With all due respect, sir, you have that backwards. The impetus for human obedience to God is love. IOW, faithfulness/obedience flows from a person's love for God. This is why God's sovereign work of heart circumcision is a vitally important component to one's salvation; for without divine circumcision, no one would love God.
Unconditional love verses from God to us the people
- Thread starter homwardbound
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With all due respect, sir, you have that backwards. The impetus for human obedience to God is love. IOW, faithfulness/obedience flows from a person's love for God. This is why God's sovereign work of heart circumcision is a vitally important component to one's salvation; for without divine circumcision, no one would love God.
Did Jesus love everyone He came into contact with or did they have to meet a requirement?
Obviously Jesus loved everyone; are you accusing him of being a hypocrite for teaching Matt. 5:44 & 48?!
Everyone has to meet the requirement of repentance = reflecting God's love in order to be forgiven/saved.
So, then Jesus contradicted himself? He was confused as to the nature of his own love for mankind and his Father's, as well?
God, providentially and benevolently provides his common grace to all men, including his sworn enemies, in order to preserve life here on earth until all the elect are finally brought into the Kingdom. But what you fail to see is that there is no intimate, personal, filial covenant relationship between God and the entire human race. (After all, all mankind w/o exception, is not even personally KNOWN by God! To be in a "covenant of love" relationship with God is to have God's love poured out in his people's hearts. It is to know God and to be known by Him!
Also, there is no predestination or election taught in Mat 5. Therefore, there is no redemptive covenant (or "covenant of love") in view in this passage. The passage is focusing on the general, non-covenantal benevolence of God towards all.
You said "Please quote at least one verse of scripture that indicates God's love is conditional,"
Who is confused?
I posted four such passages the day before yesterday and you ignored them all by deflecting from the subject of love with salvation verses. So, it is YOU who is confused. You clearly "forgot" all your posts that deflected those four passages and the fact that you refused to address all of them specifically.
And besides, as pointed out previously, (and by other posters), if God loves all w/o exception, then there would be no reason for the atoning work of Christ. Don't you know that love alone covers a multitude of sins (Prov 10:12; 1Pet 4:8) ?
God's unconditional, unilateral promises in the New Covenant totally satisfies sinners' requirements. After sinners are raised from the dead, are given new hearts, have the Law written unto their new hearts of flesh, and have their hearts circumcised by God, they will respond appropriately to the demands of the Gospel.
Apart from all the theological - IOW manmade - terminology and posited doctrinal assertions, I'm simply addressing one topic and one small section of Scripture re: God's love.
Re: "common grace" I've already touched on that here:
So you think, but I prefer to believe the TOJ & the TOP,
which indicate that repentance/faith is the non-meritorious condition for receiving grace.
On the contrary, I acknowledged to studier that one of the passages indicated that the Father's love for the Son
was conditional upon the Latter's obedience and that another passage indicated that God's love for sinners was
conditional, but that such understanding contradicts other Scriptures, so harmonization is needed--which I provided.
That's what Jesus himself taught in Jn 10:17; 14:21; 15:10; 16:27 -- unless of course you think John Calvin wrote those verses.
No, it is non-meritorious because because God declares it to be such,
whether it precedes or follows salvation, but actually they are simultaneous.
I just told you that I addressed those passages with studier, so please find it in order that the discussion will move forward,
because I do not play verbal ping-pong (although I enjoy the game of table tennis :^)
Hate to burst your balloon, but contradictions by definition cannot be harmonized. We cannot reconcile something that at once says "A" is true and that "A" is also false at the same time and in the same sense! Clearly, you have betrayed the chaotic, confused, irrational nature of your mind. Who told you that contradictions can be harmonized or reconciled: The father of lies, perhaps?
Excellent observation, brother!
God had already performed his promised New Covenant heart transplant before the people repented.The quickening actually is mentioned in v. 5, and Eph. 2:8 says it is received "through faith",
which = repentance in Acts 2:38.