Q. 1. “What is God’s love?”
“We may define love as
the spiritual bond of perfect fellowship that subsists between ethically
perfect, personal beings, who, because of their ethical perfection, have their
delight in, seek, and find one another. The love of God is the infinite and
eternal bond of fellowship that is based upon the ethical perfection and
holiness of the divine nature and that subsists between the three persons of
the holy Trinity.” (Herman Hoeksema, “Reformed Dogmatics,” vol. 1, Chapter
8)
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Q. 2. “What is the main objection
to the idea that God loves all men?”
Negatively, the theory that God loves all men is,
of course, in plain contradiction to the teaching of the Scripture (e.g., Ps.
5:5; 11:5; Mal. 1:3; Rom. 9:13). Positively, the Scriptures confirm that God
loves only His people. An example of this can be seen in the doctrine of
election. Why are some chosen to life and some not? Simply because God only
loved some, and thus only chose some. Thus “foreknowledge” in Romans 8:29 is
equivalent to “forelove” and is the ground of our predestination to
glorification. This loving choice of God involves two elements—aetiology (the study of original causes) and teleology (the study of
purposeful ends). The cause of our election and salvation is found in the love
of God to us. But this electing love also shapes our final destiny and end both
as far as this life is concerned (Eph. 2:10) and ultimately in that which is to
come (Rom. 8:29). (British Reformed
Journal, Issue 9 [Jan – Mar 1995], p. 22.)
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Q. 3. “What is meant in historic Reformed
theology by the so-called ‘threefold love of God’? Three terms are often used
to differentiate different aspects of God’s love towards His creatures: ‘love
of benevolence,’ ‘love of beneficence,’ and ‘love of complacency.’ Is there
scriptural support for this idea? Is it a valid teaching? Does this idea of
‘threefoldness’ conflict with the truth that God is one and His love is also
one?”
The answer to this question concerning the threefold love of God
is found in Turretin’s Institutes of
Elenctic Theology, volume 1, page 242. P&R is the publisher. Turretin
here gives the thinking of the Reformed tradition, not merely his own thinking.
The love of benevolence
is that “by which God willed good to the creature from eternity.”
The love of beneficence
is that “by which he does good to the creature in time according to his good
will.”
The love of complacency
is that “by which he delights himself in the creature on account of the rays of
his image seen in them.”
Immediately, Turretin applies all three aspects of the love of God
to “us,” his elect. In order, the three aspects of love refer to his love by
which “he loved us before we were,” by which “he loves us as we are;” and by
which “he loves us when we ‘are’ (viz.,
renewed after his image—DJE).” By the first, he elects us; by the second, he
redeems and sanctifies us; but by the third, he gratuitously rewards us as holy
and just. John 3:16 refers to the first; Ephesians 5:25 and Revelation 1:5 to
the second; Isaiah 62:3 and Hebrews 11:6 to the third.
I hardly need to call attention that Turretin applies all three
aspects of the love of God, and restricts them to, the elect.
The Reformed tradition, as well as Scripture and the creeds,
restrict the love of God to the elect.
(David J.
Engelsma, 26/07/2017)
God’s love of benevolence is His goodwill: He wills (Latin: volentia)
well (bene) for the objects of His love. God’s love of beneficence is
His love according to which He does something good for the objects of His love:
He does (Latin: ficus) well (bene) for His beloved. God’s love of
complacency is the delight that He has in the objects of His love: He is
pleased (Latin: placere) with (Latin: com) His beloved. While
theologians use these distinctions, they are theological, not biblical,
distinctions.
… The Bible
does not teach that God loves the reprobate with the love of benevolence, while
He withholds from them the love of beneficence or complacency. The Bible simply
teaches that God does not love, but hates, the reprobate. Indeed, Herman
Bavinck, although an advocate of common grace, writes,
Now it is indeed possible to speak of God’s
love to creatures or people in general (the love of benevolence), but for this
the Scripture mostly uses the word “goodness,” and as a rule speaks of God’s
love, like his grace, only in relation to his chosen people or church (the love
of friendship) [Bavinck, “Reformed Dogmatics” {2004}, vol. 2, p. 215]
Therefore,
God has goodwill (benevolence) for, does good (beneficence) for, and delights
in (complacency) His elect only. God has no desire for the salvation of the
reprobate; God does nothing for the salvation of the reprobate or even for the
temporal welfare of the reprobate, and even when He gives them good gifts, He
does not bless them. The Bible does not categorize gifts such as food, shelter,
good health, riches and long life as blessings, but as snares (Ps. 73:18).
Finally, God does not delight in the reprobate, but He loathes them.
(Rev. Martyn McGeown, PRTJ, vol. 53, no. 2
[April 2020], pp. 90-91)
==================
In the following sermon, Rev. Angus Stewart preaches on the
three distinctions in God’s love toward men:
http://www.cprc.co.uk/comattributes7.mp3 (Text: Romans 5:5, 8)
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Q. 4. “A father might have benevolence for the homeless people to
whom he preaches in a mission—he wills their welfare and desires their
salvation, although their sins and their filthy condition disgust him—but he
has a love of complacency and delight in his own daughter. Surely this can be
true also of God? He can love the reprobate with a benevolent love (i.e., will
their welfare and desire their salvation), but love only the elect with a love
of complacency?”
“While we grant that with respect to man, [common grace advocates
do] not prove any love for the reprobate from Scripture. The Bible does
not teach that God loves the reprobate with the love of benevolence, while He
withholds from them the love of beneficence or complacency. The Bible simply
teaches that God does not love, but hates, the reprobate. Besides that, we are
not God: we do not measure God by ourselves (Ps. 50:21).” (Rev. Martyn
McGeown, PRTJ, vol. 53, no. 2 [April 2020], pp. 90-91)
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Q. 5. “Is God to be thought of as
‘necessary’ or ‘free’ in the exercise of His attributes?”
God is not essence and attributes, as though His attributes were something outside of
His real self that could be freely controlled. Rather God is essence in attributes (hence the teaching of I
John 4:8, 16). God, then, is to be thought of as necessary rather than free in
the exercise of His attributes, and a change in the exercise of a particular
attribute implies therefore a corresponding change in God Himself. It is
therefore not valid to say that, because God is sovereign, He can begin to love
whom He wants, when He wants, and for how long He wants. This makes God guilty
of purely arbitrary indifference rather than rational self-determination. Also,
it should be noted that the doctrine of the immutability of God regards not
only His eternal Being (and therefore His attributes) but also the purposeful
exercise of His Being in the world of space and time. (British Reformed Journal, Issue 9 [Jan – Mar 1995], p. 22.)
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Q. 6. “Is there not a natural propensity or disposition in God
whereby He, in His infinite goodness, is inclined to desire the happiness of
all men, that they might be delivered from misery, and be brought unto
Himself?”
That God hath any natural or necessary inclination, by his
goodness, or any other property, to do good to us, or any of his creatures, we do deny. Everything that
concerns us is an act of his free will and good pleasure, and not a natural,
necessary act of his Deity, as shall be declared.” (John Owen, “Works,” vol. 10, p. 227)
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Q. 7. “If God’s attitude never changes,
and that He either eternally loves or hates somebody, then this must be true
also in the case of angels. But, what about the reprobate angels? Was there not
a time in their existence when they were holy? Did God hate them even at that
time? If yes, how it is possible for God to hate somebody who did not commit
any sin?
It may be objected, “How can God hate a being that
is at that time upright and perfect?” To which we reply, “How can God love a
sinner who is at that time a sinner?” Or alternatively, “How can God love a
being whom He knows (and has in fact decreed and purposed) will become the
devil?”
The answer is as follows: First, God’s love and
hatred are sovereignly determined within Himself and not dependent on anything
in the creature (Rom. 9:11-13). Second, God is not bound by time, and therefore
“sees” the devil, even in his original upright state, according to what the
devil in God’s decree of predestination would become, even as He sees the elect
not only as in Christ by election, but as what we become in time—righteous by
the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. (Dr.
Manuel Kuhs, British Reformed Journal, Issue 59)
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Q.
8. “If
they who are the objects of God’s redeeming love can also in some sense of the
word be regarded as the objects of His wrath, why should it be impossible that
they who are the objects of His wrath should also in some sense share His
divine favour?”
[The] wrath and curse
which God has declared against the reprobate [is sometimes equted] with that of
His fatherly displeasure under which the elect may fall by their sins, having
made this equation, they then assume that because God loves the elect and
exercises His fatherly displeasure concerning them when they fall into sin,
that He must also love the reprobate. In other words, if God can be said to
exercise both love and wrath toward the elect, He must also have a love for the
reprobate.
… Let us now investigate
the fallacy of this reasoning.
