.
From creation, we can see choices were made for men that are horrifically distinguishing and discriminating – some die in the womb, die in youth, are born blind, are born retarded, are born in horrible squalor, etc., etc.
From the Bible, why do men ignore Eden’s consequences, the Flood, the Canaanites, Korah, Sapphira, etc.?
We live in a feminized generation that has watered everything down to lukewarm vomit, except, of course, the right and obligation to hate anyone who dogmatically stands for a sovereign God and an infallible Bible.
Addressing this subject must be like Noah telling his generation enough rain was coming to cover mountains.
Addressing this subject must be like Columbus saying the earth was round to a world believing it was flat.
Addressing this subject must be like Peter telling the Jews Jesus was the Messiah and they had killed Him.
The assumptions, presumptions, and default mechanisms on this subject are unbelievably, deeply rooted.
The sound of words, especially John 3:16, must be rooted out and replaced with the sense of the words.
Hearing John 3:16 with a sense to fit Scripture and truth is no worse than I Cor 11:24 and Gal 5:4 to others.
No one truly argues for the character of God when it comes to His love, or they would seek love for the devil.
What are some of the consequences of this heresy? No fear of God in the earth, ignorance of God’s holiness and righteousness, feminized church leadership, superficial professions of religion, lack of zeal for holy living, neglect of discipline in the church and home, a weak and begging ministry, the-end-justifies-the-means evangelism, a degraded view of salvation, contemporary worship to cater to the carnal, universalism and no-hell heresies, candy cane use of Bible verses, PETA, and lovers of pleasure assuming eternal life.
How can we benefit by answering the question? Worship God in truth (John 4:23-24), serve Him with reverence and godly fear (Heb 12:28-29), understand the Bible without confusion (II Tim 2:15), bask in our glorious salvation (II Cor 9:15), see through the fallacy of an offer of salvation (John 6:38-39), see the commendation God gave His love (Rom 5:5-8), be motivated to extreme service (II Cor 5:14-17), know we can never be separated from it (Rom 8:38-39), and be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:14-19).
God hates all sinners.
This is plainly taught in Psalm 5:4-6 and 11:4-6, though these verses are generally ignored.
Here are two verses that specifically address the subject at hand – there are people God hates.
In spite of these verses, people want to keep right on believing, “God couldn’t hate anybody.”
God hates sinners – the wicked in these verses – because He hates sin, and sinners love sin.
It is the imagination of weak minds that gently coos, “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.”
This statement is a profane lie! Should Noah have had a banner across the side of the ark comforting the drowning rebels with the words, “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner”?
This statement is a profane lie! Should Joshua have had ensigns before the armies of Israel as they exterminated the Canaanites with the words, “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner”?
There is nothing in man justifying God’s love; there is nothing in God requiring He love man.
Throughout the word of God, there are two great classes of men – the wicked and the righteous, the reprobates and the elect, the sinners and saints, the children and the bastards, the church and the rest, the saved and the lost, vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy, etc., etc.
It is a result of confused thinking to say, “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.” Sin is not a separate thing that can be hated and punished by itself. Sin is the rebellious choice of a rational creature to despise His Creator and violate His commandments. God hates the actor and activity of this rebel creature. He will send persons to hell, not sins. The saying is a profane lie!
God hates both the sin and the sinner (Lev 20:23; Deut 18:12; 25:16; Ps 2:4-9; 7:11; 10:3; Pr 3:31-34; 6:16-19; 16:5; 17:5; Malachi 1:3-4; I Corinthians 16:22; Revelation 14:10-11).
The apparent dilemma with God loving His elect will be explained in detail in following points; but let it be remembered that God’s elect are not sinners or workers of iniquity, for God has viewed them as holy and without blame since before the world began, when He chose them in Christ Jesus their Surety (Eph 1:3-6)!
God hates sin and sinners because He is holy.
God is holy, and His absolutely holy nature requires that He hate sin wherever He finds it.
The definition of true holiness and righteousness includes hatred for sin (Ps 45:7; Heb 1:9).
The great God is of purer eyes than to behold evil or look on iniquity approvingly (Hab 1:13).
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is holy … undefiled … and separate from sinners (Heb 7:26).
God is so pure in His holiness that angelic sin was not accepted in His sight (Job 15:14-16).
Any man who truly fears and loves God will hate sin with Him (Pr 8:13; Ps 45:7; Heb 1:9).
God’s holiness requires that He hate sin (Psalm 5:4-6; 53:5; 73:20; Pr 6:16-19; Zech 8:17).
God is very holy, and this character trait of God cannot be neglected (Is 6:1-7; Rev 4:8).
