Unconditionally loved by God? Part 4. Does death change God's attitude?

I came across the following story that got me thinking:

In a certain quarter of London, one of the many evangelists employed for that purpose, had gone forth to preach to the people.  When he had concluded an eloquent address, he was thus accosted by one of his hearers: “Sir”, said the man, ‘May I ask you one or two questions?”

“Surely”, said the preacher.  

“You have told us that God’s love for us is very great and very strong.”

“Yes”

“That he sent His Son on purpose to save us, and that I may be saved this very moment, if I will.”

“Yes,”

“But that if I go away without an immediate acceptance of this offer, and if, a few minutes after I were to be by any accident killed on the way home, I should find myself in hell for ever and ever.”

“Yes”

“Then“ said the man, “if so, I don’t want to have anything to do with a Being Whose love for me can change so completely in five minutes.” ^[1]

---

[1] Christ Triumphant, Thomas Allin ch3 

It’s a powerful and emotive story that asks a pertinent question: Does God’s attitude toward us change when we die? Certainly, our attitude does not change when somebody dies; if we loved somebody before they died, we tend to love them afterward too.

It appears that the incarnate God has similar sentiments toward those He loved who have died. Is this not the attitude Christ has toward Lazarus—He did not stop loving him after he died. (An interesting side note: if Christ manifests the fullness of God, does not His attitude perfectly reflect the Father’s? Could this little episode not reveal the love of God continuing for the deceased?)

Caravaggio's raising of Lazarus

From a logical perspective, therefore, it would make sense to presuppose that God would continue to love the one He loved prior to their death. Nevertheless, even though this makes sense, this is not the portrayal of God given in many Christian circles I have been involved in. I have been submerged in a worldview similar to the evangelist described in Allin's story, one that says that God’s attitude does change toward us after we die. But is that a fair reading of Scripture?

I understand why the evangelist might presuppose such a thing based on his understanding of judgment, which he believes is made clear in Scripture. I assume he believed that this sinner would be thrown into the flames of hell to be tortured forever. To his credit, certain Scriptures, read at face value, would seem to suggest such a future. Nevertheless, this vision does not align with our moral intuition of what being loved by God might look like—a fact clearly brought out by the "hearer" in Allin's story. Clearly, in this traditional conception of hell, there is no betterment for the one suffering. Surely, the very essence of truly loving another is that you hope for their well-being and ultimate happiness?

Within the Christian Church, since its earliest days, there have been competing understandings of the nature of hell. The three most common depictions are:

1. Eternal conscious torment – where sinners are tormented for their sins forever and ever. This became the mainstream view in the Western Church in large part due to Augustine and remains the default version.
2. Annihilationism – where sinners are extinguished (perish) from existence. This view had some notable backers in the early Church. Figures such as Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Arnobius are all put forward as early annihilationists. More recently, evangelicals such as John Stott, Edward Fudge, and John Wenham have brought this view back into vogue.
3. Purgatorial – where hell is a place or state of punishment that is reformatory. This was a seemingly popular view for the first 500 years, held by figures such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa. It then fell into disrepute and has been viewed with great suspicion—even as heresy. Nevertheless, it has been heralded again by some evangelicals like Robin Parry and Thomas Talbott, and the Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart.

It is an area of theology that has consumed my time too. For well over a decade, I have been exploring these ideas and am in the process of completing a book on it called A Hope in Hell, which, God willing, will be available soon!

Unconditionally loved by God? Part 3.

It seems sad that I might have to prove to myself the absolute love of God for all of creation.  But having been schooled by very admirable, and from all reports, godly, theologians and preachers within the Calvinist stream, they left a huge question mark in my mind over the extent of the love of God.  This is no surprise as the sources of their thinking, John Calvin and before him, Augustine of Hippo, by their doctrines of predestination put into question the wideness of God’s mercy.  However, over time I have been attempting to critically evaluate some of their doctrines that attempted to dissuade me from the Biblically based belief - which if I'm honest I think I instinctively knew - that God really loves all that He has created.

