Dear Friend,

A concern has been gestating in my soul for some time now and I simply must birth it. It concerns the oft-repeated claim that God’s love is unconditional. I beg to differ, and to explain the difference.

Before doing so, I disavow any claim of fully understanding God’s love. I can no more explain every level of God’s amazing love than I can swim to the bottom of the Marianas Trench and back. That settled, let me attempt to describe the magnificent, munificent mercies of God. In simplest terms, there are three divisions of God’s love: His goodwill, His love of the redeemed, and His love of committed disciples.

Let’s examine these three loves briefly but adequately.

* 1. GOD’S GOODWILL – This divine love is directed at every living being, regardless of their beliefs or behavior. It is universal, unconditional, and unchangeable. It endures because of who God is, because “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and is unaffected by the condition of those receiving this love. God’s goodwill yearns for everyone to believe on His Savior-Son, Jesus, and receive Him and the eternal life that is available only through Him. It was this unconditional, universal, divine love that sent Jesus to this earth, and to the cross to die the death every one of us deserved to die, so that God could offer His marvelously rich salvation to all of us by grace, or unmerited divine favor. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Peter affirmed this divine goodwill: “The Lord is … not willing that any should perish, but [willing] that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). From the moment the sinner enters this world until the moment he (or she) leaves it, God’s undying goodwill extends to his (or her) lost soul.

And God extends this same goodwill every moment toward backslidden Christians and Christ-rejecting Jews. His heartstrings quiver with tender compassion for their sin-hardened hearts to turn back to Him from whom they have turned away. When these prodigals repent and return, His compassionate, fatherly heart immediately rejoices, receives them, and restores His approval and covenant blessings in their lives (see Luke 15:11-32). But every moment they are far from Him, they are still near and dear to His amazingly forbearing heart. His goodwill, therefore, is truly unconditional.

* 2. GOD’S LOVE FOR THE REDEEMED – This love is reserved for those who receive the Redeemer and His redemption. When we repent and receive the Savior, we immediately enter the worldwide body of Christ and exit the worldwide body of sinners. Miraculously, we are a new creation, a child of God, and a member of the Redeemer’s family: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God … born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). Our cooperation with the Redeemer’s gracious plan of salvation, and our reception of the divine DNA - the very nature of Jesus - delights the Father, and thereafter enables us to find a special place in His heart. Just as any father loves his children more than other children, so our Father loves born-again believers more than once-born unbelievers. Because we must receive the Redeemer to receive this divine love, it is conditional. Selective, it includes all who receive God’s appointed Redeemer and excludes all who refuse Him (John 14:6).

* 3. GOD’S LOVE FOR COMMITTED DISCIPLES – This love is reserved for disciples of Christ. All Christ’s disciples are Christians, but not all Christians are disciples. Christians are spiritually reborn believers in Jesus Christ. Disciples are Christians who, after being saved, fully commit themselves to faithfully follow Christ. They are irrevocably committed, determined to never turn back. Not casual Christians, they are more serious about their personal relationship to Jesus than anything else in their lives. They are student-followers, or students of Christ’s teachings and lifestyle who understand He expects them to work out His Words and ways in their daily living. And, as disciples, they are self-disciplined ones, zealously training their minds and bodies to habitually practice new, spiritual, daily disciplines that maximize the growth of their new life in Christ. And, like disciples in Jesus’ day, they live to increase their Master’s message, reputation, ministry, and followers.

They also obey the conditions Jesus placed on discipleship. They set their hearts to “continue” in the study and practice of His Word, learning, living, and sharing it daily (John 8:31-32). They submissively bear their crosses of rejection, reproach, and persecution for His sake (Luke 6:20-23; 14:25-27). They are willing to forsake all that they have, even their family members’ approval, if necessary, to follow their Lord in the way of the cross (Luke 14:33). In short, they are determined to practice loving obedience to everything Christ requires of them. Why? To show their special love for Him and to abide in His special love.

Jesus’ own words establish this: “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you; continue ye in my love” (John 15:9). This text presents us with a parallel and a condition. Christ’s love for us parallels His Father’s love for Him. So, whatever His Father’s love was like during Christ’s earthly life, that is what Christ’s love is like during our earthly lives. Jesus is plainly telling us He “continued” in His Father’s love and that, therefore, we should continue in His love, if we hope to remain specially beloved as His true disciples. And how do we “continue” in Christ’s love? “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide [continue] in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide [continue] in his love” (John 15:10). The context here is unquestionably that of God’s love, not man’s: “my love … his [my Father’s] love.” There is also no doubt that this love is not unconditional. We will continue abiding (living) in God’s love, not automatically, but “if” we keep Jesus’ commands - His teachings, guidance, correction, calling, and commissions (see John 14:21, 23; 1 John 5:3). There, under the protective covering of Christ’s full love, He delights to express His affection by pouring upon us rich, inner, spiritual blessings, such as, His sustained peace, insight into His Word, frequent answers to prayer, and comforting, reassuring manifestations of His supernatural, life-giving presence. And if we do not keep Jesus’ commands? That consequence, also, is clear. We cannot abide, or continue, in His full love, just as Jesus could not have continued abiding in His Father’s love if He had refused His orders to go to the cross.

This issue is so obvious that even the blindest, most undiscerning Christian can see it clearly: Only God’s goodwill is truly unconditional. All other degrees of divine love depend on our grace-inspired response to God’s love. By responding to the gospel, sinners enter into God’s love for the redeemed. By responding to Jesus’ conditions for discipleship, Christians enter into God’s love for committed disciples. Why the distinctions?

God cannot love whatever is contrary to His nature. Since the lost reject His Son, He cannot love them, because they are manifesting the nature of Satan, who rejected the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the beginning. And God will never love - prefer, be pleased with, delight in - anyone who stubbornly continues to think and act like the age-old adversary He abominates and cast out of heaven. To the contrary, He “hates all workers of iniquity” (Psalm 3:5).

And since carnal, lukewarm Christians, though redeemed by grace, refuse to commit to full discipleship, Christ cannot love the way they are living either. Why? They have refused to walk in the way of His footsteps, the way of full commitment to the will of God. Thus, they are not being conformed to His image, which is His primary purpose in our lives after we receive salvation. Wonderfully kind and gracious as He is, Christ simply cannot delight in the carnal reasoning, worldly values, unspiritual priorities, ungodly habits, narrow selfishness, foolish lusts, blind covetousness, and other blatantly practiced sins of such unchanged, un-Christlike Christians. Again, because everything they are and do, all that they aspire to and hold dear, are contrary to His and His Father’s hearts, ways, and purposes. He still holds goodwill toward them, O yes! He passionately desires that they repent and return to Him, O yes! He is eager and ready to receive them the moment they do, O yes! But that is the only sense in which He can “love” them. His nature makes it impossible for Him to prefer, be pleased with, draw satisfaction from, or delight in them as long as they willfully choose to live independently of Him, hate what He loves, and love what He hates. So, daily they frustrate, grieve, and disappoint His loving heart. Why? Christ gave up everything to die for them, but they won’t give up anything to live for Him. Thus, He loves them with His enduring goodwill, but not with the delight He holds for committed disciples.

So, the next time you hear that God’s love is unconditional, remember these biblical truths. They teach us that, while His goodwill is unconditional, His full love, approval, and inner spiritual blessings are not. They are reserved for those who walk in loving obedience to Him.

In loving obedience,

Greg Hinnant
Greg Hinnant Ministries