Familiar Christian Sayings: A Biblical Examination — Part 2
Read the Chinese original
Question: We often hear that “God’s love is unconditional.” Is this true?
Answer: I often hear familiar sayings circulating among Christians: “God hates sin but loves the sinner,” “God’s love is unconditional,” “God helps those who help themselves,” “Once saved, always saved,” and “We will go to heaven.” These sayings do not themselves appear in Scripture.1 Yet they seem, to some extent, to match the surface meaning of certain passages, making their accuracy harder to assess. What exactly do they mean? Do they agree with the Bible’s teaching as a whole?
If we accept these sayings without examining them, treating them as self-evident truths, we can stop thinking. Even when reading the Bible, we may automatically filter out teachings that conflict with them. We may eventually end up teaching human commands as doctrine, rendering our worship vain (Mark 7:7).
In this series, I want to examine the problems with these familiar sayings and invite readers to reconsider whether they are true. This time, we will consider “God’s love is unconditional.”
What does “God’s love is unconditional” mean?
I often hear Christians describe God’s love this way. I have also repeated the expression simply because others used it. Yet in my years of studying Scripture, I have not found this description there.
Is God’s love really unconditional, as we so often hear? In what respects might “unconditional” describe his love accurately, and in what respects might it not?
God’s love shows no partiality
If “unconditional” means that God shows no partiality toward a particular ethnicity, sex, or social class, that is entirely correct. His love is not restricted to Israelites or to men in the patriarchal societies of biblical times. Nor does it depend on a person’s social position, wealth, education, or health.
Acts 10:34–35 (ESV)
34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality,
35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Galatians 3:26–29 (ESV)
26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
We can therefore confidently tell people of every social class, circumstance, and ethnicity, “God loves you.” But calling his love “unconditional” on that basis is imprecise. These passages also identify particular people who receive his acceptance: those who fear him and do what is right, those who are his children through faith in Christ Jesus, and those who have been baptized into Christ.
God is willing to bear with past sins and forgive wrongdoing
If “unconditional” means that God is willing to forgive sinners, so that people who have committed any kind of sin can come to him seeking salvation and forgiveness, that too is true.
Consider Paul, who persecuted the church, imprisoned disciples, and even persecuted them to the point of death. How did he understand God’s willingness to forgive and accept sinners who had acted in unbelief and ignorance?
Romans 5:6–8 (ESV)
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 3:25 (ESV)
25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
Colossians 2:13 (ESV)
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
1 Timothy 1:15 (ESV)
15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
Whatever a person’s starting point and whatever sins they have committed, God already loved us while we were still sinners and provided for Christ to die for us. This reveals the extraordinary breadth, length, height, and depth of his love. Whatever our past sins, God remains willing to give us an opportunity to repent.
Our conduct before knowing God is therefore not the condition on which salvation is offered to us. Salvation comes from his grace, because he knows that all of us are in sin and need redemption.
A necessary condition of love: willing acceptance, without coercion or unilateral imposition
People often compare God’s love with parental love,2 regarding his love as still greater. Since parental love is commonly described as unconditional, they conclude that God’s love must also be unconditional.
But on closer reflection, even parental love is not without conditions. The first is that the parents must acknowledge you as their child; for example, a child born outside marriage may not be acknowledged. You must be their child to enjoy their parental love. Children can also refuse to acknowledge someone as their parent, distance themselves from their parents, or even legally sever family ties.3
Love cannot be coerced. One person cannot force another to become their child, friend, romantic partner, or spouse. However much someone has to offer, and however great their love, the other person is not obliged to accept. Whatever you are willing to give or sacrifice, the other person can still refuse the relationship and resist it. A loving relationship requires both people to enter it willingly.
In the same way, however great God’s love, it cannot force anyone to accept it. At least, God has not interfered with human freedom in order to make us accept his love. Imagine a man using advanced biotechnology to alter a woman’s memories so that she falls in love with him. I doubt anyone would regard that coerced “love” as admirable.
