Unconditional love.
Unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval or tolerance. Love is the commitment to wish and work for the benefit of another person, whether that person deserves it or not. It doesn't mean that you never rebuke, discipline or correct bad behavior. It only means that when such correction is offered, it is offered out of sincere concern for the person's personal improvement and benefit, rather than from impatience, irritation or retaliation.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
In Jesus,
Steve
Steve
If this is the case, then surely God, who IS love, would have unconditional love for everyone. But according to Psalm 5:5, God hates all who do iniquity.Unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval or tolerance. Love is the commitment to wish and work for the benefit of another person, whether that person deserves it or not.
If it is possible for us to have unconditional love when God doesn't have it? Wouldn't that mean that we are more loving than God?
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
Paidion
Avatar --- Age 45
"Not one soul will ever be redeemed from hell but by being saved from his sins, from the evil in him." --- George MacDonald
Avatar --- Age 45
"Not one soul will ever be redeemed from hell but by being saved from his sins, from the evil in him." --- George MacDonald
I think that the word "hate" is frequently used in the Bible in ways that we do not commonly use it. Sometimes it simply means to favor someone less than another. Leah is said to be "hated" by Jacob in Genesis 29:31, but the previous verse says that she was loved less by Jacob than was Rachel. It seems likely to me that this was also the meaning of God's statement, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated" (Mal.1:2-3). God also refers to those who worship other gods as "those who hate me" (Ex.20:5), though such people might commit this sin without conscious malice toward God...but they are clearly favoring another over Him.
When Jesus said that a man attempting to serve two masters must necessarily "love" one and "hate" the other (Matt.6:24), He was certainly using the terminology in this same sense. Also, His requirement that a disciple must "hate" his father, mother, wife, children and his own life also (Luke 14:26), is paralleled in Matthew 10:37 by the statement that one can not love wife, parents or children "more than" he loves Jesus.
In scripture, "hating" a man sometimes merely speaks of treating him in a manner that ultimately harms him—whether strong negative emotion is present or not. Thus the opposite of rebuking a man when he needs rebuke is called "hating" him, just as the failure to discipline a child is referred to as "hating" the child (Lev.19:17/ Prov.13:24). In this same sense, a man who hangs out with a thief is said to "hate" his own soul (Prov.29:24).
I believe that the statement that God "hates" a certain class of people is sometimes saying only that He finds their behavior abhorent (Psalm 5:5; 11:5/ Prov.6:16-19). To affirm such a thing would not be contrary to His love for them in the sense of desiring their ultimate good—which obviously would be their salvation.
My reason for this last assumption is that God desires the salvation of all men—which must include those who are in the categories that He is said to "hate." Saul of Tarsus, prior to his conversion, fell into more than one of the categories of things God is said to hate, in Prov.6:16-19. Yet God loved him enough to intervene in his evil course and to save him. It is this desire to save that most bespeaks God's love for sinners. On one level, when considering their repugnant behavior, God can be said to "hate" them, while, at the same moment, at a different level, He loves them and desires their ultimate good.
Those enemies that Christ commands us to love (Luke 6:27-28), and whom Jesus said are recipients of God's gracious blessings (Matt.5:45/Luke 6:35) are, in many cases, the same people whom the Psalms place on God's "hate-list." Therefore, God's hatred toward some people is of a sort that does not cancel His love for them, nor our duty to love, bless, pray for and do good to them.
When Jesus said that a man attempting to serve two masters must necessarily "love" one and "hate" the other (Matt.6:24), He was certainly using the terminology in this same sense. Also, His requirement that a disciple must "hate" his father, mother, wife, children and his own life also (Luke 14:26), is paralleled in Matthew 10:37 by the statement that one can not love wife, parents or children "more than" he loves Jesus.
In scripture, "hating" a man sometimes merely speaks of treating him in a manner that ultimately harms him—whether strong negative emotion is present or not. Thus the opposite of rebuking a man when he needs rebuke is called "hating" him, just as the failure to discipline a child is referred to as "hating" the child (Lev.19:17/ Prov.13:24). In this same sense, a man who hangs out with a thief is said to "hate" his own soul (Prov.29:24).
I believe that the statement that God "hates" a certain class of people is sometimes saying only that He finds their behavior abhorent (Psalm 5:5; 11:5/ Prov.6:16-19). To affirm such a thing would not be contrary to His love for them in the sense of desiring their ultimate good—which obviously would be their salvation.
My reason for this last assumption is that God desires the salvation of all men—which must include those who are in the categories that He is said to "hate." Saul of Tarsus, prior to his conversion, fell into more than one of the categories of things God is said to hate, in Prov.6:16-19. Yet God loved him enough to intervene in his evil course and to save him. It is this desire to save that most bespeaks God's love for sinners. On one level, when considering their repugnant behavior, God can be said to "hate" them, while, at the same moment, at a different level, He loves them and desires their ultimate good.
Those enemies that Christ commands us to love (Luke 6:27-28), and whom Jesus said are recipients of God's gracious blessings (Matt.5:45/Luke 6:35) are, in many cases, the same people whom the Psalms place on God's "hate-list." Therefore, God's hatred toward some people is of a sort that does not cancel His love for them, nor our duty to love, bless, pray for and do good to them.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
In Jesus,
Steve
Steve
Hi Steve,
I think you have assessed the matter of God's love and God's "hate" correctly. Those whom He "hates", He also loves. Perhaps the Biblical "hate" means much the same as the word "despise", a word that means more or less "discount" or "disregard".
Yet we have an example of David's hatred that seems to mean more or less as we think of the word today:
Psalm 131:21,22 Do I not hate them that hate you, O Yahweh? And do I not loathe them that rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
Since the same word is used, how do we determine which kind of "Scriptural hatred" is meant in a given passage?
If we decide that God doesn't hate anyone in the modern sense, on the basis that all hatred ascribed to God means "loving less" or "discounting", are we not assigning a particular meaning to the word whenever it is used to describe the character of God? Would this be a case of committing the logical fallacy of assuming what we wish to prove?
I think you have assessed the matter of God's love and God's "hate" correctly. Those whom He "hates", He also loves. Perhaps the Biblical "hate" means much the same as the word "despise", a word that means more or less "discount" or "disregard".
Yet we have an example of David's hatred that seems to mean more or less as we think of the word today:
Psalm 131:21,22 Do I not hate them that hate you, O Yahweh? And do I not loathe them that rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
Since the same word is used, how do we determine which kind of "Scriptural hatred" is meant in a given passage?
If we decide that God doesn't hate anyone in the modern sense, on the basis that all hatred ascribed to God means "loving less" or "discounting", are we not assigning a particular meaning to the word whenever it is used to describe the character of God? Would this be a case of committing the logical fallacy of assuming what we wish to prove?
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
Paidion
Avatar --- Age 45
"Not one soul will ever be redeemed from hell but by being saved from his sins, from the evil in him." --- George MacDonald
Avatar --- Age 45
"Not one soul will ever be redeemed from hell but by being saved from his sins, from the evil in him." --- George MacDonald