Is God Obligated to Love Everyone?
I often hear the question, “If Jesus Christ is the only way to God, what about people in India or Africa or others who haven’t heard?” This is based on two false premises. One, that a person enters eternity, and is rejected by God and eternally separated from God on the basis of whether or not they “accept Jesus as their Savior.” This is not true. Your eternity as you stand today is already fixed. I’ll tell more about that later.
The biggest error we make, it seems to me, when we ask these questions is if God is obligated to love anyone, He is obligated to love everyone. And that’s a question we need to think about. Yet, the Bible does say God is love, but everything God is, is not encompassed by love. The Scriptures make it clear that God’s core character quality is holiness. And out of that holiness come His justice, His mercy, His love, His providence, and His divine decrees. Just because God has committed Himself to love someone, doesn’t mean He has obligated Himself to love everyone, does it?
Let me illustrate it this way. This past Sunday after The Gathering, my family gathered for an afternoon meal. There are six of us altogether. As the head of the household, it was my privilege to buy everyone’s meal. Now at the time that we were in the restaurant there appeared to be between 70 and 80 other people. Here is the question: I bought my family’s meal, was I obligated to buy everyone’s meal? And the answer of course is “no.”
Being the sovereign of my money at that moment, I could decide on my own terms whom I provided a meal for and whom I didn’t. I don’t think anyone in the restaurant felt slighted because we all understand. But we take the love of God and in some way we see it’s very different. That though God is a person, that He is Sovereign and Lord, Creator and Owner of all things, that He was before all things, is before all things, and will remain uncreated, a being who has the power of life in Himself; that He in some way is subjugated to His creation.
Is God obligated to love you? Absolutely not. That’s what makes His love that much more amazing.
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The only truth is …God IS LOVE …unconditional love. It’s up to us to decide.
Right or wrong. Love or hate. War or peace.
It is important to quote accurately and in IJohn4 it clearly states that God is love. The Bible also talks about God loving us while we were sinners. The people that God hated was those that came against those who loved him. For a clearer explanation, I want to refer you to this link: http://www.gotquestions.org/Jacob-Esau-love-hate.html