Does God discriminate?
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| Christ in Gethsemane (Christus in Gethsemane), oil painting by Heinrich Ferdinand Hofmann (Heinrich Hofmann). The original is at the Riverside Church (Riverside Church, New York City). (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
It may, therefore, come as a surprise to find that God exercises a discrimination in His love for His creatures. That He does so is put beyond doubt in such a statement as Paul quotes in Romans 9:13, from Malachi: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”
It is also reinforced in Hebrews 12:6 where we are assured that “whom the Lord loves He chastens.” Neither the chastening nor the love, however, are indiscriminate. They both refer to “every son whom He receives.” Again, in 1 John 3:1, the apostle marvels at the depth of the love the Father has bestowed on us to call us “sons of God.” Unless we are universalists, we will recognize that the love of which John speaks is directed in a unique and discriminatory fashion toward His children.
Now, of course, this raises the proper questions in Christian minds: Does God not love all people indiscriminately? How are we to understand the statement that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son?” And when Jesus urges us to love our enemies, is His Father less benevolent?
Clearly the answer Scripture gives to these questions is that there is an indiscriminate love of God for the world in general, and a discriminating love which belongs to His relationship with His elect children.
That should not be a difficult idea for us to understand and accept because we have a reflection of it in human experience. Most normal parents have a universal, indiscriminate love for children of all kinds. But every true parent has a special, discriminating love for his or her own children. He loves them as he loves no other. Or again, any Christian man will have a general love for all women because they are creatures of God. But obviously he has a discriminating and unique love for the woman who became his bride. He loves her as he loves no other. So it is with God the Father. So it is with Christ the Bridegroom of our souls. And it is vital both for the child and for the bride to know that they are the objects of a special love.
First we turn to the indiscriminate love of God
Of all places in Scripture, the indiscriminate love of God is seen in Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. “Love your enemies,” He urges His disciples, “… that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:44–48). The meaning is plain: the reason we are to love our enemies is that we might demonstrate the same nature as our heavenly Father.
So what is the nature of this indiscriminate love of God? It is clearly the benevolence of which Matthew 5:45 speaks. “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous.”
But it is also the love of compassion. Think of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem in Luke 19:41, stirred by the thought of its spiritual rebellion. Think of His attitude to the rich young ruler who was so soon to turn his back on Christ. “Jesus beholding him, loved him” (Mark 10:21).
It is this love of compassion which is also implied in the famous statement in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The emphasis of this word world in John’s Gospel particularly is not so much upon all men and women distributively. It is rather on the character of the world as sinful, rebellious, and alienated from God. The amazing thing about God’s love is that it is directed to such an object. The world is hostile to God. But God loves His enemies with the love of compassion.
But we now need to turn to the discriminating love of God
That there is a distinction in Jesus’ love for His own is apparent in John 13:1: “Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love.”
Theologians distinguishes this love of Christ for His own as the love which expresses God’s determination to conform them to the image of His own Son (Romans 8:29). He so loves them that He has prepared for them a kingdom and has undertaken to do all in His power to bring them to that destiny. His electing love is a total, unqualified commitment to His own people.”
This electing love is what God speaks of to Israel in Amos 3:2: “You only have I known of all the nations of the earth.” It is the love from which nothing will separate us and which perseveres with us until the perfect image of Christ is reproduced in us (Romans 8:29, 38–39). It is the love with which Paul tells us Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, determined to make it holy, and present it to Himself radiant, unstained, and unblemished (Ephesians 5:25–27).
This is the distinctive “family” love to which Jesus is referring in John 14:21–23. “Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and show Myself to him.” There is apparently a fruit of grace which is the reflection in the child of God of that love between Christ and the Father which is expressed in obedience. It is a discriminating love which bespeaks a distinctive relationship between the Father and His obedient children. But the only reason they obey and love Him is that He has first loved them with redeeming, saving, sanctifying love.