Although I am neither Orthodox or Catholic (who include the following in their Bible) as a member of the Church of England (which views the Apocrypha as edificatory reading) I was grateful to be introduced to the following excerpt from the Book of Wisdom:

22 Before you, the whole world is nothing but dust on the scale or but a drop of dew that falls to earth in the night. 23 Yet precisely because you can do all things, you show mercy to everyone. You overlook their sins, giving them a chance to change their hearts and minds. 24 You love everything that exists. You despise nothing that you have made. If you hated it, you wouldn't have created it. 25 Nothing could survive unless you had willed it. Nothing could remain unless you continued to call it into being. 26 You spare all things because all things are yours, ruler and lover of life. (Wisdom 11:22-26)

There is so much in these verses that correlate with both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament - it is a helpful picture of the love and grace of God in bringing transformation to humans.  I also see some interesting echoes in the visions of Julian of Norwich, with her emphasis on the love of God for all that He has made, and how the world is so small and yet kept in being because God loves it:

“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.” (Julian of Norwich - Revelations of Divine Love)

I am of the opinion, that it is the realisation of this truth that can affect us profoundly; that can lead us to repentance - to a change of mind (The Greek word translated repentance in the New Testament is metanoia, which literally means 'change of mind') which leads to a change of action.  Maybe this is why John would write, 'We love because He first loved us.'  (1 John 4:19) It was the realisation of the love of God, specifically revealed in Jesus's self sacrificial life and death, that illuminated those first disciples and drew out of them a response of love in their dealings with others.  According to Paul it is the kindness or goodness of God that leads us to repentance. (Romans 2:4)

If we discover this mind boggling truth that we are beloved of God.  It should change us; just as the love of another, if we allow it into our lives, can change us.  I think in this regard of an elderly gentleman I know who was quite harsh and cold when I first knew him and yet over the years I have seen that intimidating persona dissolve away and I suspect it was the love of his wife a gentle, joyful, loving and loyal soul who was devoted to him, that was a major factor in that transformation.

This unveiling of the love of God is attributed to the work of the Spirit of God.  It is the Spirit who sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts (Romans 5:5).  It is the Spirit that shows us what God has freely given to us (1 Corinthians 2:12).  Therefore, I think it is only right that we ask God that He might help us to 'see' the love that God has for us.  Maybe we can make the prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesian Church our own:

'For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. '(Ephesians 3:14-21)

I'd also personally recommend 'meditating' (As in thinking deeply) on the cross, recognising that it was out of love for you that he endured that, it was out of love for you that he suffered what he did.  Again, I am reminded of Paul's realisation that 'the life I live in the body I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.' (Galatians 2:20) I have no doubt that Paul spent much time contemplating the scandal of the cross (maybe that was the primary thing that occupied his thoughts in Arabia for 3 years <Galatians 1:17-18>; it required such an uprooting of his previous way of thinking.  For to him, and many other Jews, a crucified messiah was a blasphemous concept - he (Paul) was, prior to his encounter with the Lord on the road to Damascus, determined to extinguish this ‘heretical’ idea). The revelation of the 'crucified messiah' impacted his life and his message in such a way that you cannot understand his thought apart from appreciating the place the cross had in his thinking.

Maybe the more we appreciate God’s love, the more we are enabled to respond in kind.  The more we take in the love of God the more we want to give of ourselves to this God who is love.  Maybe Isaac Watts was on to something:

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,

Save in the death of Christ my God!

All the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

“put together all the tenderest love you know of, multiply it by infinity and you will begin to see glimpses of the love and grace of God.” 
― Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life

Unconditionally loved by God? Part 2

I know a Christian (who I trust) who had an unusual religious experience many years ago.  In a time of prayer he had a distinct sense of the Lord speaking to him through a song that bounded into his head, the line from the song that he heard was, ‘I just can’t stop loving you.’ (Michael Jackson) It took him by surprise as it was not the way he thought God viewed him.  Like most of us, he was deeply aware of his shortcomings.

I’ve often thought about this experience.  If this was the Lord, He was conveying His utter love for His child, just as a parent might feel and say those words to their child.  Was it because this person was a Christian, one who had however, falteringly, cried out to God for mercy and looked to Jesus for salvation?  Was it that that made Him beloved of God?  Might God sing this song over an atheist, a member of another faith community - or was it because he was part of Christ’s body that this song was sung?

The Christians’ privilege has been to call God, in the words of Jesus, ‘Abba’ (Aramaic for Daddy).  This speaks of an intimate relationship with the Triune God in to which they have been drawn.  It is a fellowship of love - marvellously brought out in Rublev’s icon of the Trinity, where we are invited to sit and join in this communion of love.

                                                             (Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity)

       

God loves His children passionately, His love affair with His people is revealed in provocative ways in the Old Testament (think Hosea being called to marry a prostitute who he is willing to take back despite her unfaithfulness; this being a sign of Yahweh’s love for Israel) - this ardent love for wayward Israel causes Him to ‘rejoice over His people with singing’. (Zephaniah 3:17). A Christian owns those depictions of Israel’s belovedness for themselves - they are now ‘a holy nation’ ‘a people belonging to God’ (1 Peter 2:9).   Every stripe of Christian whether Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant (Calvinist or Arminian) would declare, ‘yes’ the saved member of the Body of Christ is enfolded in the love that God has for His Son.  There is not one thing in all creation that can separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus.(Romans 8:38-9)

Yet, what about the outsider?  Is the God denying, blaspheming sinner held in the love of God too? ( I’m being dramatic here for effect!)

