Does God love everyone?

Who do you know personally that God has refused salvation to?

 

Seems to me the word "Whosoever" means "any out of all!" So Yes, God does love the whole world, and has made it quite clear that Salvation is available to whosoever believeth.

If you cannot name individuals that God doesn't love, I would suggest that you look upon all as being loved by God!

 

Mike, you may think that as a Catholic you do not have a "pony in this ring" but you do.

The Arminian position is that "God so Loved the WORLD that He gave His Son that WHOSOEVER believes on Him should have everlasting life."

The Calvinist position "requires" a lot of redefining of terms in that sentence to get it to fit a Calvinism that DOES NOT believe that God actually loved the WORLD and does NOT believe that ANYONE and EVERYONE is REALLY given the means (actual - salvific means) of eternal life which would INCLUDE God's supernatural enabling and drawing of themselves to God.

My guess is that the Catholic views on this topic don't fit well into Calvinism.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Seeing as how none of the other historic Baptists are taking the bait, I'll go ahead and bite.

To be fair, you reworded this later as:

My personal belief is that God does indeed love His enemies, but yet hates them too. (Psalm 5:5) Not enabling some to be saved does nothing to take away from His benevolence. The 'injustice' here is based on the false assumption that God owes salvation to anyone. Does He? No He doesn't. God would not be 'unloving' if He didn't save anyone. He would be righteous and just for sending every person to hell. He is simply proving His abundant goodness by showing mercy on ANY. Again- God is not obligated to save you or me. When you understand and accept that, the rest comes easy.

 

He doesn't refuse. He simply chooses to offer it to some.

God said that He hated Esau. He didn't give a reason.

 

Mike, you may think that as a Catholic you do not have a "pony in this ring" but you do.

The Arminian position is that "God so Loved the WORLD that He gave His Son that WHOSOEVER believes on Him should have everlasting life."

The Calvinist position "requires" a lot of redefining of terms in that sentence to get it to fit a Calvinism that DOES NOT believe that God actually loved the WORLD and does NOT believe that ANYONE and EVERYONE is REALLY given the means (actual - salvific means) of eternal life which would INCLUDE God's supernatural enabling and drawing of themselves to God.</font>[/QUOTE] No it doesn't. It simply requires that one take this scripture in its immediate context as well as the context of the whole of scripture.

Salvation does involve a willful act by men.

Jesus had just told Nicodemus that one must be "born again" of the Spirit. The analogy teaches that the Spirit acts on a person to change them. Do we choose of our own free will to be physically born? If we are able of our own unregenerate free will to be spiritually born then Christ made a false analogy.

A physically born child breaths because it is his nature. A spiritually regenerated person believes because it is in the nature given to him by the Spirit.

 

He doesn't refuse. He simply chooses to offer it to some.

God said that He hated Esau. He didn't give a reason. </font>[/QUOTE]I don't believe He "hated" Esau. I've read other translations that reflect this more accurately, like the word despised. God cannot hate anyone, God IS love! Scripture cannot contradict itself. If the Bible says "God loved the world", He loved the world, period.

If the "world" is going to be explained as a minute cluster of people at a certain time in John 3:16, then God must not love anyone else, as we don't live during that time.

 

Psalm 5:5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

Care to take this statement back?

 

Despise and hate are synonyms in this context.

As cited by someone else, there are several scriptures that declare that God hates the unrighteous- these are people, not actions.

Christ's sacrifice won special grace for the elect. It also won general grace for all of creation. If He had called down the legions of angels, they would have destroyed everything and everyone. We would have never existed. In this way, God certainly demonstrated His love for His creation by giving Christ.

I don't think that explanation is necessary. Your straw men are growing weaker.

 

Your analogy of spiritual rebirth by comparison to physical birth is flawed, in that natural birth is the process established by God for the perpetuation of the species. Whereas Spiritual rebirth is the process God established for the life of the individual.

It is unwise to make such a comparison regarding human will. In the natural birth, there is no human will involved in the process of birth, no amount of human will can prevent it or stop it. With spiritual rebirth it cannot take place without the exercise of the individual human will.

 

Your analogy of spiritual rebirth by comparison to physical birth is flawed,</font>[/QUOTE] It isn't my analogy. It was spoken by none other than Jesus Himself. You will have to take it up with Him as to whether it is flawed or not.

Spiritual birth is the process established by God to accomplish the salvation of men.

You are not dealing with the direct implications of the analogy. There are virtually limitless other choices of analogies that could have been made... Jesus chose "birth".

Again, your argument isn't with me... it is with Jesus Himself.

Exactly. That is why the analogy to spiritual birth is so vital to our understanding of the Holy Spirit's operation in salvation. The new birth is accomplished by a divine act of the Holy Spirit when He gives us a new nature and quickens our spirit. Belief, faith, repentance, etc all depend on this act of the Holy Spirit.

That is your opinion but you will notice that you have not supported it with scripture nor explained how it fits Christ's analogy. You have not shown that your contention is biblical nor even a reasonable conclusion in light of this scripture.

At this point, it is nothing but your unsubstantiated opinion... and that cannot compare to the authority of God's Word.

 

Let me just say Amen to the above quote from Scott J.

To remain with the analogy, is there the possibility of a birth, where there is no life?

Which comes first, the life or the birth, the birth or the life?

The error found in understanding this will perhaps help us to also understand why not a few professed Christians can 'accept' abortion'.

If the unborn have no life prior to actual birth, then there is no life lost.