Now the reason it is so important to grasp the distinction between the universal and special love of God is quite simple, and it has a parallel in human experience. The sphere in which the intensity of human love is experienced and understood is the sphere of the special relationship, whether between parent and child or between husband and wife. The sphere in which the intensity of divine love is understood and experienced is the sphere of that intimate relationship between the Father, the Son, and the believer. The more deeply we are drawn into that relationship, the more amazed we will be at the height, depth, length, and breadth of the love of Christ. So it is vital for our own spiritual experience:
The love of Jesus, what it is, None but His loved ones know.
It is also vital for our spiritual security. This unique love of God for His people is not merely content to weep over them but “creates in them the response which He commands.” From it we derive the assurance that “nothing shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Clearly the answer Scripture gives to these questions is that there is an indiscriminate love of God for the world in general, and a discriminating love which belongs to His relationship with His elect children.
That should not be a difficult idea for us to understand and accept because we have a reflection of it in human experience. Most normal parents have a universal, indiscriminate love for children of all kinds. But every true parent has a special, discriminating love for his or her own children. He loves them as he loves no other. Or again, any Christian man will have a general love for all women because they are creatures of God. But obviously he has a discriminating and unique love for the woman who became his bride. He loves her as he loves no other. So it is with God the Father. So it is with Christ the Bridegroom of our souls. And it is vital both for the child and for the bride to know that they are the objects of a special love.
First we turn to the indiscriminate love of God
Of all places in Scripture, the indiscriminate love of God is seen in Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. “Love your enemies,” He urges His disciples, “… that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:44–48). The meaning is plain: the reason we are to love our enemies is that we might demonstrate the same nature as our heavenly Father.
So what is the nature of this indiscriminate love of God? It is clearly the benevolence of which Matthew 5:45 speaks. “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous.”
But it is also the love of compassion. Think of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem in Luke 19:41, stirred by the thought of its spiritual rebellion. Think of His attitude to the rich young ruler who was so soon to turn his back on Christ. “Jesus beholding him, loved him” (Mark 10:21).
It is this love of compassion which is also implied in the famous statement in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The emphasis of this word world in John’s Gospel particularly is not so much upon all men and women distributively. It is rather on the character of the world as sinful, rebellious, and alienated from God. The amazing thing about God’s love is that it is directed to such an object. The world is hostile to God. But God loves His enemies with the love of compassion.
But we now need to turn to the discriminating love of God
That there is a distinction in Jesus’ love for His own is apparent in John 13:1: “Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love.”
Theologians distinguishes this love of Christ for His own as the love which expresses God’s determination to conform them to the image of His own Son (Romans 8:29). He so loves them that He has prepared for them a kingdom and has undertaken to do all in His power to bring them to that destiny. His electing love is a total, unqualified commitment to His own people.”
This electing love is what God speaks of to Israel in Amos 3:2: “You only have I known of all the nations of the earth.” It is the love from which nothing will separate us and which perseveres with us until the perfect image of Christ is reproduced in us (Romans 8:29, 38–39). It is the love with which Paul tells us Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, determined to make it holy, and present it to Himself radiant, unstained, and unblemished (Ephesians 5:25–27).
This is the distinctive “family” love to which Jesus is referring in John 14:21–23. “Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and show Myself to him.” There is apparently a fruit of grace which is the reflection in the child of God of that love between Christ and the Father which is expressed in obedience. It is a discriminating love which bespeaks a distinctive relationship between the Father and His obedient children. But the only reason they obey and love Him is that He has first loved them with redeeming, saving, sanctifying love.
Now the reason it is so important to grasp the distinction between the universal and special love of God is quite simple, and it has a parallel in human experience. The sphere in which the intensity of human love is experienced and understood is the sphere of the special relationship, whether between parent and child or between husband and wife. The sphere in which the intensity of divine love is understood and experienced is the sphere of that intimate relationship between the Father, the Son, and the believer. The more deeply we are drawn into that relationship, the more amazed we will be at the height, depth, length, and breadth of the love of Christ. So it is vital for our own spiritual experience:
The love of Jesus, what it is, None but His loved ones know.
It is also vital for our spiritual security. This unique love of God for His people is not merely content to weep over them but “creates in them the response which He commands.” From it we derive the assurance that “nothing shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