Undoubtedly, there is an in/out separation that the New Testament in various places talks about.  A dichotomy.  Some who are perishing, some who are being saved (1 Corinthians 1:18).  Some who are under wrath and others who are not. (John 3:36)  Some who are sheep and some who are goats. (Matthew 25:31-46)  Some who are wise virgins, some who are foolish.(Matthew 25:1-13)  There does appear to be an ‘in’ and an ‘out’.

Christ separating the sheep and goats, Ca. 6th century, mosaic, Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy.

So how does God feel about the one who is ‘out’ - the ‘goat‘, or the ‘object of wrath.’ ( Ephesians 2:3)

Does being under God’s wrath mean that He doesn’t love you?  Does being in the ‘kingdom of darkness’ (Colossians 1:13) mean that you are detested.  Could the Christian tract that declares on its front cover in big letters, ‘God hates you’, be a fairer representation of God’s attitude to you according to Scripture?

‘The answer my friend is blowing in the wind’ 😉 of Scripture. There, in probably the most famous words of the Bible, in John 3:16, the writer states, ‘For God so LOVED the world that He gave His only begotten Son.’  The object of God’s affection is the ‘world’.  The world is not an exclusive word, it is an inclusive one, it refers to all people. Furthermore, the same verse unveils the extent of His love, in that He willingly gave His Son. 

                                          (For God so loved the world by Jeanette Sthaman)

How much does God love the God denying, rebelling individual? Answer - With a love so immense that it gives its own very life in demonstration of the depth of passion for each and every member of the human race.  ‘This is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and gave His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins‘ ‘and not only ours but the whole world’s.’ (1 John 4:10 coupled with 1 John 2:2)

Therefore, I think it is fair to say that even if you ‘are under wrath’ and are an ‘object of wrath’, that you are loved by the Triune God.  That love is vividly portrayed in the self sacrificial death of Jesus, the only begotten Son.  You may well be in darkness, but you are loved; you may well be a ‘fool’ but you are loved.  You may well be an ‘enemy of God’, but you are loved.  You may be in ‘a far country’, but the Father is looking out for you, yearning in His heart for you to return so that He can fully embrace you and reinstate you. (Parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-32)

(The Prodigal Son by Charlie Mackesy)

That tract, ‘God hates you’, could not be further from the truth.  God’s word over humanity is a passionate  Word of love that throbs through a life laid down in humiliation (death on a Roman cross was the most humiliating of punishments) and service for the objects of His desire.

Wherever you are on your faith journey, or on your journey of life - you are loved.  Whether you are the worst of sinners or the best of them, God loves you wholeheartedly.

Whenever you visit a church and happen to see the Lord’s supper celebrated and hear the words of Jesus, ‘This is my body broken for you...this is my blood shed for you’, you are hearing God say ‘I love you’.  ‘I laid down my life for you, and still offer it to you.  You are loved’.

The question then becomes what do we do with that?  

Unconditionally loved by God? Part 1.

Are we loved?

Are we truly loved, with all our flaws and weaknesses?

The late renowned psychiatrist and author, Paul Tournier, made the comment that humans have two primary needs - to know they are loved and they belong.

Lady GaGa sings, ‘I just want to be loved.’  A cry that emanates from every human heart.

It is sadly the case that many people’s human experience gives them the impression that they neither are loved nor belong.  

It was in part the sense of belonging and temporary euphoria that Bill Wilson (founder of Alcoholics Anonymous) believed he experienced when drunk that led him to become an alcoholic.  I am sure it is why some will turn to gangs today, to have a sense of belonging.

If we are fortunate enough to be born into a loving family, than much of that need will be met. But if not gaping wounds remain.

Furthermore, even the most together loving family, can not meet the deepest needs of any human heart.  From the most loving of families come lives that search for more, come lives that self destruct for want of love.

