Is God's Love Unconditional?

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;4 that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.

Last week, I mentioned that God’s love for us is not dependent upon our good behavior. He does not waver or change the degree that He loves us based on what we do, for God loved us even before we loved Him. As Romans 5:8 states, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Even though God’s love for us does not change, that does not mean that He always approves of our actions or is always pleased with us. In fact, there are a lot of Scriptures, like this one in Thessalonians, where believers are instructed to please the Lord. That means that if it is possible to please the Lord, it is also possible to displease Him. You might think, well, that means then that God’s love does change. If God is displeased with me, that means He loves me less than if I pleased Him more. It’s human nature, I think, to place our feelings and way of thinking onto God and project onto Him our human tendencies. Our love for others is quick to change and quick to be removed. God is not like us. He is unchanging and steadfast. As Lamentations 3:22 tells us, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;” (ESV).

Even though God’s love for us does not cease or change, His pleasure or displeasure with us certainly does change, based on our actions. This concept made more sense to me after I became a mom. I love my three children. Their safety, health and well-being mean more to me than my own life. I love them and I can’t imagine any scenario that would change my love for them. Even if they told me I am the worst mother ever or that they hate me, I would be devastated, but I would still love them. My love for them is not based on their behavior. At the same time, I am really pleased when they are kind, do their chores, give me hugs and get along with each other. I am also displeased when they fight or complain or do something “bad.” But I don’t love them less when they misbehave, I just want them to change and behave correctly. The failure in the analogy of thinking that God’s love is like a good parent’s love is that, unlike God, parents are not perfect. Parents, even good parents, are still human and sinful. The Bible even mentions this very thing. Isaiah 49:14&15 says:

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”

God is perfect and sinless and so He will not forget us. So, when we describe God as our Father, we have to think of Him as the perfect father, not putting our human father’s shortcomings onto Him. There is a contemporary worship song titled Good, Good Father. I really like that song’s lyrics. The chorus says, “You’re a good, good father, it’s who You are, who You are, and I’m loved by You.” The message is very simple. God is a good father and because that’s who He is, He loves us. And because He is God and not an earthly, human father, He won’t change His love for us. He is not just a good father, but He is also a perfect Father. He is the only one who is perfect.

Once we’ve established this truth that God’s love does not change, then we move on to the concept which Paul is talking about to the Thessalonian Christians. If we dive into the concept of pleasing God without first laying the foundation that God’s love does not change, we could end up confused and thinking that we need to earn God’s love. We cannot do anything to earn His love. But we are told in scripture to work at pleasing Him. This speaks to the idea that His approval of us is conditional. That is why it’s vital that we clarify the fact that God’s love for us is not based on merit. He loves each person who He created. He wants all people to come to salvation. Those who repent and receive salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, He adopts into His family. We then become children of God. Like all families, children can please or displease their parent.

While God’s love is constant, His approval is not. Think of children. If they go off and leave the family and make destructive immoral choices, why would a good parent still approve of them and bless them in their disobedience? The parents of that young person would most likely be grieved and upset and want their child to turn from those bad choices and come back to right thinking and living. In other words, the parents would want their child to repent. Because they love their child, they grieve and urge them to change. They don’t stop loving that child, but they cannot approve of their behavior. At least, that’s what good parents do. God is like that. He is the good parent who is grieved and wants the child to repent and change. Think of how He described Himself in Isaiah 65:2, “All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations.”

Yet other times, parents will just turn a blind eye to their child’s bad behavior and accept them. To preserve the relationship, they will accept the choices the child made and even celebrate their immoral decisions. God does not do that. Here in 1 Thessalonians 4:8 Paul says to those that who do wrong or take advantage of their fellow brother or sister in Christ that, “The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.” He’s speaking to Christians about behaving inappropriately with other Christians, but I don’t think the warning is limited to only that circumstance. If the Christian who is behaving badly keeps on sinning and does not repent, then how can they escape God’s punishment? I think from this text and other texts throughout scripture, it’s clear that someone must repent in order to be forgiven. God does not overlook our sin. He offers grace and forgiveness, but only after we repent. He doesn’t tell us it’s okay to sin and we don’t need to repent. He certainly doesn’t celebrate our sin.