God’s love is similar. We must willingly become his children, willingly receive salvation, and willingly accept his love. It is therefore not wholly without conditions, nor can God establish the relationship by unilateral decision. His allowing people to choose freely is itself a foundation of love.
Conversely, God also has freedom. He is not compelled to love4 or to forgive. Otherwise he would have no freedom and could not truly love, because love requires freedom and willingness on both sides.
Romans 1:18–32 (ESV)
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
This passage shows that God does not force people to accept him. Three times it says that God “gave them up,” describing his allowing them to follow their choices, even when those choices displease him. God gives people freedom to respond to his love, but they remain responsible for their choices. He also has the freedom not to love, or to judge, those who rebel against him.
Describing his love as unconditional may create the impression that, if it is sufficiently great, God can reconcile people to himself, establish a relationship with them, and save them regardless of their acceptance or consent. As we have seen, that is not the biblical description of his love.
Consider the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. The father’s love for his younger son remains, but if the son refuses to accept it, that love cannot benefit him in this way. The father can only quietly wait for his return.
God’s love does not lack moral standards
Calling God’s love unconditional may suggest that it has no standards and requires no appropriate response. Consider these passages:
1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (ESV)
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Exodus 34:6–7 (ESV)
6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
John 3:16–20 (ESV)
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
Romans 2:1–11 (ESV)
1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.
2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
6 He will render to each one according to his works:
7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;
8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek,
10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.
11 For God shows no partiality.
Romans 11:20–24 (ESV)
20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.
24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
Scripture never describes God’s love as wholly without conditions. These passages show that those who refuse God—as expressed in whether they believe and follow him—do not receive his love. Indeed, they face judgment because of their unbelief and wrongdoing.
Both God’s covenant with Israel and the new covenant that Christ established with people of every nation through his blood have conditions. God first rescued ancient Israel from slavery in Egypt and then made a covenant with them, calling them to love and follow him. Likewise, Jesus died for the sins of the world and rose again. Through baptism, he saves and forgives those who accept him, enabling us to love and follow him.
Ephesians 2:8–10 (ESV)
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
This passage shows that salvation initially comes from God’s grace, rather than our performance or works. We receive his gift of salvation through faith. But God saves people in order to prepare them to do good works. He forgives our sins so that we may depend on him and live a new life; he does not permit us to remain in our former sinful lives.
Although God’s love reached us before we repented, that does not mean our subsequent way of life is irrelevant. Just as a marriage covenant can be broken by later unfaithfulness, Israel broke its covenant with God through rebellion. Christians too can stop following God or leave him, damaging their relationship with him. That relationship is not preserved unconditionally. This is why Scripture urges disciples to remain faithful until death.
Conclusion
For these reasons, I consider the saying “God’s love is unconditional” inconsistent with biblical revelation and liable to cause misunderstanding.
More appropriate descriptions include “God loves the world,” “God shows no partiality,” “God is willing to forgive wrongdoing,” “God wants people to be saved,” “God loves people enough to sacrifice his Son,” and “Jesus loves people and wants to give them eternal life.”
Some may dismiss this examination as pointless wordplay. But words have power. If our aim is to grow in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10), we should seek greater accuracy in our understanding of him.
Familiar Christian Sayings: A Biblical Examination
- Part 1: “God Hates Sin but Loves the Sinner”?
- Part 2: “God’s Love Is Unconditional”?
- Part 3: “All Sins Are Equal in God’s Eyes”?
Unlike sayings that actually occur in Scripture, such as the teaching that giving is more blessed than receiving (Acts 20:35) and Jesus’ instruction to treat others as we would want them to treat us (Matthew 7:12). 2: I am referring to parents who love their children. In reality, some parents do not. 3: The parent–child relationship is also legally established at birth or adoption. 4: Some theologians argue that God’s nature makes it impossible for him not to love. I consider this inconsistent with the definition of love as free and voluntary, and with many biblical descriptions of God’s love, anger, and judgment. Would the God who created people and gave them freedom to love lack the freedom to love or not to love? I do not see this revealed in Scripture or by Jesus. ↩