Of course God doesn't love everybody equally.

God isn't just love and nothing else. If someone wants to claim mercy or love is somehow greater than justice, he has to prove it. We should be celebrating God's justice just as much as His mercy.

John 3:16 doesn't even address this issue. God loved the world does not in any way mean that God loves each and every person who has ever existed or will ever exist in exactly the same way.

Excellent question. I think this showcases a very real and important weakness of the nice, tight, philosophical/theological system of Calvinism.

I'd ask Hank about this. He may have better things to say than I would. I am hostile to Calvinism on many fronts, though I recognize that once you assume it, it works well (perhaps too well).

I don't buy the imperfect sacrifice angle. That smacks of humans trying to save phenomena by their own criteria rather than letting God lay out what is goin on.

God died for everyone. The free gift of God is eternal life, but it still has to be accepted.

Essentially Jesus' death was a plea bargain agreement. But it only applies if the guilty party signs it.

God knew who was going to accept it (the "elect") ahead of time since He's omniscient but He in no way made the choice for them to accept it. Just because He knew it was going to happen didn't cause it to happen. "Foreknowledge is not causative"

If God doesn't love everyone equally, that implies that He loves some less and some more. If a parent were to do that to her children, we would call that favoritism or partiality. I think we should be very careful to avoid suggesting that God shows favoritism since scripture so frequently says that this is not a quality of God (Acts 10:34; Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; and less directly, Matt. 5:45).

I also would argue that we can judge the character of God by the commandments He gives His people. If God commands us to love our neighbors (which Jesus strongly implies means everyone) and then, just to be sure we know He means everyone, commands us to love our enemies, we can and should not think that God is commanding us to do something that He will not do. While in practice for us we might show partiality to some (kin, those in close proximity), this is because we are constrained by our finiteness--finite time, finite reach, finite money, finite compassion, etc. This is a quality that God does not share.

While the analogy is imperfect--as all our--I like Chad's plea bargain metaphor. I think that it well represents the idea that it's possible that Jesus both died for everyone, yet that some still go to Hell, which doesn't nullify God's justness.

God loves everybody, no matter how sinful. Jesus died for everybody. But you have to accept His atoning death on the cross as payment for your sins in order to receive the benefit of His sacrifice.
God does favor some people (ex. Jews as God's chosen people). But that doesn't mean He doesn't also love everybody else. He does.
The elect are predestined to salvation. God will get them in the kingdom somehow. They can run, but they can't hide. They will be led to salvation even if they resist that leading.
The rest of us get to choose whether we go to heaven or hell. If we choose God and His Son, we go to heaven. If we reject God and His Son, we go to hell. It's our choice.

Thanks for the comments.

I want to add that the Armenian has the same problem -- perhaps -- even bigger one.

Why are people in Hell for eternity? Because they didn't choose to believe in Jesus?

But if God loves everybody equally, why doesn't he reveal himself to them? A little dream, a little miracle, a vision, an apparition - these all seem simple request to get people to believe so that they might be saved. There's no violation of free will here since people can still believe or not after their little personalized miracle.


If God knew you wouldn't believe, why did he create you in the first place?

To engage this question one needs to define terms so that there is an even playing field. First, and foremost, what do we mean by love? Think about that for a moment. Are we talking in the context of a marriage, for that is one image Scripture uses to describe God's love? Are we talking as friends? Parents? This is important and it's something I've never seen done.

What does "everyone" or the "world" or "all" mean? This changes in Scripture from context to context, so that in one text "everyone" is limited to a group and in another it's universal. "World" can refer to all of humanity or to the created order in certain texts.

Once this is done I think we are in a much better position to talk about the quesiton, "does God love everyone". I think when one allows for the varied meanings of "world" and "love" one can see that in one sense, God does love everyone equally. He is the creator of the universe and it was declared to be "good." Yet in another sense God loves the elect or the church because that is his bride, his wife, the one with whom he has entered into covenant relationship. In this sense love is limited while in the previous sense it is not.

