This is kind of what I'm talking about. Why would you presume that it is "lowering" God's parameters to contend that He doesn't "love" everyone?
Because He says He loves (agapao) His enemies, and most arguments if not all on this thread are asserting the exact opposite.
I'm not calling into question God's ability or His authority to extend His love to whomsoever He chooses. I'm simply saying that words have meanings and in the scope of salvation and the role of God, "love" is a biggie.
But I'd suggest that God's love extends
beyond His salvation. That seems to be exactly what God says.
Many of you seem to assume that it makes the least bit of sense to purport that God "loves" those who end up in hell.
Do you find it unusual that people love those who have been sentenced to life imprisonment or death by the government, who acknowledge the perpetrator has done immense crimes?
I would rather acknowledge that the love of the Almighty is purposed for, and cannot but achieve the salvation of those to whom He extends it and, therefore, it is impossible and illogical to contend that God loves those who end up in hell.
Well that's fine, but don't call it Scripture. Call it your personal theology.
I don't understand what you mean here. Can you reword or explain?
I find people saying God's love has to be universal in all respects or it's not right. We see "knowing" love required by God exclusively for particular individuals.
It's no surprise to me that this generation has little to no understanding of what love is. But the only way to get a Scriptural understanding of what love is, is to trace its use in Scripture.
Um...great? Who cares about Calvinism? I don't have a problem with complicated doctrine. I don't have a problem with not understanding something. What I have a problem with is when people make nonsense out of words. We are logical creatures, fashioned after a logical Creator. We convey true meaning with words. When those words can mean anything, or nothing at all, well, we might as well call ourselves Arminians.
When those words express a specific thing about a class of people I take notice. They mean something. Words may not mean
what I want them to mean to combat another theology. They still maintain something.
In this case I think it's clear from the statement that God has a love that isn't focused solely on the elect, and yet it is not intent on saving them.
Not particularly a fan of John Gill but here he is on Matt 5:45
That ye may be the children of your father…
... Christ's meaning is, that they might appear, and be known to be the children of God, by doing those things in which they resemble their heavenly Father; and which are agreeable to his nature and conduct; as the tree is known by its fruit, and the cause by its effect: for where adoption and regenerating grace take place, the fruit of good works is brought forth to the glory of God. Some copies, instead of (uioi) , "children", read (omoioi) "like": and accordingly, the Persic version renders it thus, "that ye may be like your Father, which is heaven". Our Lord seems to have respect to the Jews, often having in their mouths this expression, (Mymvb wnyba) , "our Father which is in heaven"; and to their frequent boasting that they were the children of God; and therefore he would have them make this manifest by their being like him, or acting in imitation of him;
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil, and on the good.
Christ instances in one of the greatest blessings in nature, the sun, so useful to the earth, and so beneficial to mankind for light and heat; which he calls "his sun": his own, and not another's; which he has made, and maintains, orders to run its race, and commands it to rise morning by morning, and that upon good and bad men; one, as well as another; all equally share in, and partake of its benign influences, and enjoy the comfortable effects and blessings of it:
and sendeth rain on the just and unjust;
that is, on the fields of persons of such different characters, even both the early and the latter rain; which makes the earth fruitful, crowns it with goodness, and causes it to bring forth bread to the eater, and seed to the sower. This is one of the most considerable blessings of life; the gift of it is God's sole prerogative; it is peculiar to him; it is what none of the vanities of the Gentiles can give; and yet is bestowed by him on the most worthless and undeserving. This flows from that perfection of God, which the Cabbalists call ''"chesed, mercy", or benignity, to which it is essential to give largely to all, both "to the just and unjust".''
What Gill calls benign benificence and blessings, God calls love.
I'm not going to lower or redefine God's parameters for Him.
