Does God show favoritism?

[alexiscurious]

Does God show preferential treatment to some of his creation over others? I know this is especially true with the Jews being God's chosen people but I've been thinking about two other things:

1. Angels did not have to earn eternal life. It came freely and immediately to them, unlike the rest of us who were just not lucky enough.

2. Adam & Eve sin and the rest of humanity has to suffer as a result. Satan sins and the rest of the angels are unaffected by his decision.

So is it fair to conclude that God shows favoritism? I'm not quite sure if there is anything wrong with it but why and how can a fair God play favorites?

 

[orangeness365]

He is impartial, and judges according to deeds.

1 Peter 1:17-19
17And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

 

[98cwitr]

God does not show favoritism in the sense that He loves one of the elect more than the other

Romans 2:10-11 New International Version (NIV)

10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.

2. How are we "suffering" because of what Adam and Eve did? Without the Fall, we would have no need for Christ, and in Christ is Life.

But over all creation, there are the elect and the non-elect, the sheep and the goats, and the wheat and the tares. They are made like this by a Sovereign God. We all have our purposes.

Romans 9

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[h] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

 

[Hawkins]

Does God show preferential treatment to some of his creation over others? I know this is especially true with the Jews being God's chosen people but I've been thinking about two other things:

1. Angels did not have to earn eternal life. It came freely and immediately to them, unlike the rest of us who were just not lucky enough.

2. Adam & Eve sin and the rest of humanity has to suffer as a result. Satan sins and the rest of the angels are unaffected by his decision.

So is it fair to conclude that God shows favoritism? I'm not quite sure if there is anything wrong with it but why and how can a fair God play favorites?

Angels are not given the same extent of freewill as given to humans. Angels are serving spirits, to a certain extent, they are made to be servants unlike humans. As a result, the division of angels occurred in heaven (it is said Satan has brought 1/3 angels with him, they are the fallen angels) while earth is made for the division of humans.

"God doesn't show favoritism" is a generalization that whoever saved (perhaps except for His direct witnesses) are brought to heaven legitimately (in terms of law and covenants) and under open witnesses. God however has many ways to get a person saved.

Israel as a whole was once called to be God's witness. It is not about favoritism, it is the way how God salvation message propagate. Israel is the seed of this message, Canaan is the field where it grows. Finally, a tree of salvation is formed with its branches reaching every corner of human beings.

 

[Justaman0000]

Does God show preferential treatment to some of his creation over others? I know this is especially true with the Jews being God's chosen people but I've been thinking about two other things:

1. Angels did not have to earn eternal life. It came freely and immediately to them, unlike the rest of us who were just not lucky enough.

2. Adam & Eve sin and the rest of humanity has to suffer as a result. Satan sins and the rest of the angels are unaffected by his decision.

So is it fair to conclude that God shows favoritism? I'm not quite sure if there is anything wrong with it but why and how can a fair God play favorites?

Adam and Eve had eternal life also, they lost it when they sinned. We are affected by their decision because we are their offspring. Satan as all other angels do not have offspring.

God shows favoritism to us like we show favoritism to our own children. We love them all but are most pleased with the ones that do good and obey us rather than the ones that disobey and rebel.

 

[oi_antz]

1. Angels did not have to earn eternal life. It came freely and immediately to them

This is interesting, where did this information originate?

 

[alexiscurious]

This is interesting, where did this information originate?

I couldn't tell you the specific point in time where I was taught that but it is something that is commonly accepted. Angels live in heaven...heaven is a place where eternal beings reside? This is the quote that reminded me of it:

A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell -- mouths mercy, and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!
-- Mark Twain

 

[oi_antz]

I couldn't tell you the specific point in time where I was taught that but it is something that is commonly accepted. Angels live in heaven...heaven is a place where eternal beings reside? This is the quote that reminded me of it:

A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell -- mouths mercy, and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!
-- Mark Twain

How reliable do you think this teaching is? Just because people readily accept it, should not be a reason to consider it necessarily true. I remember that Koran says something about angels being made by fire. I don't know of the bible ever saying it. In any case, it is a claim that we can't be sure about since we aren't angels, and even if an angel told us about it, we would need to trust their claim. I recommend forming your beliefs and understandings from reliable facts, otherwise you will have a greater probability of getting wrong beliefs and understandings.