Does God Love All Men Equally?
1 John 4:8, 16
says, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love...we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” Here we learn one of the many deep facits of God’s character. It is important to know that God is a loving God. He loves all that are his own. His love is pure and undefiled. It is a love that is righteous and just. Does this love extends to all of the world equally? I say know. Turn to Ephesians 5:25,
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
Many people do not fully take the time to read this verse in its entirety and read its full implications. Here the text is in the part of Ephesians that speaks of how a husband and wife should interact with each other inside a Christian marriage. Following this passage Paul speaks of how children should interact inside a family with their parents.
Now examine the command here, “Husbands, love your wifes.” It is a command to agape your bride. Now in what way are husbands to love their wives? In the same way that Christ loves. Paul says, “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Note what it says carefully. Christ loved the church so much that he gave himself for her. The Greek word that Paul uses for “gave” is used in Ephesians 5:2, “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Paul is meaning this giving up as the sacrifice made on the cross. He loved his bride, his church, so much that he went to the cross for them.
Notice what Paul didn’t say in this text, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the world and gave himself up for it.” Paul said in stead “church” and “her.” God loves the church in a way that he was moved to sacrifice the Son for her. God does not love the world in the same way. All husbands who read this, will you tell me that you would sacrifice for some woman you have randomly met on the street or even the closest girl to you in the same way that you would for your wife? I would hope not. Would she be that special to your heart? Observing my dad, he will not let myself or anyone else speak negatively of his wife. Not even his own children nor anyone else in or out of his family. He does not tolerate it. Why? Because she is his wife! This is the love that Paul speaks of here in this text between a husband and wife and between Christ and the church.
I plead with my brothers and sisters to not put limits on God’s love so that it has to only be an egalitarian love for the whole world and that he cannot love the church in one way and everyone else in another way. Yes Jesus loves the world. It is his creation. If he did not love it, why go through all of the effort to renew it in Revelation 21-22? But that renewal is for the bride to dwell with her Husband. I plead that you will pray for that love that God has for his bride to fall upon you if you have never experienced that special love.
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Boy, you are in error in this thought. You can not imply words into the bible and draw a conclusion from that.
If you wanted to show that God loves the church in a unique way that is different from the world, that might be possible, by using other scriptures. But one can not add to or subjract from scripture.
Remember, not to proof text. I can share many text that seem to hold a view that is different from yours. How many times does the phrase “God does not show favortism” appear in acts (and all of scripture)?” No need to answer the question.
A famous book (perhaps the most famous right now) is a book by Robert Shank called Life in the Son or ELect in the Son (he has two books and it is the first one that he wrote). He was a calvinist (dead now, i think)and tried to search scripture to proof calvinism right. His conclusions are really great. Robert Shank was my preacher growing up, so I have some unique connections to him. “tom”
I think that the previous commenter has a point. I think you are showing the special relationship that God has with the Church. I would say that there is a very, very special relationship that the Church has with God. But then again, it comes down to who is in the Church and how do they join. There are many verses that I see where God wants all to join the Church. The ones that do have that special relationship.
So while I will not deny that special relationship, I do deny the favoritism of God from one soul to another.
Tom, show me where I have added anything to this text. I have merely shown from within the text that God has a different relationship with the Church than he does with the world. What words have I added or subtracted? This is not an implication but it states it clearly. Husbands love your wives in the same manner Christ loves the Church. How is that, Christ died on the cross for her sins so that he can sanctify her and cleanse her and present her to GOd the Father on the last day. How have I implied anything in that. This is not proof texting, I am exegeting the given text. Doesn’t any body do that any more, just stay with in the text given as much as possible?
In regards to the popular phrase leveled against Calvinism, I did some checking into it. In the New Testament, the term “partiality” appears ten times. Once refers to Jesus teaching in Luke 20:21
. Twice it refers to God’s dealing with Gentiles and Jews, Acts 10:34
and Romans 2:11
. In Galatians 2:6
Paul is speaking of God not being partial to those in power or not. In Ephesians 6:9
God is master over slave and free and is therefore not partial to the slave owner. In Colossians 3:25
God distributes justice freely and is not partial to anyone; if you have merited wrath you cannot bribe your way out of it. In 1 Timothy 5:21
, James 2:1, 9
we are commanded not to be partial.
So it seems that partiality has nothing to with this text and my exegesis of it. Salvation is not partial, I am not partial, GOd does not care who I am in this world, no text concerning partiality is violated here. Once again we are importing our own ideas of partiality into this text if we claim “God shows no partiality” to defeat my interpretation.
God is not partial. I did nothing any more than the terrorists who attacked the US on 9/11 to be saved. God just chose me to be saved because his glory will be most maginified in my salvation as opposed to theirs. That’s all. He determined it according to the council of his own will, not my merits. I am in the church and therefore God has a love for me that sent Christ to the cross. His love was not based upon me but because of him.
Henry,
As for the texts mentioned in the post at Masstheology that you have linked in your comment. Only one actually in any way says that Christ’s death atones for all sin. Your text in Hebrews 10:11-14
actually says the offering is to perfect for all time those who are being sanctified. Unless you are saying that God is perfecting and sanctifying all men and are a universalist, then that text is actually a text for Calvinism and Particular Atonement (Limited Atonement).
What? I don’t think I quoted Hebrews 10:11-14
in that post on Limited atonement.
What I did do is show that Christ died for all of humankind and that humans can enter into this salvation via believing.
Once again, there is a potential salvation offered to all and those that accept the gift get to enter into it.
Henry Michael
On your response you linke “many verses” and “where God wants.” On the link “many verses” is where I found Hebrews 10:11-14
.
ok, ok, gotcha. I kept scanning the post that I linked to for that verse. I was confused. Sorry.