Many Christians believe that God in the gospel of Jesus Christ meets this cry. They would argue that it is to this void in the human heart that comes a message full of grace, a message about a Creator who is head over heels in love with His/Her creation, who will stop at nothing, who will endure hell and back, out of love for every creature.  That is the essence of the Christian story they claim.  A love so amazing, so divine. A love that caused St Paul to write that it was ‘so deep and wide’, unfathomable (Ephesians 3:18-19).  For St Paul, this love was supremely evidenced in the self sacrificial act of Christ laying down his life (Romans 5:8), even death on a scandalous cross (Philippians 2:8).  He believed that this act of Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross, was not just for the cosmos but for him, so he declares, 'That the life I live in the body, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.’  (Galatians 2:20) Paul saw that this love although cosmic in scope (Colossians 1:20) was particular too.  It was not just an overwhelming affection for all that was made, but also a particular love for each particular creature.  It was this love that ‘compels’ Paul (2 Corinthians 2:15), that motivated him in his mission to proclaim Christ wherever and whenever he could.

Nevertheless, is this a valid reading of Scripture? Is the love of the Creator that is commonly preached about unconditional?  Or are there conditions that must be met to be loved by God?

The Christian family is a diverse one. The three main groupings of Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant can be further subdivided according to theological camps - for example, liberal or evangelical; conservative evagelical or Pentecostal/Charismatic. Within the Evangelical Protestant world there are those who are Arminian, following the lead of Jacobus Arminius with an emphasis on free will, and those who are Calvinist, following John Calvin who believe we are incapicated from choosing Christ and it is only a Sovereign work unrelated to our 'choice' that enables us to say 'yes' to God.

On the one hand most Christians (Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Arminian Protestants) would proclaim ‘yes’, God’s love is unconditional- Jesus Christ came and died for all including the worst of sinners; the extent of his unconditional love is revealed in his life laid down upon the cross.  For the Calvinist, however, this unconditional love is only for the elect - this is a minority position in world Christianity, nevertheless, still an influential one particularly in some Protestant Evangelical circles.

I’ve heard some parts of the Evangelical Church say, ‘no God does not love all these people’, in fact he hates them, he is filled with wrath toward them, they are under the ‘wrath of God’ - understood as God’s personal hatred.  Much of the infamous sermon, ‘sinners in the hands of an angry God’ by Jonathan Edwards is of this ilk.  There are certainly Bible verses that you could bring out to support this perspective. 

Some theologians have tried to explain how this wrath relates to the assertion made by John that ‘God is love’, a statement that declares that the very essence of God is agape ( this Greek word emphasising the self sacrificial costly love of God).  They have contended that his wrath is an expression of His love.

This is a complex issue and I am very grateful that Brother John of Taize has attempted to wrestle with this theme in his book, ‘The Wrath of a loving God.’ Which I will return to in the course of these posts.

From all appearances often this Gospel message looks like it proclaims a conditional love.  It is not love with no strings attached; there’s an almighty rope!  As the late American comic, George Carlin puts it in his description of Christianity: ‘Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time!

But He loves you.’

That is conditional love - pure and simple.  We can try and fill it with all sorts of religious terminology to make it sound something other, but it comes to the same thing.  

Some of these theologies appear to put God in a bad light - take the following Western Calvinist perspective, which I have caricatured - nevertheless, I think I am being fair in that caricutare:

(5 point Calvinism which I describe below is more accurately linked to his successor in Geneva, Theodore Beza - RT Kendall makes the case that John Calvin was in fact a four point Calvinist!)

We are born sick (Original sin) and headed for the incinerator (Hell) unless we accept the medicine the doctor has provided, yet we have a further problem our sickness makes us unwilling to embrace the medicine (Total depravity).  However, luckily for some (Election) the doctor is willing to secretly inject you (Sovereign grace) so that you can fully embrace all the medicine needed and go to a glorious destination fit and well (heaven).  Those who don’t get this medicine are left to deteriorate and become corpses. The doctor could, if he wanted, inject all people secretly, however, he does not do so as to show how kind he is to inject and save his chosen; they will realise how blessed they are as they see the fate that awaits those who were not fortunate enough to have been elected.

Instinctively this scheme appears terrible and if such a doctor in this world would do such a thing we may even call him wicked, and with good grounds. Yet this is often painted as glorious in relation to God....

Even though I am convinced that the Calvinist view of God has a lot of Scriptural warrant - there are a host of texts from the Bible one could collate to create their viewpoint - I believe it undermines the central Christian claims that ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8) and that 'Christ died for all' (2 Corinthians 5:15), and therefore, ultimately it is found wanting. Furthermore, what is crystal clear is that a Calvinist vision of God does not depict God as having unconditional love toward all humanity; maybe to some, but not all.

The question remains are there good grounds for believing that the Gospel of Jesus Christ announces an unconditional love for humanity? Or is it conditional?