The Love of God: God’s General Love for All Mankind (Part 3/4)

Moving from a discussion of God’s love within His intratrinitarian Persons (see here) and God’s provisional love for all of His creation (see here), we move now to discuss yet another aspect of God’s other-orientation and self-giving love in this third installment within this series on God’s love—God’s general love for all mankind. There is a sense in which God’s love for all of mankind could have been included in the preceding discussion of God’s provisional love for all of His creation.

However, this treatment would detract from the very significance that God Himself places on His special creation, the human. Man, like no other part of God’s creation, is said to have been “created in God’s image” (Gen 1:27). This declaration sets mankind apart from the animals of the earth and even the angels of heaven (1 Pet 1:12).

Sin entered into the world through one man (Gen 3), and thus, spread death to all men (Rom 5:12) so that they would inherit original sin thenceforth. Yet, astoundingly, God has not turned His affections away from His special creatures, but genuinely cares for each of them[1] as “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt 5:44).

Immediately, one should recognize a distinguishing difference between two kinds of people, the “evil and the good”—those separated from Christ and those found righteous in Christ. But, God surely cares even for evil people, those who are not in Christ. The reality is that no man is worthy of God’s love, since all men, whether redeemed or reprobate, are monstrously evil in their natures (Rom 3:9-12). However, one of the most incredible things about God is that “while we were sinners,” (Rom 5:8) He, nevertheless, demonstrates His love to us.[2] Moreover, He instructs His disciples to repay evil with good, to love their enemies, to pray for and bless them (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:27-28; Rom 12:14, 17-21; 1 Cor 4:12; 1 Pet 3:9; 1 John 2:9, 10). If God would instruct His disciples to demonstrate such care for evil people, then it must be concluded that He has genuine care, love, and concern for all people. We as Christians should, therefore, share in God’s love for all mankind.

Many have objected to the notion that God could genuinely love both the elect and the non-elect. The argument suggests that because God foreordained the election of some to salvation to the exclusion of others, then God must not care for the non-elect. But, this overlooks the reality of the two wills in God. God has a certain preceptive will in which He does not take pleasure “in the death of the wicked (Ezek 18:23).” Yet, He has another will, His decretive will, which ordains and makes effective the death of many (Gen 19:24, 25). God despises death (Deut 5:17), but He predestines the death of Christ (Isa 53:4, 10) along with those who would be instrumental in bringing His death about (Acts 4:27, 28). God genuinely loves all men (John 3:16) and desires their repentance (Acts 17:30), yet He elects some to salvation (Eph 1:4) and passes over others (Rom 9:13-18). [3]

God makes obvious His love for mankind in the fact that He Himself became man in the incarnation (Luke 2). “God is love. By this, the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:8, 9). This “manifestation” of God’s Son is the only hope of life for mankind.[4] Some argue that “there could be no greater indication of the love of God for humanity than this personal union of human nature with the divine nature.”[5] This God-man, Jesus, was born as a child and was given as a gift to the world (Isa 9:6). Again, the Father sent His Son, born of a woman (Gal 4:4, 5) to accomplish His Father’s will.[6]

This “Grand Miracle,”[7] as it is termed by C.S. Lewis, occurs so that as He descends, taking on humanity, to reascend, “He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him… He must stoop in order to lift.”[8] The kenosis (Phil 2:7-8) entailed the emptying of Himself, laying aside His divine and sovereign majesty while assuming human nature in the form of a servant. He subjected Himself to humiliation—the divine Lawgiver became subject to His own law.[9] Scripture represents the incarnation as conditioned on the reality of human sin (Luke 19:10; John 3:16; Gal 4:4; 1 John 3:8; Phil 2:5-11), yet the incarnation has always been part of the plan of God—that the Son would invade the world to demonstrate His other-oriented love through the redemption of His people.[10]

