Conditional Love is No Love
Not infrequently we hear sermons that make God's love sound like a conditional blessing. If you do this God will do that. If you don't do this, God will make you eternally sorry. God loves you, but there is a limit to His patience and Love. Try His patience and lose His love is the underlying message.
The idea of conditional love is an interesting one because it flies in the face of much in human experience. As often as not, we humans love "in spite of" rather than "because of". Human lovers find a hundred ways to overlook and excuse the faults of their beloveds.
The supposedly conditional love often attributed to God sounds more like a legal contract. In fact, it is too much like the Old Covenant arrangement between God and Israel. I thought Jesus came to bring us something a whole lot better than the Old. Love by definition seeks the long-term welfare of the beloved. Eternal damnation is therefore excluded as an act of Love. God cannot claim to Love us and then proceed to act without Love.
God's definition of love is expressed by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians Chapter 13. It is in fact a picture of God and how he acts. Paul says love never fails. It never ceases and it never fails in its purpose. From His own Word then, we know that God's love is unconditional. In addition we know that any professed love with attached conditions is not really love at all.
The idea of conditional love is an interesting one because it flies in the face of much in human experience. As often as not, we humans love "in spite of" rather than "because of". Human lovers find a hundred ways to overlook and excuse the faults of their beloveds.
The supposedly conditional love often attributed to God sounds more like a legal contract. In fact, it is too much like the Old Covenant arrangement between God and Israel. I thought Jesus came to bring us something a whole lot better than the Old. Love by definition seeks the long-term welfare of the beloved. Eternal damnation is therefore excluded as an act of Love. God cannot claim to Love us and then proceed to act without Love.
God's definition of love is expressed by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians Chapter 13. It is in fact a picture of God and how he acts. Paul says love never fails. It never ceases and it never fails in its purpose. From His own Word then, we know that God's love is unconditional. In addition we know that any professed love with attached conditions is not really love at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment