Does God really love everyone or just some ?

Let me give you the standard answer. "You just don't understand Calvinism". :ROFLMAO:
I can’t tell you how many times I heard that on the old forum. So I would quote several posts when I was a Calvinist where they all affirmed it, liked it and gave high 5’s in support of the posts. Theo would always get pissed when I brought that up and seek to get me banned all of the time. I remember numerous times I quoted where he called me a good teacher 😂😂😂
 
Walls suggests one further wrinkle when he discusses John Piper, probably the best known Baptist Calvinist. Walls argues that Piper denies 5, not by ditching “irresistible grace” but by suggesting that God has a “greater value” than salvation. Such as what? Piper writes, “The answer the Reformed give is that the greater value is the manifestation of the full range of God’s glory in wrath and mercy (Rom. 9:21–23) and the humbling of man so he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Cor. 1:29).” Because of this “greater value,” it seems that Piper denies God “could give all persons ‘irresistible grace’ [to be saved].” Some evidently must be condemned for God’s glory.
This is the part that always has me reeling with incredulity. If Calvinism was a parent with two children and treated one with affection and kindness, while treating the other with neglect and abandonment, they would be arrested not glorified.
 
This is the part that always has me reeling with incredulity. If Calvinism was a parent with two children and treated one with affection and kindness, while treating the other with neglect and abandonment, they would be arrested not glorified.
Exactly yet somehow with the God of Calvinism it’s loving. Yet in the real world everyone knows it’s actually unloving and unbenevolent
 
I was looking at an old thread on another forum I started about love that had over a 1000 responses and I was leaving Calvinism at the time discussing Gods love a the hate/love issue with Jacob and Esau. I cut/pasted my responses to many of their objections in this post.


John 1:29
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Hebrews 2:9
But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Titus 2:11
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,

Titus 3:4
But when the kindness and the love of mankind of God our Savior appeared

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1 Timothy 2:4
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

2 Peter 3:9
The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

1 John 2:2
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

2 Corinthians 5:14
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

In the past two decades have witnessed a resurgence of Calvinism among American evangelicals. This resurgence is especially evident within the Southern Baptist Convention, which historically has been and still is divided over the issue. However, it has also made its presence felt in Pentecostal denominations such as the Assemblies of God, which do not have historic ties to Calvinism.


By Calvinism, I mean specifically the doctrine of salvation that is commonly explained by means of the acronym, TULIP:

• T = Total depravity
• U = Unconditional election
• L = Limited atonement
• I = Irresistible grace
• P = Perseverance of the saints

In the seventeenth century, Jacob Arminius—a Dutch Reformed theologian—set forth a different understanding of salvation that has been called Arminianism after him. It is sometimes explained by means of the acronym, FACTS:

• F = Freed by grace to believe
• A = Atonement for all
• C = Conditional election
• T = Total depravity
• S = Security in Christ

In Does God Love Everyone? Jerry L. Walls—an evangelical philosopher—outlines an argument against Calvinism and for Arminianism. Its strength is that it focuses on the central point of the disagreement between them. Walls writes:


The deepest issue that divides Arminians and Calvinists is not the sovereignty of God, predestination, or the authority of the Bible. The deepest difference pertains to how we understand the character of God. Is God good in the sense that he deeply and sincerely loves all people?


According to Walls, the answer of Arminianism is “Yes.” The answer of Calvinism is “No.” As Calvinist author Arthur W. Pink put it in The Sovereignty of God: “When we say that God is sovereign in the exercise of His love, we mean that He loves whom he chooses. God does not love everybody…” Walls argues that Pink’s statement is characteristic of Calvinism, even if it’s stated with a bluntness uncharacteristic of most Calvinists.

A god who can save all but chooses not to is not the God whom the Bible reveals.

To see why this is so, consider the argument Walls makes:

1. God truly loves all persons.
2. Not all persons will be saved.
3. Truly to love someone is to desire their well-being and to promote their true flourishing as much as you properly can.
4. The well-being and true flourishing of all persons is to be found in a right relationship with God, a saving relationship in which we love and obey him.
5. God could give all persons “irresistible grace” and thereby determine all persons to freely accept a right relationship with himself and be saved.
6. Therefore, all persons will be saved.

Clearly, this set of propositions contains a contradiction between 2 and 6. Both Calvinists and Arminians affirm 2, however. They’re not universalists, in other words. Similarly, both affirm 4.


So, how do they resolve the contradiction? Arminians do so by denying 5. They deny, in other words, that grace is irresistible.


Irresistible grace is part and parcel of Calvinism, however. It’s the I in TULIP. That means Calvinists must deny either 1 or 3. That is, they must deny either that “God truly loves all persons” or that “Truly to love someone is to desire their well-being and to promote their true flourishing as much as you properly can.” As noted above, Arthur W. Pink clearly denied 1. (Walls quotes Calvin himself to similar effect.)


Contemporary Calvinists rarely deny 1, however. Instead, they affirm that God truly loves all persons. For example, D. A. Carson affirms that God loves everyone in the sense that He exercises “providential love over all that he has made” and adopts a “salvific stance toward his fallen world.” However, Carson denies that God gives everyone the “particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect.” It’s hard to square this “love” for “all persons” with the definition of love in 3. A God who could but chooses not to bestow “particular, effective, selecting love” on everyone does not “truly” love them because He does not seek their eternal “well-being” and “true flourishing.”


Walls suggests one further wrinkle when he discusses John Piper, probably the best known Baptist Calvinist. Walls argues that Piper denies 5, not by ditching “irresistible grace” but by suggesting that God has a “greater value” than salvation. Such as what? Piper writes, “The answer the Reformed give is that the greater value is the manifestation of the full range of God’s glory in wrath and mercy (Rom. 9:21–23) and the humbling of man so he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Cor. 1:29).” Because of this “greater value,” it seems that Piper denies God “could give all persons ‘irresistible grace’ [to be saved].” Some evidently must be condemned for God’s glory.

In order to maintain God’s sovereignty in election then, or to promote God’s glory, Calvinism denies that God loves everyone in the truest sense. Like Walls, I find this denial difficult to swallow. A god who can save all but chooses not to is not the God whom the Bible reveals, a God who is love (1 John 4:8).

Walls’ book is a brief outline of a much larger argument. Those looking for a more detailed argument should pick up his Why I Am Not a Calvinist, coauthored with Joseph R. Dongell. But that argument, even in outline form here, is difficult to rebut, as far as I am concerned.

Book Reviewed: Jerry L. Walls, Does God Love Everyone? The Heart of What Is Wrong with Calvinism (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2016).

Hate defined
Original Word: μισέω
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: miseó
Phonetic Spelling: (mis-eh'-o)
Definition: to hate
Usage: I hate, detest, love less, esteem less.

Barnes

Have I hated - This does not mean any positive hatred; but that he had preferred Jacob, and had withheld from Esau those privileges and blessings which he had conferred on the posterity of Jacob. This is explained in Malachi 1:3," And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness;" compare Jeremiah 49:17-18; Ezekiel 35:6. It was common among the Hebrews to use the terms "love" and "hatred" in this comparative sense, where the former implied strong positive attachment, and the latter, not positive hatred, but merely a less love, or the withholding of the expressions of affection; compare Genesis 29:30-31; Proverbs 13:24, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes;" Matthew 6:24, "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other," etc.; Luke 14:26, "if any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, etc."


hated] Cp. Genesis 29:33; Genesis 29:30, for proof that this word, in contrast with love, need not imply positive hatred, but the absence of love, or even less love. One verse there tells us that Jacob “hated” Leah, the other that he “loved Rachel more.” See too Matthew 10:37; Luke 14:26; John 12:25. Cambridge

BDAG.

So my original post quoting Strongs/Thayers still stands.

to be disinclined to, disfavor, disregard in contrast to preferential treatment (Gn 29:31; Dt 21:15, 16) Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13. τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ J 12:25 or ἑαυτοῦ Lk 14:26 (cp. the formulation Plut, Mor. 556d οὐδʼ ἐμίσουν ἑαυτούς; on the theme cp. Tyrtaeus [VII B.C.] 8, 5 D.3). Ro 9:13

William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 653.

John says hate is indifference with a brother below

1 John 3
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
This is awesome, I was just getting ready to make an OP Entitled does God love everyone or just some when I saw your OP. So it looks like I'll just stick with yours.

I agree with you the Jacob and Esau Issue is the one that always comes up when non-coverness are defending the love of God, The fact that God loves all of us and not just some. And that he wishes all of us to come to him.

How unloving is it consider those who are not chosen for salvation. What about them? They are left in their fallen condition, “dead in their transgressions and sins.” As such, they cannot possibly do anything except “persevere” in sin and continue to disobey God and earn further wrath and punishment. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes these unfortunate sinners as follows:

The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.

The emphasis is not on God’s love, but on his sovereign power to choose to save some, but not others

Notice what this remarkable and revealing passage is saying. God was “pleased” to “pass by” some persons, “and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin.” God’s choice to leave many persons in their sin and misery is done for the purpose of showing “the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures.”

Notice also that God does this “according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will.” In other words, it is utterly incomprehensible to us why God chooses to save some, but damn others. God’s will in this regard is a complete mystery to us.

According to Calvinism then, God’s glory shines forth when he exercises his absolute power over his human creatures, when he chooses by his “secret” or “unsearchable” sovereign will to save some, and to damn others. Even when this Calvinist document is talking about God’s grace in choosing unconditionally to save some, the emphasis is not on God’s love, but on his sovereign power to choose to save some, but not others.
 