If the spiritual birth results from a spirit that is previously dead in trespasses and sins, then there is found life brought forth from death, if we accept this, then we contradict in faith, and also in practice what the Scripture says, for the wages of sin is death, not life eternal.

It is through the eternal Spirit that Christ offered himself one time to by himself purge us of our sins, it is through the same power of holiness which God has saved us (first) and called us with a holy calling, (next).

The order follows the same that Christ taught Nicodemus, except ye be born again, ye cannot see, nor can you enter.

Many want this to change to make it to mean, except ye see and/or enter, ye cannot be born again.

Who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect?

It is God who justifies, this freely by His grace, and not with the atoning (covering) blood of Christ upon the sins of His people so that the same are justified through his resurrection (why, because he has been delivered for their offenses), and the same conclude that men are justified by faith without the works of the law, how, because Christ has been made the place of propitiation; because Christ has fulfilled the law of God, why, so that He can declare at this time HIS righteousness, not ours, but His and that He is Just who justifies them that believe on Jesus.

A Debtor to Free Grace,
Bro. Dallas

 

Presume you are speaking of Jesus discourse with Nicodemus. The comparison between natural birth and spiritual rebirth has nothing to do with each other. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that man must be born of water (natural childbirth) and of spirit (spiritual rebirth) He is not comparing one with the other. In other words you must be a living human being who has been reborn in the spirit to be saved!

That is your opinion but you will notice that you have not supported it with scripture nor explained how it fits Christ's analogy. You have not shown that your contention is biblical nor even a reasonable conclusion in light of this scripture.</font>[/QUOTE]How many time in the Gospels, does Jesus tell us that, "You must believe...". Believing is an exercise of the human will! Believing is not something that is mysteriously emplanted in man. Believing has its basis in Knowledge. We Receive Knowledge, store knowledge, retrieve knowledge from storage and process it, then we either believe it or not believe it. Our environment influences not only the knowledge we receive, but how we process it, and the conclusions we draw from it. Believing is exercise of human will!

 

You say "it is God who Justifies" Yet scriptures say we are justified by faith. You say "It is done by Grace" Again the Bible says Faith. Being justified.
My Websters say this about the word "Justify"
"2. In theology, to pardon and clear form guilt; to absolve or acquit from guilt and merited punishment, and to accept as righteous on account of the merits of the Savior, or by the application of Christ's atonement to the offender."
Paul said in Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Justification we all know is being saved simply because no one is saved without being justified. Being born again of the spirit is being saved. Saved, regenerated, bornagain, Justified, is all the same thing it all adds up to being saved. Yet you cannot be justifed with out faith.
It's true you can't tell which way the wind comes from or where it goes but one thing for sure we can tell the moment we are saved. We know that something has changed us from the insided out.
We are not saved by the atonement but are enabled by it to have eternal life. This is why the atonement is for the whole world.
Joh 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
May Christ Shine His Light On Us all;
Mike </font>[/QUOTE]Rom. 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

I never denied this, This is certainly true, this is what reveals to us, our faith is evidence of what Paul previously states.

He spends the whole of Ch. 3 prior to vs. 20 to state:
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is knowledge of sin.

Then:

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

What is the righteousness of God that is manifested? Christ. This righteousness is imputed to the believer, this is certainly accomplished by grace through faith, making faith the channel of the believer's knowledge of personal justification, that is peace with God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

This brings us further into the discovery of justification.

This righteousness of God is said by scripture (vs. 21) to be witnessed by the law and the prophets.

Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference.

faith of, not in.

vs. 23: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

even as the atonement can be said to be sufficient for all sin; but particular to them that believe. (Although I question this, were all sin atoned [covered] then there is no condemnation. In order to have your or my sins covered our lives must be hidden with Christ.)***

vs. 24: Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Who is justified freely by his grace?

through what channel is this free justification?

at what time does this justification occur?

them that believe, being justified freely by his grace,

through (the channel)--the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

At what time? Eternity past, a people chosen by the Father, in the Son, this is the accomplishment of our justification freely by his grace, it is Godward.

Now, the faith of 'them that believe' is not left off. Certainly the Bible is sure when it states Christ hath been set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.

Note what is said here: Christ hath been set forth to be a propitiation--a declaration, not a hope or wish unknown as to who may or may not receive the imputation of this righteousness of God which is Christ.

Christ is the propitiation--in the Septuagint--the mercy seat, He becomes that which propitiates and also the place of propitiation, changing the Judgment of God into the mercy seat, a place formerly of judgment now becomes one of communion and fellowship (over which God meets with His people).

It is God who is just, it is God who is the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Therefore, Paul states, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

This all will revert to the imputation of righteousness to Abram in Genesis 15.6 when it is stated he believed in the Lord and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

Then, comes the question of Abram, Lord how may I know?

Then God reveals to him the sacrifice and God confirms the sacrifice.

Faith is provided for the assurance of God's people of their position in Christ, of their judgment in Christ, of their justification in Christ.

Faith is a channel through which this peace with God is acheived, faith is not the force that justifies the believer, faith is present in the believer because he/she is previously freely justified by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Through faith, we see Christ the place of propitiation, and we see Christ is the propitiation.

Justification, just as faith, has its source in Grace (Romans 3:24; Titus 3:1-7).

A Debtor to Free Grace,
Bro. Dallas

 

If you knew the scriptures like you say you do, you would know that "my opinion" reflects the truth of scripture.

 

The OP asks the question: "does God love everyone?"

Acording to the Holy Bible - YES
According to Calvinism - NO

Short and simple for once