In the first place it must
be stated that there are not two kinds of wrath in God concerning sin, one for
the elect, and one for the reprobate. The text of Romans 1:18, “For the wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of
men,” is true both of the elect and reprobate. There is nevertheless a total
difference between God’s disposition towards the elect and reprobate. While
God’s anger is perfect, and this emotion is expressed in God’s disposition
toward elect and reprobate, that disposition is conditioned absolutely by the
factors of God’s electing, predestinating love and Christ’s death.
On the death of Christ
rests the judicial removal of the wrath of God against the elect for their
sins. Since the atonement has reference to particular sins and not sins in general,
it is not a reservoir or storehouse of forgiveness. It therefore creates no
difficulty to hold that God has expressed His displeasure against His people
for their sins. This is clearly the position of Scripture as seen in the
following quotation from Calvin’s Institutes,
book 3, chapter 4, section 32:
David says,
“O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thine hot
displeasure” (Ps. 6:1). There is nothing inconsistent with this in its being
repeatedly said, that the Lord is angry with His saints when He chastens them
for their sins (Ps. 38:7). In like manner, in Isaiah: “In that day thou shalt
say, O Lord, I will praise thee though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is
turned away, and thou comfortest me” (Isa. 12:1). Likewise in Habakkuk, “In
wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2), and Micah, “I will bear the indignation of
the Lord because I have sinned against him” (Mic. 7:9).
Two things determine the
disposition of God toward the elect. Firstly, He has chosen and loved them out
of His mere good pleasure from all eternity, and secondly, He has sent His only
Son into the world that He, through His own perfect righteousness and death, would
reconcile them unto Himself.
Two things determine God’s
disposition toward the reprobate. One: the fact of His wrath against all
unrighteousness and ungodliness of men; and two: the fact that He has by an act
of His will ordained them to be the objects of His everlasting displeasure and
wrath. Though they may taste of the temporal blessings which God bestows upon
them in their earthly life, they are, as the Scripture teaches, given the
Gospel for the reason as Calvin comments on Isaiah 6:9-10. “He directs his
voice to them, but it is that they may turn a deaf ear; he kindles a light, but
it is that they may become more stupid; he employs a remedy, but it is that
they may not be cured.” From this it should be clear that God’s disposition
toward the reprobate is such that they have no part whatever in the purposes of
God in the free offer of the Gospel except for the greater hardening of their
hearts.
[Proponents
of common grace] have in effect adopted the so called ‘law of opposites,’ which
assumes that there is a love-hate relationship in God concerning the same
object. Their notion, that because God has in some sense expressed a wrath
against the elect, He must also love the reprobate because He loves the elect,
is entirely gratuitous. It is without warrant in any part of the Scripture and
constitutes an addition thereto. There is no equation in any sense whatever
between God’s disposition of wrath toward the reprobate and that of His
fatherly disposition toward the elect. Since the wrath of God in the case of
the latter is entirely conditioned by God’s eternal electing love and Christ's
death, it can never be said, in any sense, that any are loved outside of
Christ.
(Universalism and the
Reformed Churches: A Defense of Calvin’s Calvinism [EPCA])
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Q.
9. “Do the elect ever occur as sinners?”
My
brief answer would be that they do. Nevertheless, from eternity they occur as
sinners in Christ Jesus, as the objects of God’s free grace. (Herman Hoeksema, “Protestant Reformed Theological Journal,”
vol. 2, no. 1, Dec. 1968)
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Q. 10. “If God cannot love
sinners, because His love is holy, righteous and just, and He cannot even look
upon iniquity, then how does He love His chosen people, who themselves have
fallen into iniquity and misery in Adam?”
The answer is that the Most High loves
us in Christ alone. Only in Christ are we elected, redeemed, regenerated,
called, justified, adopted, sanctified, preserved and glorified. Only in Christ
can, and does, God love us with that perfect bond of divine love. In Christ we
even share (in a creaturely way) in the eternal and blessed love of the holy
Trinity! No wonder the apostle exclaims that nothing is “able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39)! This is
the absolutely indestructible and unbreakable love of the almighty and gracious
God for His covenant people, sealed in the blood of Jesus. (Rev. Angus Stewart, “God is Love”)
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Q. 11. “Surely we have no right to say that God cannot both love
and hate a man at one and the same time. After all, God's mind is infinite, and
therefore He is perfectly capable of loving and hating the same person. Such a
concept is simply one of the many mysteries we must humbly accept.”
