Is Unconditional Love Biblical?

     Recently, while preparing to teach a bible study, I was struck with a simple question - "Is unconditional love really biblical?" I've always presumed God's love is unconditional. So, that question nagged at me. I needed an answer more substantive than a mere presumption.

     Out of curiosity to see what others thought, I posted the question and asked everyone to private message me their responses. It was interesting seeing only two answers that came back as absolute assertions, with one being a yes and the other a no.

     All the other answers I got were somewhere between yes and no. I appreciated everyone's reasoning they gave. I was pointed to different scriptures, and different illustrations were given to help me better understand where someone was coming from.

     But, overall, I found a lack of coherency between everyone's answers. This really peaked my own interest to study the question out for myself. My simple beginning point was to examine my own presumption. Unconditional love was a term I used as a synonym for "agape" and as a way to distinguish God's love. For me, it meant that God bestows His love towards us without any preconditions from us. He continues to love us regardless of how we love Him.

     The two main scriptures that immediately came to mind to defend my presumption were John 3:16 and Romans 5:8-9. However, I believe context is king and trumps my finely-tuned ability to pick cherries from the text.

     As I opened my bible and examined the context for both of those passages, I found myself thinking, "Huh". Why? Well, I saw in both a "because" statement implied. That means a condition is in play. Rather than seeing God lavishing His love towards us regardless of conditions, I instead saw God lavishing us with love due to conditions.

     Consider John 3:16. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (KJV)

     There's a "so that" statement in this verse - a purpose behind God sending the Son as proof of His love for us: "...that whosoever believeth in him should not perish..." . This implies a condition, our condemnation. That's clearly identified in the next verse.

     The overall context of John 3:16 is a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus about the world being under condemnation and the means (Jesus being lifted up on a cross) by which the condemned can escape (spiritual) death.

     As I kept reading into vs. 18-19, I realized that the world's condition of condemnation is the example Jesus uses to distinguish God's love. So much so, that Jesus even further unpacks the condition of the world for Nicodemus in vs. 19. "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." 

     Here, Jesus now compares the love God has for mankind with the love mankind has for darkness. The Greek form of "agape" used for mankind's love of darkness is the same used for God's love of mankind in vs. 16. I'm no longer convinced that I can on one hand distinguish God's "agape" in vs. 16 as unconditional while clearly man's "agape" is not unconditional in vs. 19.

     That may have been confusing. Let me clarify by saying it a different way. Both "loves" talked about are expressed by Jesus through conditions. If mankind's love for darkness can be understood because his deeds are evil and he doesn't want them exposed by light, God's love for mankind can be understood because mankind is in condemnation and He doesn't want us to perish. Thus, that's why He sent His Son.

     Why is this important to notice God's love conditionally talked about within this context? Simple. If Jesus is making the argument in John 3:16 that God loves the world unconditionally, He's removed the condition for why He Himself was sent!

     Let me illustrate. My brother bought an old, nasty, dilapidated house. He loved what he bought, because of the condition it was in. It was a fixer upper. If he loved it unconditionally, regardless of what it was like, then there would be no reason for him to fix it up before moving in! So why didn't he just move in? After all, when he first bought it, I remember him telling me, "Nathan, I love what I see." What he meant by that is he loves the house because it's a fixer-upper. He had a purpose in mind for it. That nasty house - which I loved helping him gut out - had unrealized and unused potential as a home. Now it's nice, livable, and cozy, even if there's still work to be done.

     I use my brother has an example. But isn't that imagery true when God makes His home in us? He purchases a fixer-upper, guts out all the filth inside, and makes us His home, even if there's still work to be done in us.

     Thank you for taking time to read my ramblings. Mind you, this blog is an avenue for me to process my thoughts. I'm still working through this topic. I intend to continue this topic on Thursday, by examining Romans 5:8-9.