The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.

The emphasis is not on God’s love, but on his sovereign power to choose to save some, but not others

Notice what this remarkable and revealing passage is saying. God was “pleased” to “pass by” some persons, “and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin.”
Which is void empty and bereft of anything resembling what scripture portrays God as being. If God is pleased to see their fate as being destruction then language dictates it would be the same as saying he obtains pleasure by such. What do we read in Eze 18:23 however?

Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord GOD, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?
 
God’s choice to leave many persons in their sin and misery is done for the purpose of showing “the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures.”
And oh if they would stop to think through on what they're saying instead of uttering forth something that sounds almost poetic and yet has no coherent meaning one can attach to it. Nobody would want to know of some glory that would be attained by being unfair to his creatures....showing favoritism one over another with no reason. Where's the glory in that?

 
1. God truly loves all persons.
2. Not all persons will be saved.
SO, does GOD love those condemned....those who are condemned ALREADY for their having never believed?
Berean Standard Bible
John 3:18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. !!!
 
God’s choice to leave many persons in their sin and misery is done for the purpose of showing “the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures.”

Romans 9:22 What if GOD, willing to show HIS wrath, and to make HIS power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?
This verse says that GOD was (is) willing to judge (show HIS wrath) and prove to HIS people that HE is the sovereign GOD, but that HE has to endure with much long-suffering the temporary abrogation of justice concerning those vessels doomed to wrath by the postponement of the judgement as taught in Mat 13:27-30* as due to the sinfulness of HIS sinful good seed.

In verse Romans 9:23 And that HE might make known the riches of HIS glory on the vessels of mercy, which HE had afore prepared unto glory. Paul gives a reason why GOD had to postpone the judgement which HE obviously did not like or want, so that HE could show all the elect the riches of HIS glory, not HIS wrath but HIS mercy. This must include the fact that HIS way (judgement) is so much better than any other way, and that HIS judgement is an absolute necessity that it can not be abrogated if we are going to live in peace with HIM in HIS kingdom!

According to the adherents of pre-conception existence (PCE) theology, that is what you are supposed to be learning down here. That is what GOD wants you to learn from this life, that is, to repeat, that HIS judgement is an absolute necessity that it can not be abrogated if we are going to live in peace with HIM in HIS kingdom!

This verse also presupposes that the reprobate vessels of wrath existed during all the time of Satan's rebellion for when we consider that the number of those who will be judged is a known and fixed number in GOD's omniscient sight, we must also realise that they all must have existed since the very first time HE was willing to bring them to judgement, that is, all the reprobate weeds existed and fell by their own free will into unforgivable evil before the creation of the physical universe, before they were flung into prison Earth, Rev 12:4-9, and before the garden...

IF Matt 13:27-30 is true at the time of Satan's rebellion as to why the judgement was postponed, then it must have applied to Satan and the demons with the good but sinful seed at the time of the fall or why did the judgement not happen at that time BEFORE THE CREATION OF THE GARDEN AND ADAM AND EVE???

*Matt 13:27 The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ 28 ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. [a reference to the explanation of this parable, ie, no more metaphor, in verses 36-39]
So the servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ [to bring the judgement upon them?] 29 ‘NO!’ he said, [postpone the judgement because...] ‘if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. IF the reason for the postponement of the judgement is to save the sinful good seed from being pulled up and burnt with the reprobate weeds, then this assumes that at the time of the Satanic fall and the necessity of their judgment, the fall of the sinful good seed MUST have also already occurred!!!

HE didn't have to ordain Eve's fall if she chose by her free will to rebel against HIS call to come out from among her friends who had chosen by their free will to become reprobate weeds forcing the postponement of the judgement nor did HE have to ordain Adam's fall if Adam chose by his free will to not leave his friend, Eve, to GOD's mercy but rebelled against HIS call for all the elect to come out from any elect sinners or join the consequences.

This interpretation of our fall is just as true to the words as the orthodox position but are much more true to HIS attributes as a loving, righteous and just GOD.
 

John 3:17-18
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that BELIEVETH on him is not condemned: but he that BELIEVETH NOT is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

2 Peter 3:8-10

8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish but that ALL should come to repentance .
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Jesus wept, heart-broken by the rejection of the Jewish leadership that held the people in bondage to the yoke of their traditions.
Luke 19:41-44
41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,
42 Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
43 For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,
44 And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

Yes God loves everyone and the proof is in the long-suffering redemptive sacrifice of his ONLY begotten Son !

HE CAME NOT TO CONDEMN MAN BUT TO GIVE MAN A CHOICE.
Choose the blessing in faith & belief and live.
Choose the curse, reject him in unbelief and die.
 
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