Does God Love the Non-Elect?
00:00:00.000 | Back on Friday, we talked about whether non-Christians can honor God or not.
00:00:09.400 | That was a very helpful episode and I commend it to you as episode number 1145.
00:00:15.200 | Today's question naturally flows from it and it comes to us in the inbox in the
00:00:19.200 | form of a follow-up email from a listener named Daniel who points
00:00:22.800 | back to an even older episode.
00:00:24.600 | Daniel asks this, "Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for the podcast.
00:00:29.000 | In your August 30th episode, you helpfully addressed the correlation
00:00:32.120 | between God's love and his election and the fact that the two are basically
00:00:37.640 | interchangeable, if I understood you correctly.
00:00:40.400 | However, it leaves me with the question about how I am to understand
00:00:44.280 | God's love toward the non-elect.
00:00:46.600 | Does God love the non-elect?
00:00:49.080 | If so, is that love a different quality or characteristic
00:00:53.160 | than his love for the elect?
00:00:55.400 | And thank you, Pastor John, for helping me make sense of this difficult issue."
00:00:59.360 | Well, I'll try.
00:01:00.120 | Let's remind ourselves that with all such questions, we are utterly, totally
00:01:06.280 | dependent on what God has chosen to reveal in his Word.
00:01:11.760 | There is no way we can come up with answers to these kinds of questions
00:01:19.560 | without relying decisively on God's Word.
00:01:24.720 | So you should test everything I say.
00:01:28.840 | By the Word of God, my opinion counts for very little.
00:01:33.760 | God's Word counts for everything.
00:01:37.600 | So let me share with you some texts that show, I think, very clearly
00:01:44.280 | that God loves the non-elect, those whom he has not chosen
00:01:49.440 | for eternal salvation.
00:01:52.000 | And then some passages to show that he has a unique kind of love for
00:01:58.520 | his own elect people, his bride.
00:02:01.040 | Matthew 5, 44.
00:02:03.000 | Jesus says, "I say to you, love your enemies.
00:02:05.720 | Pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your
00:02:10.200 | Father who is in heaven.
00:02:11.520 | For he, God, makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good.
00:02:16.560 | He sends rain on the just and on the unjust."
00:02:20.440 | Acts 14, 16.
00:02:22.600 | Paul in Lystra says to the crowd, "In past generations, he allowed all
00:02:30.520 | nations to walk in their own ways.
00:02:32.480 | Yet he did not leave himself without a witness, but he did good by giving you
00:02:39.520 | rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and
00:02:47.320 | gladness." 1 Timothy 2, 3, and 4.
00:02:51.040 | Pray for your leaders that's good, pleasing in God's sight, who desires all
00:02:58.120 | people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
00:03:02.840 | Ezekiel 33, 11.
00:03:05.160 | "Say to them, 'As I live,' declares the Lord, 'I don't have pleasure in the
00:03:09.560 | death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.'"
00:03:14.880 | Turn back, turn back from your evil ways.
00:03:17.800 | Why would you die, O house of Israel?
00:03:20.280 | John 3, 16.
00:03:21.800 | "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in
00:03:27.800 | him should not perish but have eternal life."
00:03:30.200 | So from those texts, I conclude, and many more, not just those, that there's a real
00:03:38.680 | sense in which God has extended great kindness and goodness and patience and
00:03:46.800 | invitation to the whole unbelieving world of mankind.
00:03:51.600 | As Paul puts it in Romans 2, 4, "To presume upon the riches of his kindness
00:03:57.600 | and forbearance and patience," not knowing God's kindness is leading you to
00:04:01.560 | repentance.
00:04:02.480 | Now the problem arises when folks go beyond Scripture and infer from those
00:04:08.000 | statements about the love of God for all the people that he cannot and does not
00:04:15.040 | elect some to everlasting life, but not all.
00:04:19.800 | In other words, they infer that since he loves all, he must love all in the same
00:04:27.160 | way, that he cannot choose to love some in a more focused, electing, redeeming,
00:04:34.000 | adopting, eternal way.
00:04:36.520 | But it seems to me that's exactly what the Scriptures teach, that he does have a
00:04:42.440 | different love, an electing love, a saving love for some and not all, and that this
00:04:50.680 | is totally owing to the abundance of his grace since nobody deserves it.
