Calvinism is often said to show God as being unjust. We have seen in election from other post, that it is Gods mercy that is in action with election. It wasn't justice that led God to provide salvation but the attribute of mercy. Justice is simply each man getting what he deserves and this is where we find mankind before salvation…on their way to hell. Those who go to hell will have nobody to blame but themselves, while those who go to heaven will have nobody to praise but God for he showed mercy.
Romans 9:15-18
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion...Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy and whom He will He hardeneth"
Just as election has mercy as its driving force we also see mercy in the atonement. It is for this reason we get to the root of the doctrines of grace. And this be it…The mercy in the atonement, has as its root love. With no love there is no mercy. Mercy is only a form of love. We then as Calvinist, do not run from verses like John 3:16, (For God so loved the world)we hold them dear for we understand them. In order to understand mercy we must understand love. God is love..is He not?
Then what is meant when it says…”For God so loved the world…”? This speaks of the reason of Christ coming for the act of the atonement and this shows that love is the reason for the atonement. This is Gods mercy in action. Yet Love, what is it? We MUST understand love before we understand this verse. As it turns out, we do not have to guess the meaning of love, the Bible tells us. We will look to the Bible to get that understanding.
The fact is, the love of God is a truth for the saints. This is the reason that Christ died. In Love he came for the atonement. We as sinners before salvation need to have mercy from God in order to deal with our sins. It is our sins that are the object of the coving. It is our sins that Christ died for. Yet the reason is because of love for those He died for.
That which sinners need to have brought before them is that God is Holy and hates sin, the wrath of God should be very real to them. The message then in the Bible is that we need to show sinners their need of Christ. Their absolutely ruined and lost condition, their imminent and awful danger of suffering the wrath to come, the fearful guilt resting upon them in the sight of God. This in no way is the love of God. Love is shown in his mercy to die for OUR sins. The sins of the believer are paid for by the blood of Christ, and we must not miss-use Gods mercy in telling the non-believer he is loved in his sins. It has been customary to say God loves the sinner though He hates his sin. That is a meaningless distinction. Sins are not an object. Sin is an action or thought and is not, unless someone does. Actions/thoughts come from someone that is real and has the life to place those actions in motion, and this is people. You can remove the person and the sin will stop. You can remove the sin and the person will remain. It is the person that sins. We then see that we have sinners against Gods ways, and those that want to follow and worship God. Christ death then is toward US…the believer in love to pay for our sins. In love he choose US. In Love he died for US. He has a bride (US) and He will give His full love to His Bride and not cheat by giving it to those that hate him.
1st a look at the word Love in general and what the Bible says it is. The 1st passage we hear at weddings a lot. 1 Cor. 13 is called the love chapter. While this is a passage to the church, because the fact God is love we can learn a lot about God from reading this chapter. In fact if you read this chapter as if it is talking about Christ you will see the Love of God. Gods love is pure and works.
6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails.
Love does not care for evil, but rather is all about truth. Love never fails. Being that love is the reason for the atonement and the reason Christ came, Christ love is pure and His power is able to save the ones He died for. Love never fails. Love does not work with evil, it is to overcome evil. Love never fails. That means if God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die as an atonement for our sins, that because it was Gods love, it will not fail, and all that God died for will be saved. God’s love is pure and was given for the power to over come our guilt as sinners. He came to save those He loved, and it worked. It is finished. The deed is done.
The atonement is a love act. He loves US and He came to die for US. Salvation is a love relationship. He loves US…and we love Him. Yet He loved US before we loved Him. We must see if the Bible supports such claims.
John 14:21, 23
"He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father ... If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him."
Why say "he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father"? Why not say all?
The same limitation is found in Prov. 8:17 "I love them that love Me." Why not say all?
36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him. (John 3:36)
Can God "love" the one on whom His "wrath" abides?
"The love of God which is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:39)
Does verse 39 not place limitations, both in the sphere and objects of His love?
"For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." (Heb. 12:6)
Does not this verse teach that God's love is restricted to the members of His own family?
Finally, we ask, Is it conceivable that God will love the damned in the Lake of Fire? Yet, if He loves them now He will do so then, seeing that His love knows no change….He is "without variableness or shadow of turning"! So as the damned cross over the edge of the pit and they then know and understand that Christ is real, and they then know that God is in full control, and as they see the smoke of the fire, and see that indeed the path they followed was wrong, if they say, OK, OK..God, I now believe, and if it were true that God died for them and loved them would not God save them at that very moment, being God never changes?
Turning now to John 3:16, it should be evident from the passages just quoted that this verse will not bear the construction usually put upon it, "God so loved the world." Many suppose that this means the entire human race. But "the entire human race" includes all mankind from Adam till the close of earth's history; it reaches backward as well as forward! Consider, then, the history of mankind before Christ was born. Millions lived and died before the Savior came to the earth, lived here "having no hope and without God in the world," and therefore passed out into an eternity of woe.
Scripture says "Who (God) in times past (from the tower of Babel till after Pentecost) suffered all nations to walk in their own ways." (Acts 14:16)
Scripture says "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." (Rom. 1:28)
Scripture says "You only have I known of all the families of the earth." (Amos 3:2)
But you point back to John 3:16 and say, "World means world." True, but we have shown that "the world" does not mean the whole human family. The fact is that "the world" is used in a general way.
When the brethren of Christ said "Show thyself to the world" (John 7:4), did they mean "Shew Thyself to all mankind"?
When the Pharisees said "Behold, the world is gone after Him" (John 12:19), did they mean that "all the human family" were flocking after Him?
When the apostle wrote, "Your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world" (Rom. 1:8), did he mean that the faith of the saints at Rome was the subject of conversation by every man, woman, and child on earth?
These, and other passages show that the term "the world" often has a relative rather than an absolute force.
Now …John 3:16 proper
Our Lord was speaking to Nicodemis, a man who believed that God's mercies were confined to his own nation. Christ there announced that God's love in giving His Son had a larger object in view, that it flowed beyond Palestine, reaching out to "regions beyond." In other words, this was Christ's announcement that God had a purpose of grace toward Gentiles as well as Jews. "God so loved the world," says God's love is international.
last...John 15
13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
In Christ…James
