“Their preconceived ideas cause them to disbelieve. ...
... If a man learns without preconceived ideas, he has ears to hear the truth.”
—Clement of Alexandria
“People don't alter their beliefs easily. ...
Many people refuse to accept an irrefutable truth
simply because that truth puts them in the wrong.”
—Kemka, The Orville S1 E4
“To be honest is to confront the truth. However unpleasant and
inconvenient the truth may be, I believe we must expose and face it.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“It is a small and narrow mind that is afraid to change;
it is a sign of greatness that one is prepared to admit
at times that one has been mistaken, and that therefore
you have had to change your position.”
―David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Much of what I am about to discuss, the questions I am going to ask, the Calvinist will answer in the affirmative. However, his/her thinking is stunted. They are not truly paying attention to the questions and what is being said. They are thinking only in relation to themselves and other believers; they are ignoring the “reprobates.” So for the Calvinist who will read this, read it in light of those people whom you believe God preordained, predestined, determined, and decreed before the very foundations of the world to inhabit Hell.
God’s first and foremost attribute is His holiness. All other attributes are defined by His holiness. His greatest attritube is His love. Mercy means nothing without love. Grace means nothing without love. Even His justice is meted in love. In light of this fact, what does God’s love look like?
1 John 4:8: “God is love.” True of false?
Is God’s character and expression of love better, the same, or worse than our own? One would expect that it should be better and higher than our own.
Is God most glorified at the expense of His creation (as taught by Calvinism), or at the expense of Himself for the sake of His creation? In other words, does God manifest His glory by sacrificing Himself for His creation?
Would the God revealed through Christ Jesus rather die than condemn another? Would He rather pay the price Himself than to make His enemies pay it?
If God tells us He desires mercy over justice, would we not expect Him to embody, characterize, and express precisely this toward His creation? (Matt. 5:38-41; 9:13) And to a greater and higher degree than we ever could?
Does God love His enemies—all His enemies—and give Himself up for them? (Matt. 5:42-48)
Would God pass by on the other side of the road to avoid His enemies, or instead stop and provide for them even in their rebellion? (Luke 10:25-37)
Is Jesus the perfect reflection of the very nature of God? Why or why not?
What is love not?
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 1 Cor. 13:1-3
According to this passage, love is not:
- having the power to do all things (omnipotence).
- having knowledge of all things (omniscience).
- providing for the poor and needy (benevolence).
Omnipotence without love is impotent. Omniscience apart from love is worthless. Benevolent gifts apart from love are nothing.
What does true and genuine love look like?
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 1 Cor. 13:4-8a
This is God’s standard of love!
“Love does not seek its own” is best described as self-sacrificial rather than self-serving. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Is love at its very root self-sacrificial? Yes, of course it is!
Anything less than this cannot be called “love.” One may refer to “kindness” or “care” in reflection of some common provisions for humanity, but unless it reaches the level of self-sacrifice it does not meet the biblical definition of true and genuine love.
If God is love, which He is, and if love at its very root is self-sacrificial, which it is, then perhaps we need to humbly reconsider our theological beliefs instead of proudly going down with the sinking ship.
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Given the biblical definition of love as self-sacrifice, let us consider Jesus’ commands:
“Love your neighbour as yourself” and “Love your enemies.” Are these expectations that God Himself is unwilling to fulfill? Is God being hypocritical by telling us to do something He is unwilling to do? God should be fulfilling these commands to a greater and higher degree than that which He requires from His creation. The very reason Jesus told His followers to love their enemies was “in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:45). Let that sink in, Christian!
In other words, we are to love our enemies because God loves His enemies—all His enemies.
The pagan Samaritans were detested as enemies of God by the Jews. Jesus taught to self-sacrificially love everyone, including our worst enemies, because that reflects the very nature of God Himself. If we do not believe this to be true, then our theology is flawed and bankrupt and we need to “search the Scriptures” like the Bereans instead of being spoon fed and told what to believe by some preacher who convincingly conned us by use of proof text methodology, eisegesis, and Scripture twisting.
Did Jesus fulfill the Law perfectly in every way? (Matt. 5:17-18) I would hope your answer here is, “Yes.”
Does this not include the greatest commandment?
How can God’s self-sacrificial love for His enemies not be as encompassing as what He demands from His followers?
Is God the Father’s love any less far-reaching that that which is reflected in the Son? If Jesus showed us the Father as Scripture tells us, then everything we see in Jesus is a reflection of the Father.
Would God expect our love to be more encompassing and self-sacrificing than His own? If God is not willing to do that which He requires of us, and to a greater and higher degree, then that makes Him a hypocrite. Is that the sort of god you believe in?
Jesus, Who is God, and Who expressed the very nature of the Father, loves everyone equally, including His most undeserving enemies. Otherwise He would have failed to fulfill the demands of the Law. Paul said, “For the entire Law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbour [including your enemies] as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14), and, “He who loves his neighbour [including his enemies] has fulfilled the law” (Rom. 13:8). To deny Jesus’ self-sacrificial love for everyone is to deny that He fulfilled the demands of the Law. This would disqualify Him as the perfect atoning sacrifice.
When God invites His enemies to be reconciled (Is. 1:18; 2 Cor. 5:20; Matt. 11:28-30), He is making an appeal from a sincere heart of self-sacrificial love. “‘As surely as I live,’ declares the LORD, ‘ I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’” (Ezek. 33:11).
“Hate” in Scripture is merely an expression of choosing one thing over another. Jesus told Peter, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and bothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). Jesus did not mean we are to literally hate those members of our families. He meant we should prefer Him over them and to love Him more than we love them. He means the same thing when He says, “Esau I hated.” God certainly did not hate Cain. “Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.””
Scripture says God is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” (Ps. 103:8). Is this true or not? If God is any less of this than He demands from us, then He is not God. God cannot and will not demand more from His creation than He Himself is willing to do! If our beliefs go contrary to this fact, then our beliefs are wrong. Period. We need to re-evaluate the theology we embrace.
Would you be repulsed by someone who breeds puppies for the sole purpose of torturing any of them willfully? Of course you would! So I guess humans have a greater morality and humanity than God Himself, Whom we are made in the image of. At least the Calvinist god, that is.
If we bring children into the world, we take on an obligation to love them. God’s freedom was in the freedom to create or not. He did not have to create. Once He creates, as a necessarily good and loving Being, He takes on an obligation to love His creation. Love is not an option with God. There is no question of whether God chooses to love or not. It is Who He is. God’s eternal nature is love. That means that at its very core His love is self-sacrificial. It is not an option for God to not love His creation. All of it! Including the “reprobates.” God cannot fail to be perfectly loving any more than He can lie.
If our theology does not express God in this way, then our theology is wrong, no matter how deeply we may feel about it or how easily we were convinced of it by proof text methodology, eisegesis, and Scripture twisting.
The question we need to be asking is: How does a loving God express His sovereignty?