Does God Love Every Person and Desire to Save All People? | By Michael Cariño, from the book Grace for All: Understanding God’s Plan of Salvation, 2024.
At the very heart of the Gospel is the truth that God loves everyone. The Good News that we joyfully share with all persons is “For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). In fact, the most beautiful definition of God in the entire Bible is, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). The wonderful truth that God is love was fully revealed through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The claim that God is love goes to the very heart of the Christian faith.[1]
Does God Love Every Person?
Sadly, there are some people who believe that God does not love every person. They say that God loves only a chosen few. It was the Calvinist theologian Arthur W. Pink who stated: “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…”[2]
In The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which is an abbreviated version of The Westminster Confession of Faith, a classic Reformed-Calvinist statement of faith, a theological question was asked: “What is God?”. Here is the answer that is given: “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”[3] Do you notice anything missing from this definition? It mentions God’s power, His wisdom, and His justice, along with other attributes, but it is very strange that it leaves out the most beautiful definition of God in the entire Bible: “God is love”.[4]
Even John Calvin’s landmark work in theology, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, a massive book that is 1,521 pages long with thousands of biblical texts, does not quote “God is love.” Not even once! This is a strange omission.[5]
For most Calvinists, since God does not love every sinner, He does not desire to save every sinner as well. Thus, they claim that the word “world” in John 3:16 does not actually refer to every person in the world, but rather it pertains only to the preselected people chosen by God (i.e. God so loved the “world of the elect” only).
Francis Turretin, a Calvinist, writes that God’s love mentioned in John 3:16 “cannot be universal towards each and every one, but special towards only a few.” [6] He assumes that since Christ died to save the world, and since all people are not saved, then the love mentioned in John 3:16 must refer to the elect only. Turretin interprets John 3:16 to mean that God loves only some people.
The Calvinist theologian, John Owen, also thinks that God does not love every person and explains John 3:16 this way: “By the [word] ‘world’, we understand the elect of God only. Scripture never describes God having a ‘natural affection’ for all the people He created; rather, God loves only the elect. It cannot be maintained that by the ‘world’ here is meant all and every one of mankind, but only men in common scattered throughout the world, which are the elect.”[7] Arthur W. Pink, in the book The Sovereignty of God, wrote that “‘the world’ in John 3:16 refers to the ‘world of believers’ (God’s elect).”[8]
Thus, most Calvinist theologians affirm that God loves only some people, not everyone. God’s saving love is reserved only to those who were prechosen to be saved. God does not love all people in the world.
Other Calvinist theologians, however, disagree with that perspective. Rather, they teach that God loves all people but with different types of love. They distinguish between God’s general love for His fallen world and God’s particular, effective, and selecting love toward His elect.[9]
They teach that God demonstrates his general-non-saving love for all people by providing them with common grace such as sunshine and rain for all people (Matthew 5:45). Nevertheless, God has a particular-saving love for His elect only. He chose, from eternity, to save a particular group of individuals. Sadly, this is why other Calvinist teachers can affirm that God generally loves all people while simultaneously affirming that God actually desires to save only some specific people that He truly loves.[10] Some theologians protest against this kind of double talk that portrays God to be dishonest and insincere.
We disagree with this kind of teaching. Several biblical passages present a challenge to this type of Calvinist theology because, contrary to their claims, the Bible actually teaches that God loves and desires to save every person (e.g. 1 Timothy 2:3–4; 2 Peter 3:9).
“This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth”. (1 Timothy 2:3–4, NIV)
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”. (2 Peter 3:9, NIV)
In the book Why I Am Not A Calvinist, Jerry Walls and Joseph Dongell have observed that many consistent Calvinists will have difficulty proclaiming with integrity the Gospel as Good News for all sinners, if their theology in fact teaches that God refused to love everyone and God refused to provide a means for all people to be saved. Unfortunately, this kind of theology makes the Gospel exclusively Good News only to a special chosen few, not for all humanity.
Consider the love of God displayed in offering the Gospel to the non-elect-persons who God knows cannot will to accept the offer without the very electing love He has chosen to withhold from them. Apart from electing love, the offer of the Gospel only serves as an occasion for condemnation, since sinners who are not elect will inevitably reject it and thereby add to their record of disobedience. All of this makes it painfully clear that the non-elect are not loved in the only way that can promote their ultimate well-being. God has not chosen to give them the only thing that can possibly provide true flourishing and fulfillment… In short, [Calvinists] should frankly admit to the unconverted that he doesn’t know whether or not God loves them in the crucial sense that is absolutely necessary for them to experience eternal joy and flourishing. God may only love them in the sense that He provides them with earthly benefits and in the sense that he makes them an offer that in their fallen condition they can’t begin to appreciate. When God’s love to the world is reduced to this, it is difficult to see how it can be relished as the astounding good news Christians believe it is.[11]
Does God Desire to Save Every Person?
Some Calvinist theologians answer yes, while others answer no. Those who answer yes, distinguish between God’s secret will and God’s revealed will. They teach that in His eternal decree, God desires to save only the elect. However, in His will, as revealed in Scripture, God desires to save every person. The Calvinist distinguishes between God’s secret will to save only those chosen for salvation, and God’s revealed will to save all people.[12]
The Calvinist teaching on the secret/revealed will is a problematic and a flawed solution. The two wills assert contradictory claims, and there is no explicit biblical basis for affirming the existence of a will of God, which is not revealed in the Bible.