The holiness of God is a grossly neglected and rejected attribute of the Lord Jehovah.
There is no place in heaven for anything that defiles, for God and heaven are holy (Rev 21:27).
Consider how the holiness and justice of God poured out wrath on Jesus for the elect’s sins.
If He forsook His Son and took pleasure in bruising Him … because of our sins … how much more shall He forsake, bruise, and hate those without faith, who continue in rabid rebellion?
God loves His elect because legally they are not sinners.
He chose His elect as holy in Christ before the world began, so He could love them (Ep 1:3-4).
He chose the elect in Christ in order to view them as holy and without blame! Glory!
He chose to view the elect as holy and without blame, so He could love them! Glory!
Consider the glorious declarations in this wonderful passage of Scripture about God’s love.
The whole passage is wrapped up in the will and purpose of God, not our inherent worth.
God chose those He would love, and He made His love for them possible (Rom 9:15).
He both predestinated the elect to be His sons and made them acceptable in Christ (Eph 1:5-6).
He had to predestinate us to the adoption by Jesus Christ in order to accept us sinners.
The issue is not whether we accept God or not, but whether He can and will accept us!
And all this choosing and predestinating to make us holy and acceptable is by His will!
And it is all to the praise of the glory of His grace, for it is all of God choosing to love us!
If God loves all men indiscriminately and without exception, then it is a necessary conclusion that salvation is to the praise of the glory of their free wills! God forbid!
The eternal covenant of grace viewed the elect in Christ with their sins fully paid and forgiven.
The new covenant includes God forgetting their sins and iniquities (Heb 8:12; 10:17)!
The legal phase of salvation must be understood well to fully appreciate this transaction.
God was in Christ reconciling the elect to Himself (Rom 3:25; II Cor 5:18-21; I Pet 3:18).
God hated the man Esau.
The Bible clearly declares that God hated Esau, while loving Jacob (Mal 1:2-4; Rom 9:13).
He hated Esau for his sin nature from Adam, not his profane sins (Rom 5:12-19; 9:11-12).
If these verses speak of nations and not individuals, then the point is even stronger.
If these verses use hate and love just to mean some relative relationship, then what of “world.”
God does not love those who are not His children.
The Bible tells us that clearly and emphatically that God chastens all those He loves (Heb 12:6-8).
But it also tells us that He does not chasten all, for some are bastards and not sons (Heb 12:6-8).
To not chasten a child is to show hatred to that child, and God does not chasten bastards (Pr 13:24).
The love of God is for His family, which Paul identified as the boundless love of Christ (Eph 3:14-19).
God does not love those He doesn’t know.
At the last day, the Lord Jesus Christ will profess to many He never knew them (Matt 7:23).
These words do not mean He did not know of them or about them, but He never loved them.
For the word “know” can mean factual knowledge or an affectionate relationship (Amos 3:2).
These persons are “workers of iniquity,” the ones He hates, for they are still sinners (Ps 5:4-6).
God knows and foreknows His elect, which foundation is sure (Rom 8:29-30; II Tim 2:19).
His foreknowledge of the elect resulted in their predestination as sons (Eph 1:5; I Pet 1:2).
He knows His sheep, and He loves them (John 10:14). He knows them, not about them.
God does not love those who will be separated from Him in hell.
When God loves a man, it is impossible for that man to be separated from Him (Rom 8:38-39).
Many will be separated from God in the last day by the words, “Depart from me” (Matt 7:23).
Since the wicked in hell will be separated from God, it is sure that He never loved them at all.
It is idiocy to say God loves those in hell just as much and in the same way as those in heaven.
If you say He stopped loving them at some point, how will you prove He is so changeable?
Christ does not love others in the way He loves His Church.
Jesus Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it for very specific results (Eph 5:25-27).
If Jesus Christ loves all men without exception or distinction, then what do these words mean?
Paul appeals to Christ’s love for His church, His bride, to exhort men to love their wives.
If Christ loved all men without exception, then husbands should love all women the same way!
The Lord Jesus Christ, sent from the Father, loved the church – only – and gave Himself for it!
If He loved and gave Himself for others, without helping them, how does that build marriages?
God’s love results in eternal salvation.
God’s love is inseparably connected with the giving of Jesus Christ (I John 4:9; Rom 8:32).
In many places where God’s love is mentioned, so is the giving of Christ for His people.
It is due to God’s love that He in wisdom designed the means by which He would save them.
Those in the Lake of Fire will suffer for their sins, as they were never paid for nor forgiven.
He that spared not His own Son for the elect, those He loved, will give everything else also!
God loves righteousness and those who are righteous.
God cannot and does not love sin or sinners, but He does love the righteous (Ps 11:7; Heb 1:9).
