Is it true that God does NOT love everyone? Hyper-Calvinism says “yes!” Scripture says “no!”  In part 1 of 3 in this series, I summarized the first portion of my recent composition God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error. John 3:16, Mark 10:21, and 1 John 2:2 refute the hyper-Calvinist idea that God loves only the elect. Scripture is plain that God loves the entire world-every single person.

 

If Hyper-Calvinists Were Right,

Then Christians Should Not Love Their Enemies

 

Christians should be like God. If God loves every person, then they should love all men.  If God has nothing but an everlasting hatred for the non-elect, then they should strive with all their might to purge out any love that they have for lost sinners from their bosoms and have nothing but an eternal and everlasting hatred for them, (allegedly) like God.  However, the Lord Jesus taught:

 

43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)

 

Christians must love their enemies because God loves His enemies.  When they love their wicked, unregenerate, Christ-and-Christian hating enemies, they are being like their Father in heaven. The Sermon on the Mount does not say, “Love your elect enemies and bless the elect when they curse and hate you. If the non-elect do it, though, show eternal hatred to them.” Believers must “increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men” (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13) because God loves all men, not the elect alone.

 

The Quran Agrees with Hyper-Calvinism,

but the Bible does Not

 

Hyper-Calvinists need specific passages that teach God does NOT love the majority of the world that rejects Christ and is eternally lost. It would not have been hard for God to include such statements in the Bible. After all, the Quran is filled with them. For example:

 

 

Q 2:276 Allah hath blighted usury and made almsgiving fruitful. Allah loveth not the impious and guilty.

Q 3:32 Say: Obey Allah and the messenger. But if they turn away, lo! Allah loveth not the disbelievers (in His guidance).

Q 3:57 And as for those who believe and do good works, He will pay them their wages in full. Allah loveth not wrong-doers.

 

The Quran is full of such statements-when I went through the Quran from cover to cover as part of my preparation for my debate with the Muslim apologist Shabir Ally I found the seemingly constant drum-beat of Allah’s lack of love for this group and that group a sharp contrast with the teaching of God’s Word, the Bible.

 

While the idea that God does not love unbelievers is all over the Quran, the number of statements in holy Scripture such as “God does not love person X” or “God does not love people like Y” are equal in number to the statements such as “Christ did not die for person X” or “Christ did not die for group Y”–namely, zero.  Both limited atonement and the hyper-Calvinist doctrine of God’s lack of love for the vast majority of mankind are completely absent from Scripture.

 

Please read God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error for more information.

–TDR