As for the extent of the atonement debate...

Henry, what Edgar is saying is that God would not punish this sinner twice for the same sins, once on the Cross and once in hell. That would be unfair and I do believe that God would not allow for such mistreatment of his creation.

But what Edgar said and what Henry said operate under different assumptions. Henry's theory of the extent of the atonement is either saying something along the lines of the cross not being effect to satisfy the demands of God against sinners until they have converted, or sinners specifically are not being punished on the cross (unless there is a possibility I'm not seeing here, sorry if that be true).

Edger seems to saying that the cross effectively satisfied God's demands against sinners at that point in time and they experience it upon their conversion, the effectiveness is not contingent upon faith.

But these assumptions are at the heart of this issue. Did Christ satisfy his demands of sinners for their sins at the point in time when Jesus died and rose from the grave or does that happen upon conversion? Did Jesus effectively intercede for sinners and save them to the uttermost (in the words of Hebrews 7) two thousand years ago or once they have converted? Answering these questions will go a long way to answering this debate, though I believe that it will only end on the other side of the resurrection.

As for me, I lean towards the Reformed understanding of this and believe that God did indeed save sinners on the cross and in the resurrection and by Jesus' priestly intercession two thousand years ago. It is by faith that I experience this salvation. I do believe this to be an objective reality (it exists outside of me, in other words).

I think, Hank, that you are mostly correct; however, you seem to be speaking of a favored doctrine: once saved, always saved. This is not a Biblical doctrine. The idea here is this, I am saved, but rather than DO anything with this salvation, I'm going down to the local pub and drink myself into debauchery every night till the day I drop dead.

This is not what God intends, in my opinion. How could a wholly Holy God allow this kind of behavior without remuneration? The penalty for sin is death. What kind of death? Obviously when one goes and commits adultery he does not drop dead at that moment, so it's not a physical death. It is a spiritual death. Therefore, you can easily sin yourself right out of the grace of God and wind up in hell with the rest of the sinners.

How do you avoid this? Simple. Obedience. Faith without works is dead. Obedience will produce those works that please God. BUT, you also can't WORK your way to heaven either. Hence, you were mostly correct.

Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. 1peter 3:18-27. Jesus went to hell and proclaimed to the imprisoned spirits. The second coming will be like the days of Noah. Which means that Jesus will proclaim again in hell, He has taken the keys of the gates of hell from the first resurrection and save those evil doers demons and Nephilims from the time of the flood. Yes, there are those who will be judge and will be cast to the lake of fire 2Peter 3:10. Hell will consume the evil bodies so their soul will be purified to enter the new heaven and earth. When you purify Gold, you melt the aluminum to the surface and the metal to the bottom. The Gold is poured to a container and it becomes purified. Believe it or not the last book of Ecclesiastes describe our spirit is connected to a silver cord into a Golden bowl. The second death is that they will be given a body and be thrown to the lake of fire to be consumed so that the soul which belongs to God will be purified. The early churches down to the born again movement fallowed the Universal Religion that is to scare the members from leaving their Church, that you and all your love ones will burn forever in hell if you do not convert.

I think, this theme is quite actual now. The penalty for sin is death. What kind of death? Obviously when one goes and commits adultery he does not drop dead at that moment, so it's not a physical death. It is a spiritual death. Therefore, you can easily sin yourself right out of the grace of God and wind up in hell with the rest of the sinners.

I know god is love.
And we have known and believed the love that God hath for us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.(1 John 4:16)

Gods love. Someone plz explain john 14-7 -16 and 15 12- 14 Jesus said He laid down His life for His friends,those who keep His commands and He said in john 14 21 keep my commandments is the one who loves Me will be loved by my Father. So does that say if I don't keep His commandments I don't love Him And His Father don't Love me.

Definitely does not say that. I mean we are all sinners and God loves us all. His commandments are for our protection from the results of sin, as a speed limit is for protection for drivers on the highway. When we break the law we are endangering ourselves or someone else from what can happen as a result of that mistake. GB/pc