Does God love unconditionally?

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Accepted answer

No, God does not love unconditionally. In fact, God hates the wicked.

Hosea 9:15 NIV
15 “Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal,
   I hated them there.
Because of their sinful deeds,
   I will drive them out of my house.
I will no longer love them;
   all their leaders are rebellious.

However, those who have faith in Christ and accept him as their savior are loved unconditionally for eternity.

John 3:36 NIV
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

Remeber that 1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. I'll just give you all of 1 Corinthians 13 (NIV) with some highlights.

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Upvote:1

God’s love for us, is a purest form of all love and though it is seems to be conditional, whereby we have to be right with Him, it is at the same time forever unchanging in His nature, even when we are not right with Him in this world. So the door is always open for us to come back and be right with God, when we tread our journey here.

To know this deeper: our love towards God is basically conditional meaning we love God for our well being, for our needs, for our security etc. We love Him because we depend on Him and so it is not unconditional. When we have a cosy life we tend to side track God sensing the needlessness for Him. But God’s love for us, is not of this form. We our self experience and give such a pure form of love: the love that we have towards our children. This is the closest replica of God’s love for us. This love that we shower on our children is a pure form of love expecting nothing in return except the righteousness from our children. In fact this is not a condition as such, but a requirement for our own good.

The love that we bestow on our pets is similar to this. We get only satisfaction and happiness to be with them and expect nothing in return expect their wellbeing so that they remain with us.

So God loves us because we are His children, just like parents love their children. Though parents may at times falter in this but not God, for He said:

Isaiah 49:15 Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? Even if mothers were to forget, I could never forget you!

Upvote:2

The Bible presents God as One who does not merely choose to love, but One who is love (1 John 4:16). It is a defining attribute of His.

It follows, then, that God always loves. He loved those about whom the Scriptures say, "every inclination of their hearts was only evil all the time." That's why it grieved God--because He loved them. If He hadn't loved those people, then we are left to wonder how they could grieve Him.

At the same time, God hates wickedness, and it's appropriate for God to hate that which hurts those He loves.

Now, this is not to say that God's love makes God unjust. He is simultaneously both just and loving. His justice demands that all sin be punished, while His love compelled Him to offer Himself as a substitute to pay the penalty of those sins. For those who accept His offer, God credits the meritorious payment of Christ to their accounts. For those who reject this, He is left to administer justice on those He loves.

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