Saying "God loves you." to people.

[Osage Bluestem]

I am a person who doesn't believe that God loves the reprobate in a familial way. I don't think he ever has or ever will. I do not think he provided any atonement for them at all. I think that they were created to maintain an evil world so that he could be glorified in it's destruction and their destruction and generally the destruction of evil and so that the elect could be edified in their knowledge of God's hatred of evil and his destruction of it.

So, I am a little wary when a pastor or someone says "God loves you" to a crowd of people. The way I rectify this in my mind is in the consideration that if indeed it is only the elect that he is speaking to out of that crowd then that is indeed true that God loves them. If he is really speaking to everyone then he is lying to many of them, unless we say that God loves even the reprobate in some way other than familial.

I have seen some outreach ministries that outreach by saying things like "Someone loves you. You are loved by Jesus." Etc. As I said I see this as true if this is taken in the context of speaking to a lost sheep that Christ came to seek and to save. But I don't see it as a true statement concerning the reprobate who was damned before the foundation of the world.

I believe that love that has the power to save will save or it is no love at all. What do you believe? Is something wrong with me? How do I express God's love of the elect to the general populace?

YouTube - Jesus Shall Not Fail

 

[Andres]

I agree with you. Years ago when I was in the process of coming out of Pentecostalism, I took a group of teenagers to a youth camp. All during the week the speaker would say over and over again, "God loves you. God isn't mad at you." It bothered me some then, but even more so now looking back on it.

 

[Bill The Baptist]

I agree with what you are saying in theory, but then again Jesus commands us to love our enemies. Would Jesus command us to do something that he himself wouldn't do? I do agree that the way most people would say "God Loves You" is incorrect. God may indeed love them in a way, but he still created them for destruction. If we were to actually heed the command of Jesus and love our enemies, it would be in a different way than we love our families.

 

[Jack K]

"God so loved the world..."

We can say to any group "God loves you" in the sense that they respresent the world of lost or once-lost souls and God has entered that world in love to redeem it. Of course, we don't know which if any of those people are actually elect and are personally loved by God with a saving love. And in America, that sort of personal love is usually what people take "God loves you" to mean. But still there is a sense in which we can say "God loves you" to the world. In fact, if we feel a compulsion to always hedge our talk of God's amazing love to the world by giving a disclaimer—"but only if you're elect"—we end up diluting the power of the gospel message. The gospel call goes out with God taking the initiative — "God has acted in love to rescue you. Now believe in him!" — even though we recognize it won't actually apply to those who reject that call.

Furthermore, we can say to a group of professing believers "God loves you" because they represent the church and God loves the church with a saving love. Again, we don't know for sure which if any of those professing believers are actually elect, but it is still appropriate to encourage the church by speaking to them as those loved of God. The epistles do it all the time.

The trick is for the speaker to convey God's deep love for the world without giving the impression that God loves everyone personally regardless of their faith or lack thereof. This will take more than a single, "God loves you," feel-good sentence.

 

[Steve Curtis]

The trick is for the speaker to convey God's deep love for the world without giving the impression that God loves everyone personally regardless of their faith or lack thereof.

So "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life" probably doesn't fit the bill?

 

[Peairtach]

"God loves you. God isn't mad at you."

For those of us who believe in common grace it would probably be better to say "God loves you as His creatures made in His image, but you are under His wrath until you are reconciled to Him in Christ, and He doesn't love you as His child until then."

We may believe that God loves the non-elect in some sense, but since even the elect are children of wrath before conversion, along with the reprobate, it is wrong to say to the unconverted, "God isn't mad at you because He loves you."

Why can't God love you and still be mad at you?

And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD. (II Sam 11:27, ESV)

God was mad at David with a Fatherly anger after he had been converted, justified and adopted.

Jack

The trick is for the speaker to convey God's deep love for the world without giving the impression that God loves everyone personally regardless of their faith or lack thereof. This will take more than a single, "God loves you," feel-good sentence.

Maybe I'm a bit cynical, and theologically cynical, or maybe I'm a realist, but sometimes these sentences, without proper explanation, aren't "feel-good" anyway. More like sentimental mush.

 

[Don Kistler]

When we are instructed in the gospels to "love your enemies," it is then defined for us what that means, and what we are to do. "Do good to them, pray for them who despitefully use you," and "give to those who ask of you."

I don't think any of us have a problem with that. Christ follows it up with, "for your Father in heaven is *kind* to evil and ungrateful men." We show love for our enemies by being kind to them, just as God is universally kind to evil and ungrateful men.

But, as John MacArthur says, "We can't tell sinners that God has a wonderful plan for their life unless hell is a wonderful plan."

 

[Osage Bluestem]

When we are instructed in the gospels to "love your enemies," it is then defined for us what that means, and what we are to do. "Do good to them, pray for them who despitefully use you," and "give to those who ask of you."

I don't think any of us have a problem with that. Christ follows it up with, "for your Father in heaven is *kind* to evil and ungrateful men." We show love for our enemies by being kind to them, just as God is universally kind to evil and ungrateful men.

But, as John MacArthur says, "We can't tell sinners that God has a wonderful plan for their life unless hell is a wonderful plan."

Great post. Thanks Dr. Kistler.

 

[Andres]

For those of us who believe in common grace it would probably be better to say "God loves you as His creatures made in His image, but you are under His wrath until you are reconciled to Him in Christ, and He doesn't love you as His child until then."

I like that!

 

[awretchsavedbygrace]

I think because of the age in which we live, we are weary when someone says "God loves you". I can understand that. I don't use it because I know what it conveys to some people. They take it as: " Okay, God loves me, I can go out and live however I want, and eventually when I'm older, I'll start being obedient and start going to church- surely God will forgive me, since he loves me". That is usually what people believe. So, that is why I don't say it to unbelievers.

 

[JM]

Excellent op David.

 

[Osage Bluestem]

Excellent op David.

Thanks my friend.

 

[MichaelR]

Hello, my first post!

Great topics on this forum.

I have got in much trouble by saying that God does not love all.

I have a hard time understanding how God can love someone and simultaneously have His wrath abide in that person.

Some bring up "Common Grace", which is something I happen to not believe in anymore. I lost a spirited debate on that topic. For every day that God preserves the reprobate, they are accumulating wrath. "He knows how.......keep the wicked for judgment".

Is there such a thing as partial love with God? I like how Berkof put it, "When God's love falls on inperfection it is frustrated" IE Angered. So in a sense God can love all, but that love turns instantly to hatred and wrath.

It's a important topic for me, considering I'm training my 10 year old boy in the doctrines of grace.

 

[JM]

[video=youtube;TPSG2Sxe4AQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPSG2Sxe4AQ[/video]