“But
from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is
with those who fear him”. (Psa.
103:17)
It
is often said that God's love for believers is unconditional, meaning
that He will love us and take us to heaven no matter what we do. Is
this true? It is true that God showed unconditional love to the world
in general, when He sent Jesus to die on the cross (John 3:16), but
God's love to us individually is conditional upon our obedience to
Him. This is made obvious in the following statements by Jesus -
-
"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 too will love him and
show myself to him”
(John 14:21).
-
“If
you obey my commands, you will remain in my love”
(John 15:10).
-
“If
anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown
away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire
and burned”
(John 15:6).
The
'ifs' in these verses make it quite clear that Jesus' love is
conditional upon our obedience to His commands. Psa.
103:17-18 say, “But
from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who
fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children - with
those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts”.
So, once again, we see that God's love is conditional upon our
obedience to His commands.
Rom.
8:35-39 is often quoted as proof that nothing can separate us from
God's love. These verses list many hardships such as persecution,
famine, sword etc. and say that nothing
"in
all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God".
Note that these hardships are all external influences and God's
promise is that He will keep us in His love through them and anything
else Creation can offer. However, no mention is made of sin which is
the result of the internal influence of our sinful nature. Sin comes
from within and always separates us from God
just
as Isa. 59:2 tells
us, “But
your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have
hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”
The
fact that sin always separates us from God was made clear from the
beginning of Creation. In the Garden, Adam was sinless and literally
walked with God. However, once he sinned, he was removed from the
Garden and separated from God's presence. It is the same today, sin
will separate us from God.
Some
say that once we become a son of God we will always be a son of God.
In our physical world, it is true that a father/son relationship
cannot be changed, however, something that is true physically is not
necessarily true spiritually. In John 8:44, Jesus told some Jews that
the Devil was their father, that is, they were sons of the Devil. If
“once a son, always a son” was also true in the spiritual realm
then these Jews could never be saved because they were already sons
of the Devil - “once a son of the Devil, always a son of the
Devil”. However, because salvation is available to everyone, these
Jews could have been saved at a later time and spiritually changed
from being sons of the Devil to being sons of God. So, because “once
a son, always a son” is not true spiritually, a son of the Devil
can choose to repent and become a son of God and, in the same way, a
son of God can choose to go into sin and return to being a son of the
Devil. Speaking to believers, 1
John 3:10 tells us, “Anyone
who does not do what is right is not a child of God”.
So, it
can be seen that God's love towards us as individuals is not
unconditional but depends upon our personal walk with Jesus. In
Luke
13:3, Jesus said, “unless
you repent, you too will all perish”.
The word “repent”
is Present Tense meaning that we must repent of our sins and continue
in repentance otherwise we will not remain in God's love but will
instead perish. Amen
This
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The
video of “Is God's Love Unconditional” can be seen on YouTube at- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7HVuD1XyEw
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Mick
Alexander leeandmick@gmail.com http://www.ChristianIssues.biz
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