Look at any angle or perspective of God’s love you wish, He can only love righteousness.
His divinely perfect character cannot and will not ever approve sin affectionately. He cannot!
God’s love is inseparably connected with Christ’s intercession.
Jesus sits at God’s right hand interceding for all the Father loves (Rom 8:34-35; Heb 7:22-25).
Jesus does not plead for the wicked; He endures them in longsuffering (I Pet 3:20; Rom 9:22).
And He will save all His elect to the uttermost without losing a single one of them. Glory!
God’s love is revealed to its objects by the Spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit reveals and communicates God’s love to all those whom He loves (Rom 5:5).
But the Spirit is only given to those who are sons, as God does not love bastards (Gal 4:6).
The Spirit is the earnest of the inheritance for the elect only (Eph 1:13-14; II Cor 1:22; 5:5).
God is angry at the wicked every day.
The Bible declares rather plainly that God is angry at the wicked every day (Psalm 7:11).
He burned in His wrath toward men, when He drowned the entire planet in a Flood of water.
And He will be angry again toward men, when He burns up the planet with fire in the last day.
God’s anger toward His elect brings kind chastening; His anger toward the wicked brings hell.
God taught David to hate all those who hated God.
David hated all the enemies of God, who hated Him, with a perfect hatred (Psalm 139:21-22).
He was the sweet psalmist of Israel, who was also the man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22).
David also admitted his hatred of sinners in other places, but they are ignored (Ps 26:5; 31:6).
How are we to believe God loves all the wicked, but the man after His own heart hated them?
God did not inspire David to write things carnal or disagreeable; his hatred was holy and good.
God’s love for sinners is not a part of scriptural evangelism.
It is a popular delusion that Bible evangelism is to spread the news that God loves sinners.
The world’s most popular tract, “The Four Spiritual Laws,” declares confidently for its first and most important law, “God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life.”
Bumper stickers and smiley faces grin everywhere with the words, “Smile, God loves you.”
Some have said that John 3:16 is the gospel in a nutshell, the most important verse in the Bible.
Which would you have hung on a banner from the ark? The first spiritual law or John 3:16?
But if we read the Acts of the Apostles, we cannot find even one reference to the love of God in any of the thirteen conjugations and forms of love used in the New Testament. Amazing!
But we can read about God’s judgment – over and over again (Acts 10:42; 17:30-31; 24:25)!
Consider how he opened with Cornelius and his household of Gentiles (Acts 10:34-35).
Something is clearly wrong! Either the apostles were wrong, or modern evangelism is wrong!
Jesus Christ and the apostles focused on our love for God (and neighbor), not His love of us!
When Stephen faced the Jews in Acts 7, why didn’t he tell them about the love of Jesus?
When Peter faced the first Gentiles in Acts 10, why didn’t he tell them about the love of Jesus?
When Paul faced the philosophers in Acts 17, why didn’t he tell them about the love of Jesus?
When Paul faced the Jews in Acts 28, why didn’t he tell them about the love of Jesus?
But … does not the Bible teach that God loved the world?
Yes, the Bible teaches that God loved the world in John 3:16.
This is the “gospel in a nutshell,” many say. They say, “This is all I need and all I want.” But it is merely one verse out of 31,173. Every word of God is pure, and helps explain the others.
But this oft-quoted, never-understood verse does not say that God loves every single human without exception so very much and so very badly that He had to send His son to try to save them all, with the overall project being a colossal failure in that most are not saved at all.
The whole issue with this popular corruption of the verse is the definition of the word “world.” But what of 12:19; 14:17; 15:19; 16:20; 17:14?
First, if we force world to mean every single descendant without exception or distinction, then we have a serious contradiction with all we have already read and studied in the perfect Bible.
Second, if we force world to mean every single descendant without exception or distinction, then we create a whole basket full of absurdities and contradictions elsewhere in the Bible.
Jesus is speaking to a ruler of the Jews and laying heavy doctrine on him. He has described the new birth that blew his mind, now he points out a dying Messiah, who would die for Gentiles.
Whomever God loved, He gave His Son for them, meaning the elect (Jn 6:39; 10:11; 17:2-3).
And true to John’s purpose for writing, believers only can know eternal life was purchased for them (John 20:31; I John 5:13).
Jesus had already made crystal clear that sovereign regeneration had to precede any belief, which is granted only to the elect (John 1:12-13; 3:3,8).
There is a sermon and extensive outline explaining John’s own interpretation of John 3:16.
But … does not the Bible teach that God is love?
Yes, the Bible teaches that God is love in I John 4:8 and I John 4:16.