That is simply a contradiction. Such a view is a denial of the
attribute of God’s simplicity. The doctrine of God’s simplicity means that God
is one and undivided in His Being. Although we speak of and distinguish
individual attributes of God, it is nevertheless true that His attributes are
all one in Him. Hence, God’s simplicity means God always acts consistently with
His nature; God is always in harmony with Himself; there is no tension in the
Being of God. The very thought is utter blasphemy. He is the one, perfectly blessed,
incomparable God, unto whom be glory forever. Even in human relationships do we
not regard consistency as a virtue? That we do is a reflection of the eternal
and self-existent Jehovah, who as the I AM THAT I AM simply is. Jehovah God is never anything other
than what He is. Hence, to will opposite things … is impossible for God, as Job
declares, “He is in one mind, and who can turn him?” (Job 23:13). God’s will is God and so His will is one and
undivided; you obviously cannot say this about one who wills both A and not A
at the same time: God is not the great schizophrenic! (Philip Rainey, “Calvinism Cast Out: The Reformed Presbyterian
Church of Ireland and the Free Offer of the Gospel”)
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Q. 12. “Why must we love all men when God’s love is particular?”
[The] first answer to that question is: We must do this simply
because we are commanded to do it. Even if we do not know the
reason why, nor understand the purpose of God, simple, child-like obedience
requires it. And that is enough. God may, graciously, tell us why He wants us
to do something; but that explanation is grace. Obedience is
required of us always, for obedience is better than sacrifice.
Further, if to love someone means to seek someone’s salvation, and
if we were to love only those whom God loves, we would have to know whom God
intends to save. God does not tell us that; we do not need to know that; it is,
in fact, far better that we do not know that. We must love our neighbor, and
God will use our love to save His people.
While Scripture does not tell us a great deal more, it certainly is
also true that we must love our neighbor because it is through loving
our neighbor that we are faithful witnesses of God’s cause and truth. And this
is important. God will have His cause and truth defended in the world. Whether
men hear or not makes no difference: God is insistent that His people testify
to the glory of His name. Loving our neighbor does that.
And finally, it is not amiss to mention that God wants us to have
an earnest interest in the salvation of our fellow men. Even Paul wished
himself accursed for his brethren according to the flesh, if only they could be
saved—even though he knew it was not God’s purpose to save them all. Equally,
we must not delight in the destruction of men, but we must be earnest in their
salvation.
The Reformed faith and a solid Calvinism is not the enemy of
fervency in evangelism and anxious desires on the part of the saints to see the
salvation of their neighbors.
Let us get on with the important business of loving our neighbors
as ourselves. It is the command of God. (Herman C. Hanko, “Covenant
Reformed News,” vol. 3, no. 10)
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Q. 13. “God
loves all that exists because existence itself is good and God loves all that
is good; therefore God loves all that exists”
In response, first, if the argument holds, God loves Satan and his host of
demons, and will love them eternally in hell. For they exist, and they will
exist forever. This implies that the love of God for a creature is without
saving effect, is impotent. For despite the love of God for them, Satan and his
host are not saved, but rather perish in misery. No doubt, this will not
trouble those who make this argument. For they suppose that God’s love for many
humans fails to save them.
Second, this argument, namely, that God loves all who exist,
simply because they exist, is explicitly denied by Jesus. On one occasion, he
said that it would have been good for Judas that he had never been born or
existed (Matt. 26:24; Mark 14:21). This word of Jesus denies that mere
existence is good. For Judas, non-existence had been good. Implied clearly is
that existence in the case of Judas was bad, that is, bad for Judas, who
existed. The explanation is that as a reprobate ungodly and impenitent man, and
as the traitor, he was the object of the punitive wrath of God. This is bad for
a man, though he exists.
The argument ignores sin (sinful existence); the justice of God
(punishing impenitent sin with awful wrath); and the necessity of the
redemption of the cross (only the cross of Christ makes rational, moral
existence good). To make mere existence the object of the love of God is, in
reality, a denial of the cross. (Prof. David J. Engelsma, 24/08/2020)
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Q. 14. “Why would God command us to love all of our neighbours head for
head, if He Himself didn’t do the same and therefore love everybody head for
head? Wouldn’t that make God inconsistent?”
1) God doesn’t HAVE any neighbours. As the triune God, He dwells
alone in eternity. So the argument is a begging of the question: namely, it
assumes beforehand that God has neighbours.
2) Human beings, angels, and animals are not God’s “neighbours,”
but are His “creatures,” with whom He may do as seems good to Him, predestinating
them to life or death as seems good to Him.
3) Although the law indeed reflects God’s good nature, the
commandments are not applicable to Him as they are to mere creatures. He is the
law giver.
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