I think a lot of times, the message is put out that God is one of those two types of parents, although in our society, I don’t hear the first one very often anymore. He’s either presented as vengeful and loveless toward us if we sin, or He is so loving that He accepts us just as we are and loves and approves of us, no matter what we do. As I explained, neither of those two descriptions are actually accurate. Both descriptions of God harm the gospel message. The first description of God being full of wrath, ready to strike humanity with judgement excludes the ever present love of God. We see in Jesus the fulfillment of the depth of His love for humankind. God willingly laid His life down for us so we can receive forgiveness for our sin. He has cloaked us in Christ’s righteousness so He could adopt us into the family of God. He did all that because He loves us. Yet, that does not give us a blank check with which we now can spend on sin. If we willingly engage in sin, we will not please God. Because He loves us, He wants us to let go of the sin in our lives and repent and turn to Him. His loving us does not mean He approves of our sin.

Last week I said that God’s love is unconditional, but the more I’ve thought about that statement, the more I think I need to clarify it. This idea of the “unconditional” love of God is probably a phrase that we should abandon. I cannot find this phrase in the Bible. It’s like over time we’ve boiled God’s love down to this word “unconditional” but it’s not in the Bible, so should we still use it? I doubt its accuracy because I think it comes with too much connotation. God’s love is unconditional, in that He loved us before we loved Him. But it’s also not unconditional, because until we receive His gift of salvation, we are not saved from eternal damnation. Jesus also makes some very pointed statements that imply that our love for Him determines His love for us. He says in John 15:9-14, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.” Those sound like conditions. We remain in Jesus’ love and are His friends if we keep His commands. It reminds me of the verse in Revelation 3:16, “So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

So that is why I am questioning the validity of saying God’s love is unconditional, for there certainly are conditions to being adopted into the family of God. While the gift of salvation is available to all and given to all who would believe, we must believe (have faith), and once we’ve been given this free gift, we must follow and obey to remain in Jesus’ love. We must, as Paul says, “live in order to please God.” And there are plenty of other verses, too, which tell us to evaluate if our faith is real by judging the fruit we produce. We can’t just live by our sinful nature and gratify our flesh and think that we are following Jesus. I’m afraid that when we say that God’s love is unconditional, it gives us a false sense of freedom to do anything we like.

Another analogy that I think expresses this idea is one we also see in scripture: God as a husband. In the book of Hosea, we see God describe Himself as husband to Israel. We also see this terminology used in Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and in the New Testament. God describes the Church as the Bride of Christ as well. So, using this same analogy that scripture uses, think of a husband and wife. Let’s say the wife behaves badly, and she spends all the money without consulting her husband. She goes out and buys a whole new wardrobe and buys a new car with all their mutual savings. Is her husband going to be pleased? Is she behaving as though she loves her husband? Is he just going to look the other way and say, “It’s okay, I love you honey.” No, of course not, it’s going to affect their relationship in a very negative way. Her decisions could bankrupt the family. If they can’t pay their mortgage or rent that month, they could lose their house. Her actions have consequences. Nobody would say she loves her spouse. If he told his friends what she did, his friends would all say, “Dude, she must really hate you.” Why? Because she is not living in such a way that pleases her spouse. She’s displeasing him on purpose.

When we live in such a way that displeases the Lord, why would we think it’s okay with God? It is true that He is slow to anger (Nahum 1:3) but that means that He eventually gets angry. He’s just slow to get there. He’s compassionate, but what if the person is not repentant? Again, this brings us back to whether or not we believe God offers unconditional forgiveness. I only see in scripture where God forgives the repentant.

There is a false idea which has infiltrated Christianity, and it has done so much damage to people’s concept of God, and the idea is that God is so in love with us that He is like a heartsick, obsessive boyfriend. There have been books, sermons, and many worship songs written about it, too. For example, so many contemporary worship songs could be about a boyfriend or girlfriend instead of about God. They just sound like love songs. God loves us, but He does not elevate us above Himself. He is not bowing down in worship of us. He is the God of the universe. He is the only One worthy of all praise. When He states in Exodus 20:5, “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,” He is jealous in the sense that we should not give our worship to other things. He is not jealous in the sense that He needs us to worship Him in order to complete Him or something equivalent to that idea.

