Mark W. Christy, PhD, Pastor of MBC in Channelview, TX
If God’s love is unconditional, why do we call upon people to repent and believe? Paul in Acts 20:21 makes these two conditions quite clear: “I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.”[i] To this, one could respond that those who express repentance and belief were already chosen by God before having done so. As Paul puts it in Ephesians 1:3-4, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (cf. 2 Tim 1:9-10).
Since, as Paul says, Christians were chosen in Christ before creation, one could say that God’s love is made unconditional to us in Christ. Therefore, in Christ God’s love is unconditional. As for the conditions of belief and repentance, these are gifts to us by God, so they are both conditions which God Himself satisfies.
Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9 explicitly declares faith to be a gift: “or it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” In regard to the gift of repentance, Peter in Acts 11:18 makes it clear that God is the one who grants it: “When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life” (cf. 2 Tim 2:25).
At this point, it would seem that God’s love may indeed be unconditional since He Himself chooses His people before they are even born, and He Himself supplies them with the necessary conditions of salvation, namely repentance and faith. Before conceding to this argument though, one must consider several points.
First, God hates sin, refuses to fellowship with sinners and even destroys them. As the Psalmist writes in 5:5-7,
“For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness; with you, evil people are not welcome. 5 The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong; 6 you destroy those who tell lies. The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, Lord, detest. 7 But I, by your great love, can come into your house; in reverence I bow down toward your holy temple.”
Surprisingly, God is willing to allow the Psalmist entrance into His presence. This brings us to the second point. The Psalmist would have most certainly been a sinner in the eyes of the law. As Paul puts it In Romans 3:10-18,
“There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” 14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
As a sinner, the Psalmist should have been barred from entering God’s presence: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). God’s offense toward the Psalmist’s sinfulness was somehow satisfied, and this leads us to the third point. Specifically, God Himself enables the Psalmist to enter into His presence by satisfying the demands of His holiness in regard to the Psalmist, and thereby He demonstrates His willingness to love the Psalmist in spite of his sins. How did God satisfy the demands (or conditions) set forth by His own holiness on behalf of sinners like the Psalmist who were clearly in breech and unable to satisfy those demands (or conditions) themselves?
The answer lies in Romans 5:8 and serves as the fourth point in this discussion: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God Himself satisfies the conditions set forward by the constraints of His holiness on behalf of sinners. With this in view, it is highly improper to refer to God’s love as being unconditional. If this were so, all sinners would have entrance into His presence apart from Christ. Instead, one could say that God’s love is made available unconditionally in Christ. Or, one could say that the availability of God’s love is conditional based on His holiness but God Himself satisfies those conditions in Christ on behalf of sinners.
[i]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.