Question 1

What do we mean by describing God’s love as unconditional?

Accepted Answer

While the term “unconditional” is not used in the Bible, the actions, descriptions, and illustrations of God’s love point to his unchanging attitude toward the creatures he made in his image. God’s immutability (unchanging and unchangeable nature) emphasizes that, like every one of his attributes, God’s love remains.Deuteronomy 33:27“The eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you. He drives out the enemy before you; he cries out, ‘Destroy them!’”Psalm 6:3-4I am sick at heart. How long, O Lord, until you restore me? Return, O Lord, and rescue me. Save me because of your unfailing love.David expressed the contrast that always exists between God’s unchanging consistency and our all-too-changeable experiences. In our perception, God’s love may seem as fluctuating as our own, but faith calmly asserts what is true about God’s nature, including his unfailing love.Psalm 93:2Your throne, O Lord, has stood from time immemorial. You yourself are from the everlasting past.Psalm 106:48Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives from everlasting to everlasting! Let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the Lord!Psalm 145:13For your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. You rule throughout all generations. The Lord always keeps his promises; he is gracious in all he does.The psalm writers reveled in God’s greatness and surpassing attributes. We can grasp at God’s unchanging nature and unconditional love, but our practice of anything similar is only a faint imitation.Isaiah 54:8In a burst of anger I turned my face away for a little while. But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer.Hebrews 12:4-11After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin. And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.” As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever? For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.Our understanding of God’s unconditional love for us is challenged by such realities is God’s judgment and anger. But the Bible makes clear that God is perfectly consistent within himself, so that even our experience of God’s anger is actually an expression of God’s love. His anger over our sin is a consistent response based on his deep care for us. If God did not discipline us, he would not be demonstrating his unconditional love for us.Jeremiah 31:3Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”Romans 5:6-8When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.Both Old and New Testaments depict God consistently acting out of his unconditional love. Paul describes this in practical terms by drawing the distinction between dying for someone because they merit our sacrifice and dying for someone because we love them. God ultimately expressed his unconditional love by dying for us before we even knew we needed a savior.

Question 2

Why is it hard to think of God’s love in unconditional terms?

Accepted Answer

Luke 15:17-21“When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’ So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’”Our human experience of love is almost invariably conditional, and it often involves our feelings that we don’t really deserve love. This can come to taint our relationship with God. This is particularly true in moments of repentance, when we realize we have abused and resisted God’s love and desire to restore our relationship with him. Like the prodigal son, we assume God will only accept us back if we agree to take a lesser role than a fully loved child. Like the prodigal, we are shocked to experience God’s open-armed welcome.1 Corinthians 13:4-13Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.We instinctively long to experience and express love in its purest form, yet discover that we both receive and practice love imperfectly. We desperately need love and need to love yet find ourselves unable to manage either on our own. Momentary expressions of unconditional love and awareness of God’s unconditional love for us are only possible for us by God’s gift of grace.1 John 4:9-10God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.Loving God is never meeting a condition that allows God to love us; God’s love always pre-empts ours and the best expression of our response to him is obedient, loving actions to carry out what God tells us to do through his guidance and strength.

Question 3

What response does God’s unconditional love still require of us?

Accepted Answer

John 3:16-17“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”Romans 5:8God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.Our response to God’s love doesn’t alter or increase that love toward us; it simply removes barriers between us and our experience of that love, the chief one being allowing the freeing, life-giving effects of God’s ultimate sacrificial act in expressing his love to change us and our destiny.1 John 4:11-21Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first. If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.The practical outworking of God’s love in our lives can be seen in the way we love others. When we do not love others or allow God’s love to shape and drive our love for others, we are indicating that we have not yet truly experienced and responded to God’s love for ourselves.

Unconditional