Again, the love of God for all humanity is seen in Christ’s death on the cross. This cross has been called “the consummate proof of divine love.”[11] It is at the cross that Christ reaches the lowest point of His humiliation. The Apostle Paul exults in this glorious humiliation: “though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).[12] When the greatness of the person of Christ, along with the horrific death by which He died, is considered, the immense sacrifice that the Father and Son made there becomes clear. When the distance between the divine and the human is measured, the indescribable sacrifice appears even more spectacular. There is only one explanation for God’s sacrifice for man: “the riches of His grace” (Eph 1:7). It is not God’s response to man’s worth, however, but an overflow of His love that brings about this sacrifice.[13]

God’s love at the cross cannot be properly understood apart from His wrath. A correct understanding of wrath affects how the cross is to be understood. God’s love and His compassion are essential qualities to the doctrine of the cross of Christ, but His holiness and wrath must be comprehended as well. Sin is the issue at hand—if God is not wrathful against sin, there is no point in the cross. Sin causes death, and so, something must die in order for man to live. This is the very nature of survival. Men only live because other thing(s) die. This is the same picture being portrayed in the cross. D.A. Carson illustrates this point well when he says, “We feed on Jesus: He dies, or we do.”[14] The good news of the Gospel is wrath averted—wrath directed at man, averted to God’s own Son who takes the sins of man on Himself. Christ became sin for man; He bears man’s sin in His body, but He also endures the Father’s judgment and holy wrath against Him as a “sin offering” (Rom 8:3, 4) until the Father is satisfied. A biblically honest reading of God’s wrath can only lead to the adoption of penal substitutionary atonement.[15] The cross is inexplicable apart from divine wrath; the Gospel makes no sense apart from wrath. This glorious Gospel is the pinnacle of God’s love for mankind.

Lastly, God’s general love for humanity is made manifest in the universal calling of the Gospel (Matt 23:37; John 3:16; 1 Tim 2:3, 4; Tit 2:11; 2 Pet 3:9). God’s love for mankind cannot simply be “collapsed into His love for the elect”[16] as some have argued. When God invites sinners to repent and receive forgiveness (Isa. 1:18; Matt. 11:28-30), His pleading is genuine: “‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’” (Ezek. 33:11). It is clear, then, that God does love even those who despise and reject His loving mercy.[17] The fourth and final installment to this series on God’s love will address God’s special love for His elect.

[2] John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), 29.

[3] John Piper has written an excellent essay on this topic, John Piper, “Are There Two Wills in God? Divine Election and God’s Desire for All to Be Saved,” in The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God (Colorado Spring, CO: Multnomah, 2000), 313-40.

[4] John MacArthur, The Love of God (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996), 34-35.

[5] Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 563.

[6] James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John, An Expositional Commentary, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999), 26-27.

[7] C.S. Lewis, Miracles (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 174.

[8] Ibid., 179.

[9] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: W. M. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1941), 332.

[10] Ibid., 333-34.

[11] MacArthur, The Love of God, 34.

[12] J.L. Dagg, A Manual of Theology (Harrisonburg, VA: Gano Books, 1990), 206.

[13] Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, 29.

[14] D.A. Carson, “The Wrath of God,” in Engaging the Doctrine of God: Contemporary Protestant Perspectives, ed. Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2008), 59.

[15] According to Thomas Schreiner, “Penal substitution functions as the anchor and foundation for all other dimensions of the atonement when the scriptures are considered as a canonical whole. I define penal substitution as follows: The Father, because of his love for human beings, sent his Son (who offered himself willingly and gladly) to satisfy his justice, so that Christ took the place of sinners. The punishment and penalty we deserved was laid on Jesus Christ instead of us, so that in the cross both God’s holiness and love are manifested.” See Thomas R. Schreiner, “Penal Substitution View,” in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, eds. Beilby, James and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 67.

[16] D.A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000), 17.

[17] John MacArthur, The God Who Loves: He Will Do Whatever It Takes To Draw Us To Him (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001), 14-16.