But these words do not prove (1) God is only love, (2) God loves all men, (3) God loves any man, (4) God loves you, (5) how long God loves, or (6) just about any thing else you imagine.
It simply and only teaches that one characteristic of God is that He loves, and He does love.
But He is also holy and righteous, which John introduced first in this very epistle (I John 1:5).
While God is love, God cannot love sin or sinners, as we have clearly proved in other places.
But … does not the Bible teach that God loves us as sinners?
Yes, the Bible teaches that God loved us when we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8).
However, in what sense(s) we were still sinners? This is the key, for we were already in Christ.
When we read the personal pronouns “us” and “we” in context with God’s love and Christ’s death, we are not to understand a letter written from heaven to the whole human race!
We were still sinners vitally and practically before our regeneration and conversion, when Christ died for us. But we had been loved eternally long before the cross of Calvary.
But … particular love makes God unfair, cruel, and a respecter of persons?
Paul knew long ago you would raise this objection. His answer? God forbid (Romans 9:14-24)!
You do not even understand your own objection, for how is it respect of persons to choose to love someone for nothing in them whatsoever, but altogether contrary to what is in them?
How does it make God unfair? Because He does not love all? Do all deserve love? We are sinful rebels, why must He love us? He is unfair by loving any, which is why it is called grace!
If you are so concerned about the character of God, why not argue for God loving the devil?
But … I couldn’t and wouldn’t serve a God that doesn’t love everybody!
Truly? There is another Jesus, spirit, and gospel with many preachers (II Cor 11:3-5,13-15).
If you are so concerned about God loving everybody, why don’t you feel sorry for the devil?
You are gravely mistaken to think there is anything about you worth loving at all.
You are gravely mistaken to think there is something in God requiring Him to love you at all.
If you are going to create a God after your own thoughts, He has a word for you (Ps 50:21-22)!
God’s love is only meaningful when His hatred of sinners is fully understood.
If a prostitute told a thinking man she loved him, her statement of love would be worthless.
In the same way, the love of God is not very meaningful when it is loosely scattered to all.
What is so special about the love of God for me, if God loves everyone equally?
What is so moving about the love of God for me, if many He loves are already in hell?
The love of God is not a promiscuous love of all men, but an efficacious love of the elect.
How does God commend His love? By loving us when enemies and giving Christ for us?
Paul sought for the Ephesians to know the full dimensions of God’s love, which knowledge could fill them with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:14-19). But how can universal love do this?
What saddens the righteous and confirms the wicked (Ezek 13:22)? The universal love of God!
Now the words of John make sense, “We love him, because he first loved us” (I John 4:19).
God’s love for us should constrain us to serve and fear Him.
When we rightly understand the love of God, it will powerfully move us to devoted service.
If God’s love is universal without distinction, and it accomplishes nothing for sure, there is hardly a motive for service at all. That is why there are so few truly dedicated Arminians.
The more the love of God is bandied about, the greater the carnality and weakness of hearers.
Isaiah was moved to instant service by God giving a specific sacrifice for his sins (Is 6:1-8).
When Paul reasons, “If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love …,” he is arguing from the overwhelming sense of debt and obligation we ought to have (Phil 2:1).
Paul was constrained to serve God by the life-giving love of God in Christ, and he understood that this sacrificial and saving love should cause all saints to be new creatures (II Cor 5:14-17).
It should be easy to tremble before Him and His word, when we see His love in truth (Is 66:2).
We should also find it easy to worship Him with reverence and godly fear (Heb 12:28-29).
We should understand that there is forgiveness with Him that He might be feared (Ps 130:4).
Our prayers should be quite different from those who think He’s a hand full of cotton candy.
How can we sin easily, presumptuously, or repeatedly, if we are standing in awe (Psalm 4:4)?
This doctrine should cause us to walk humbly and justly before our God in holy sobriety.
Conclusion:
This is surely not a popular subject, but neither was a universal flood by Noah or a round earth by Columbus.
You cannot know the blessed God of heaven apart from His detailed revelation in the Holy Scriptures.
All the feelings and opinions of men are profane folly, for their hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked.
The personal issue for you is not whether God loves you, but whether you fear and love God with all you are.
God is not obligated to love any. His love is by His sovereign choice, which He did to His elect (Rom 9:15).
How can we benefit by answering the question? Worship God in truth (John 4:23-24), serve Him with reverence and godly fear (Heb 12:28-29), understand the Bible without confusion (II Tim 2:15), bask in our glorious salvation (II Cor 9:15), see through the fallacy of an offer of salvation (John 6:38-39), see the commendation God gave His love (Rom 5:5-8), be motivated to extreme service (II Cor 5:14-17), know we can never be separated from it (Rom 8:38-39), and be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:14-19).