The implication is that God announces in Scripture that He wants to save all people, but secretly He has already decreed that He wants to save only some people. This kind of teaching makes God dishonest. Also, this theology about the secret/revealed will undermines the confidence we have in the truthfulness and authority of the Bible.
This simultaneous affirmation of contradictory claims by many Calvinists is problematic. The truth is, we can know God’s will on any matter only when God has revealed His will in the Bible, and this so-called secret will (that God actually desires to save only a preselected few) would contradict the truth statements in Scripture that God desires every person to be saved.
Another problematic Calvinist teaching is when they claim that God desires to save all kinds of people, but not every person. For them, the word “all” means “all kinds of people” (but not “all people”). No one is excluded from God’s plan of salvation because of their ethnicity, sex, social class, or economic status. Thus, Calvinists argue that God desires to save a variety of people from among all people. God desires to save all kinds of people, but not every person.[13]
As Non-Calvinist Evangelical Christians, we disagree with these Calvinistic twisted claims. Instead, we affirm the biblical truth that God sincerely loves and desires to save every person, that Christ died for every person, and that anyone can respond in repentance and faith to the message of the Gospel and be saved. John 3:16 states that, “whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
We believe that God loves every person with no exclusion and with no exemption. Through the cross of Christ, God provided the means of salvation for all sinners, and because of God’s prevenient grace everyone is invited to respond and are enabled to either accept or reject the message of the Gospel presented to them.
“For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.” (Titus 2:11, NIV)
We affirm that all people are sinners who cannot save themselves, the Holy Spirit convicts and draws sinners, God provides atonement for every person through the events of Christ’s cross, and salvation comes only by grace and through faith in Jesus.
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. 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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:14–18, NIV)
The Bible clearly portrays that God desires a covenant relationship with people. God invites all sinners through the preaching of the Gospel, then people hear the message of the Gospel, and those who believe in Jesus are assured of the promise of the free gift of salvation.
“Anyone who believes in Him will never be put to shame… Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the One they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?…” (Romans 10:11–15, NIV)
- — — — — — — -
Non-Calvinist Evangelical Christians are fellow born again believers from various theological persuasions which include Provisionists, Molinists, Free Grace, Arminians, Freewill Baptists, General Baptists, Wesleyans, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Methodists, Mennonite, Brethren, Nazarene, Evangelical Free, Anabaptists, Anglican, and all believers who embrace “Whosoever Will” theologies.
𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 is a cross-denominational collaboration of various Evangelical Christian pastors, theologians, scholars, church leaders, and believers from all theological stripes who affirm and teach that God has provided the means of salvation for all people through the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. So that all who trust in Jesus Christ are saved by grace through faith. We believe that the Gospel (εὐαγγέλιον) is asserting that God actually loves the entire world and that God sincerely desires every person to gain eternal life through Jesus Christ. God offers the free gift of salvation to all sinners and invites all humanity to respond in believing faith. The saving grace of God is sincerely offered to every person, not decreed to a preselected few. We desire to be a theological voice against teachings that limit the saving grace of God only to a chosen few, against theologies that teach that Christ did not die for all of humanity, and against doctrines that say that the Gospel is actually good news only to preselected individuals, not for every person.
We subscribe to the theological convictions of the 𝗔𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘀’ 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱, the 𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗲 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱, the 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗻𝘁, and the 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗘𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲.
[1] Jerry Walls, Does God Love Everyone?: The Heart of What’s Wrong with Calvinism (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), 3–4.
[2] Arthur Pink, The Sovereignty of God, [1929] 3rd ed. (Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, 1999). 17.
[3] The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q 4, accessible online at https://prts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Shorter_Catechism.pdf .
[4] Walls, Does God Love Everyone?: The Heart of What’s Wrong with Calvinism, 4.
[5] Walls, Does God Love Everyone?, 5–6.
[6] Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. 1, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1997), 405.
[7] John Owen, Death of Death in the Death of Christ, (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, accessible online at https://ccel.org/ccel/o/owen/deathofdeath/cache/deathofdeath.pdf), 189.
[8] Pink, The Sovereignty of God, 256.
[9] R.C. Sproul, What Is Reformed Theology?: Understanding the Basics (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 177; Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948). 160; John Piper, The Pleasures of God, (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1991), 148.
[10] Sproul, What Is Reformed Theology?, 177; Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, 160; Piper, The Pleasures of God, 148.
[11] Jerry Walls and Joseph Dongell, Why I Am Not a Calvinist, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 114.
[12] R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1988), 35; 195–96; 63; Sproul, What Is Reformed Theology? 161; John Piper, “Are There Two Wills in God,” in Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace, eds., Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce Ware (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2000), 108–109, 123.
[13] Roger Olson, Against Calvinism: Rescuing God’s Reputation from Radical Reformed Theology, (Grand Rapids. MI: Zondervan, 2011), 74–76.
No comments:
Post a Comment