Does God love everybody equally?
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| The Reunion of Jacob and Esau (1844 painting by Francesco Hayez) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
How are we to reconcile the seemingly conflicting ideas found in Scripture concerning the love of God and the hatred of God? Are we telling people a falsehood when we announce to people that God has a wonderful plan for their lives? The question focuses on the propriety of assuming the universal love of God for every person in the world. A universal affirmation of anything allows for no exceptions.
We all know the Bible teaches that God is love and that God so loved the world that He gave.… If God so loved the world that He went so far as to give His only begotten Son to die, doesn’t this radical degree of sacrificial love strongly imply that in loving the world God loved each and every person in it?
It would seem so, and we may even be driven to that conclusion if that is all the Bible ever said about the love of God. Yet right there in Holy Writ, boldly inscribed on the sacred page are the words “Jacob have I loved; Esau have I hated” (Malachi 1:2–3; Romans 9:13).
How can we square this statement with the assumption of the universal love of God for all persons?
The first thing we see about it is that it is structured in the literary form of antithetical parallelism. A vivid contrast is intended between what God does for Jacob and what He does not do for Esau. Since there is an antithesis set forth between “love” and “hate,” all we have to do is discern what love means in the passage and then understand the use of the word hate to refer to its opposite.
This is the tack most interpreters follow. The argument goes like this: When the Bible says that God “hated” Esau it simply means that God gave a special benefit to Jacob that He withheld from Esau. God bestowed the unmerited favor of electing grace on one of the twins; the other (Esau) He passed over. Jacob received God’s mercy (“I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy” [Romans 9:15]). Esau received God’s justice. The dispensing of justice to Esau does not require that God act in a spiteful or “hateful” manner. Even those, such as Esau, who are not the objects of divine election, still in this life receive the common grace of God that flows out of His benevolence.
In this view of the passage, the contrast between God’s love and hatred has nothing to do with God’s affection or lack of it for either party. It merely refers to God’s actions with respect to each.
This may, indeed, be the proper meaning of the passage. However, it still does not get us off the hook. We are still left with the nagging problem that in some sense God does not love all persons equally in the same manner. God’s disposition may be benevolent toward all men in the sense that He pours out His common grace on all. The rain, with its nourishment, falls on the unjust as well as the just.
Even the blessings God bestows upon the impenitent sinner are not ultimately a blessing but a curse. Each gift God gives to the reprobate that is not received with gratitude and honor to the Giver becomes the occasion for fresh sin on the part of the recipient. With each fresh sin comes more guilt and an increase in the wrath of God to which the sinner is exposed. The gifts of God toward the reprobate become ultimately part of the treasure of wrath the sinner is heaping up against the Day of Judgment (Romans 2:5). It would be better for the sinner that God were not so loving.
When we examine Esau, we realize that there is nothing lovable about him. It would be perfectly just and righteous of God to regard Esau as odious in His sight. God has every right to hate the sinner as much as He hates the sin in the fullest sense of the word hate. In our sin we are all loathsome to God. Esau was a vessel fit for destruction. It was fitting for God to hate him.
David, in an imprecatory Psalm, declared that he hated his enemies with a “perfect hatred” (101:2–3; 119:104; 139:21–22). Is such a posture legitimate for men? It would seem that David’s hatred for his enemies, no matter how “perfect,” was incompatible with Jesus’ command to us to love our enemies and with the Great Commandment of the Old Testament, which includes the mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves. Perhaps the Spirit’s inspiration of David’s Psalm goes no further than to insure that David’s sinful attitude toward his enemies is accurately recorded. However, the broader context of the imprecatory psalms seems to indicate that not only the record of David’s perfect hatred but the perfect hatred itself is inspired of God. If so, then obviously perfect hatred would be a virtue and not a vice.
If there is such a thing as a perfect hatred it would mirror and reflect the righteousness of God. It would be perfect to the extent that it excluded sinful attitudes of malice, envy, bitterness, and other attitudes we normally associate with human hatred. In this sense a perfect hatred could be deemed compatible with a love for one’s enemies. One who hates his enemy with a perfect hatred is still called to act in a loving and righteous manner toward him.It’s difficulty, however, should give us pause before we blithely announce to everyone indiscriminately, “Smile, God loves you.”
How can we square this statement with the assumption of the universal love of God for all persons?
The first thing we see about it is that it is structured in the literary form of antithetical parallelism. A vivid contrast is intended between what God does for Jacob and what He does not do for Esau. Since there is an antithesis set forth between “love” and “hate,” all we have to do is discern what love means in the passage and then understand the use of the word hate to refer to its opposite.
This is the tack most interpreters follow. The argument goes like this: When the Bible says that God “hated” Esau it simply means that God gave a special benefit to Jacob that He withheld from Esau. God bestowed the unmerited favor of electing grace on one of the twins; the other (Esau) He passed over. Jacob received God’s mercy (“I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy” [Romans 9:15]). Esau received God’s justice. The dispensing of justice to Esau does not require that God act in a spiteful or “hateful” manner. Even those, such as Esau, who are not the objects of divine election, still in this life receive the common grace of God that flows out of His benevolence.
In this view of the passage, the contrast between God’s love and hatred has nothing to do with God’s affection or lack of it for either party. It merely refers to God’s actions with respect to each.
This may, indeed, be the proper meaning of the passage. However, it still does not get us off the hook. We are still left with the nagging problem that in some sense God does not love all persons equally in the same manner. God’s disposition may be benevolent toward all men in the sense that He pours out His common grace on all. The rain, with its nourishment, falls on the unjust as well as the just.
Even the blessings God bestows upon the impenitent sinner are not ultimately a blessing but a curse. Each gift God gives to the reprobate that is not received with gratitude and honor to the Giver becomes the occasion for fresh sin on the part of the recipient. With each fresh sin comes more guilt and an increase in the wrath of God to which the sinner is exposed. The gifts of God toward the reprobate become ultimately part of the treasure of wrath the sinner is heaping up against the Day of Judgment (Romans 2:5). It would be better for the sinner that God were not so loving.
When we examine Esau, we realize that there is nothing lovable about him. It would be perfectly just and righteous of God to regard Esau as odious in His sight. God has every right to hate the sinner as much as He hates the sin in the fullest sense of the word hate. In our sin we are all loathsome to God. Esau was a vessel fit for destruction. It was fitting for God to hate him.
David, in an imprecatory Psalm, declared that he hated his enemies with a “perfect hatred” (101:2–3; 119:104; 139:21–22). Is such a posture legitimate for men? It would seem that David’s hatred for his enemies, no matter how “perfect,” was incompatible with Jesus’ command to us to love our enemies and with the Great Commandment of the Old Testament, which includes the mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves. Perhaps the Spirit’s inspiration of David’s Psalm goes no further than to insure that David’s sinful attitude toward his enemies is accurately recorded. However, the broader context of the imprecatory psalms seems to indicate that not only the record of David’s perfect hatred but the perfect hatred itself is inspired of God. If so, then obviously perfect hatred would be a virtue and not a vice.
If there is such a thing as a perfect hatred it would mirror and reflect the righteousness of God. It would be perfect to the extent that it excluded sinful attitudes of malice, envy, bitterness, and other attitudes we normally associate with human hatred. In this sense a perfect hatred could be deemed compatible with a love for one’s enemies. One who hates his enemy with a perfect hatred is still called to act in a loving and righteous manner toward him.It’s difficulty, however, should give us pause before we blithely announce to everyone indiscriminately, “Smile, God loves you.”
