Question:
Does God love everyone the same?
Answer: No He does not.
A
careful reading of the Bible shows us three kinds of love from God to others.
1. Love of Benevolence – this is a general spirit of
kindness God has toward others.
Luke 6:35:
But love your enemies, do
good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything
back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most
High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
Notice the
last phrase says that God is “kind” to the ungrateful and wicked. It does not
mean that He loves them unconditionally which we often hear preachers say
flippantly. It says that God has a
spirit of kindness toward the wicked.
Ezekiel 18:23:
Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?
Ezekiel
33:11: Say to them, ‘As surely as I
live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather
that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of
Israel?’
The passages
in Ezekiel makes plain that God has a general kindness toward the wicked and
does not take delight in their death and destruction.
We can also
add to this 2 Peter 3:9: The Lord is not
slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not
wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
God has a
spirit of kindness toward those who are opposed to Him and His ways. He does
not delight in their death or destruction. This is a love of benevolence.
2. Love of Beneficence – this is God’s concern for the welfare of others.
Matthew 5:44-45:
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in
heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on
the righteous and the unrighteous.
God sends his
rain on those who are both just and unjust.
He has a general concern for the welfare of others.
So then, God
has a love of benevolence, beneficence, and thirdly,
3. Love of Blissfulness – this is God’s love for His own children. This kind of love
is a supreme satisfactory love reserved for only a few.
1 John
4:19: We love because
God first loved us.
You see, the reason we even love God was
not because we first chose to do so. No,
first God chose to love us, and then we in response to God’s love for us, chose
to love Him in return. Does everyone love God? No. Why not? Because God has not chosen to love
everyone the same way as He chose to love His elect.
Ephesians 5:25: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for
her. . .
How is a
husband to love his wife? Should he love
his wife and show equal love to another woman? Of course not. A husband loves
his wife blissfully – a supreme satisfactory love that is reserved only for her
and her alone, just like Christ loved the church and only the church by giving
Himself up for her.
Romans 8:31-39: What, then, shall we say
in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his
own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him,
graciously give us all things? 33 Who
will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who
justifies. 34 Who then is the one who
condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to
life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or
famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it
is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things
we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that
neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor
any powers,39 neither height nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the
love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus loves His people
(the church) so much that there is nothing that can separate them from His
blissful love. This cannot be said of
all people.
Revelation 1:5: And
from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the
dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him
who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.
Those whom Jesus loves
blissfully, He has freed. And those whom He has freed are those whom He
loves.
Conclusion: When one reads carefully the Scriptures, it
is clearly seen that God does not love everyone the same. Second, it is also
clearly seen that God does not love people unconditionally. If God did love others unconditionally, then
there would be no need to repent, turn from your sins, and obey Him in all
things. God would have the same love unconditionally for all people all the
time regardless of their behavior and the condition of their heart. But the
Bible never espouses such a thought. Those who do so simply add to the bible
and in doing so, confuse people about the love of God.
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