Why do I bring all this up? Because what we think about all these things lays the foundation for all our other concepts of God. If we get this idea wrong, then it clouds all of our theology. If we think God loving us means that He is always pleased with us as we are, and accepts our sin, then we will see no need to do what Paul is telling the Thessalonians to do. Why would we need to work at pleasing God if He is already pleased with us?

This wrong understanding of the way God loves us has led us to the situation we have today in the church at large in America. Most people do not feel like they need to live any differently from their unsaved friends and neighbors. The culture, not the Bible, dictates their behavior. Paul disagrees. He states in verse 7, “For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.” Most people are not living holy lives. Our culture is full of impure things. If you walk into a bookstore or scroll through a movie or television title list, it is very clear that our culture is not promoting holy living.

Lest we think it doesn’t matter, we should pay attention to verse 8, which says, “Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.”

Paul elaborates on this idea even more in Romans 8:8, 12-13, which says, “Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God… Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”

The amazing thing is, once we are brought into the family of God, we are given all that we need to follow Him. He will fill us with His Holy Spirit so we can say no to the flesh and follow the Spirit. We have mercy that is offered to us, new every morning, so we can daily repent and find forgiveness and cleansing. We no longer have to go to the temple and offer a sacrifice to wipe away our sins we committed that week, we can go immediately before the throne of God and confess our sins and find forgiveness and help to change.

We have to think of God’s love differently than the incorrect ways it has been presented. Everything that God does is motivated by love, but His love is not this unconditional acceptance of our sin. His love was so great that He took the punishment for our sin by dying on the cross. He hates the sin in our lives so much that He was willing to die a horrible death to take our sin away. You could say that He hates sin so much that He died in order to destroy it. And because He is God, He was able to triumph over sin and death and rise victorious. His love has always been conditional in the sense that in order for us sinful people to be in His presence, we have to have our sin atoned for. In the Old Testament, people had to make sin offerings, and they presented the blood of animals before the altar. Now, we have to be covered by the blood of Jesus in order to be declared righteous before Him. God has conditions that have to be met in order for us to be saved. In this sense, experiencing His love is conditional. But His love is also unconditional in the sense that it is available to all people, everywhere, regardless of the sin they are in, they too can come to the cross and receive this gift of salvation and love, given to all through faith and repentance.

Here in 1 Thessalonians, when Paul urges the believers to increasingly live in a such a way that it pleases the Lord, he is assuming that they understand already that God loves them. Now, because they know that God loves them, in response to the love they been shown from God, they should live in such a way that they please God. We should do the same. If we want to please God, we must follow His ways and obey Him. For as verse 3 states, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified…”. That word sanctified is the Greek word hagiasmos, and according to Strong’s Concordance it means, “properly, purification, i.e. (the state) purity; concretely (by Hebraism) a purifier -- holiness, sanctification.”

Paul told the believers in Colossians 1:9&10, “…we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.” God’s will for us is that we be holy and purified. He wants us to live a life worthy of the Lord. God wants us to please Him. His will is for us to be sanctified. This is how we please the Lord.

As believers, we can rejoice in the love, forgiveness and grace that He gives to us. In response to all that He has done for us, and as evidence of our faith in Him, we are to daily seek to please the Lord. And we are to strive to do this more and more as we follow Him and grow in our relationship with Him. So that when we stand before Him, He will say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” (Matthew 25:21).

Let us strive to please the Lord. Let us not cease in trying to “find out what pleases the Lord” as Ephesians 5:10 tells us to do.

Pray: Heavenly Father, we pray that You would help us by Your Holy Spirit to do the things that please You. Show us what pleases You. Please convict us when we do things that displease You. Help us to follow You better each day. Please forgive us when we fail to do the things that please You. We need You to help us change and grow. We love You and thank You for Your great love toward us. In Jesus' name, amen.