00:04:56.320 | I hear the text from which I get that idea, Ephesians 1, 3, following, "God has
00:05:03.960 | blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as
00:05:08.840 | he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and
00:05:14.360 | blameless before him.
00:05:15.520 | In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ
00:05:22.520 | according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace."
00:05:29.440 | Or Ephesians 5, 25, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave
00:05:37.560 | himself up for her, a unique wife love.
00:05:42.120 | I have a special love for my wife, but I hope I love all women appropriately."
00:05:48.120 | Romans 1, 7, "To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints,
00:05:57.240 | grace to you."
00:05:58.040 | Jude 1, "Jude, a servant of Jesus, brother of James, to those who are called,
00:06:04.880 | beloved in God the Father and kept by Jesus."
00:06:09.720 | Romans 9, 25, "As indeed he says in Hosea, 'Those who were not my people, I will
00:06:17.720 | call my people.'
00:06:19.360 | And her who was not beloved, I will call beloved.'"
00:06:27.040 | So there's a sense in which those who are not loved in this way were not loved.
00:06:32.440 | And Romans 8, 28, "We know that those who love God, all things work together for
00:06:38.800 | their good."
00:06:40.040 | That's a kind of love.
00:06:40.880 | God is working all things together for their good.
00:06:44.640 | In John 17, 9, Jesus is praying.
00:06:47.320 | He says, "I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me out
00:06:52.320 | of the world, for they are yours."
00:06:54.280 | So there's a unique praying love that he performs for them and not for others.
00:07:00.400 | Or John 10, 14, "I am the good shepherd.
00:07:03.280 | I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
00:07:09.160 | And I lay down my life for the sheep."
00:07:13.000 | Or 1 Timothy 4, 10, "To this end, we toil and strive because we have our hopes set on
00:07:20.520 | the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe."
00:07:28.080 | So there's a sense in which his saving grace is extended to all, but there is a
00:07:35.120 | special application of it effectively to those whom he draws into faith.
00:07:41.760 | So my answer to Daniel's question is that God's love for the non-elect consists in
00:07:49.120 | genuine acts of kindness and generosity and patience and invitation.
00:07:54.400 | And just think about it.
00:07:55.760 | When you're talking to an unbeliever, we are able to point out to unbelievers
00:08:00.960 | evidences on every hand of God's kindness to them, not the least of which is that we
00:08:10.200 | and they should at this moment be suffering in hell, and we're not.
00:08:15.320 | Nevertheless, every believer knows that we did not save ourselves.
00:08:21.760 | Our faith is not because we're smarter or better or wiser or less fallen than
00:08:28.640 | those who do not believe.
00:08:30.080 | We know that grace alone, not merit, has opened our eyes and caused us to see the
00:08:36.760 | supreme value and beauty of Christ.
00:08:40.240 | And therefore, we know that we have been loved with an everlasting love, a dying
00:08:47.480 | love, a love Paul calls it a great love in Ephesians 2, 5, that raises us from the
00:08:53.520 | dead, an electing love, a regenerating love, a preserving love that we will be
00:09:01.000 | loved with forever, a divine, glorifying love.
00:09:08.240 | And we know that we have merited none of this.
00:09:13.280 | It is totally free, and therefore, we should be utterly and eternally thankful.
00:09:21.360 | And while we have breath, we should be bent on bringing as many people as we can
00:09:30.320 | into this amazing grace, even if it costs us our lives, because that's what it costs
00:09:38.040 | Jesus to bring us in.
00:09:39.800 | Amazing, unmerited grace indeed.
00:09:42.760 | Thank you, Pastor John, for explaining the generosity of God to the non-elect.
00:09:47.440 | And thank you for listening and making this podcast a part of your week in Commute.
00:09:51.480 | You can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our past episodes in our archive.
00:09:55.200 | You can reach us by email with a question of your own, even a follow-up question.
00:09:58.680 | If you have questions that were raised by previous episodes, you can do all that
00:10:01.720 | through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:10:06.720 | Well, it is not easy to apply all of the New Testament to our lives, but it's
00:10:11.760 | certainly easier than trying to apply the Old Testament to all of our lives.
00:10:15.240 | So what role does the Old Testament play in our Christian lives?
00:10:19.520 | That's the question next up on Wednesday.
00:10:22.320 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we will see you then.
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