"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."
So I just want to mention my thoughts on this passage of scripture and the love that God has for us. Paul is trying to explain how inconceivable God's love is so that we have shameless hope and rejoice in our sufferings. It seems pretty obvious that his current audience are Christians. He is explaining how much God loves Christians, so they should not feel shame in their hope, but rather joy in their suffering. That is the context here, but I want to go a little deeper.
I have been tossing and turning with the idea that God loves only the elect. It has been something that I have not believed, but have not understood enough to take a side. My current view of God is that yes, he hates the wicked (Psalm 5:5; 11:5; Romans 9:13), there isno doubting that, it is made clear in scripture that God hates evildoers. However, it has been my belief that God both hates, but loves the wicked at the same time. I always imagined a father who's son killed his wife. If you were that father, would you not hate what your son has done, hate him in fact, but still love him because he's your son? If you say you wouldn't act that way, can you imagine any person on this earth that would? And if a human can love like that, how much more could God love like that?
Now I have read this scripture, and in particular verses 7 to 8, I see just how BIG God's love is! Yes this scripture is referring to the elect, but I want to go deeper into this scripture. "For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." While we were still sinners, while Christians were still sinners. A person who believes that God hates and does not love the wicked people of this world will read this and say that God showed love for Christians while they were still sinners because and only because He knew that they would be the ones that Christ would be in, and change. This view however, limits God and takes this verse out of context.
There are two categories of love here; the ability to die for a good person, and the ability die for an enemy. To say that God only died for us because He knew we would accept Him in the end puts God in the first category, that He only died for a good person. If that is the only reason that God would die for a human, because God knows that a human will love Him back after it, then He is only loving that person to the point of death because that person will love Him back.
The idea that Jesus only died for the elect (which I am not sure if I believe) is NOT because the elect are the only ones that were loved (in fact this creates a paradox in the famous John 3:16; because He loved us He sent His Son, not He loved us because He sent His Son), but because God is omniscient and knows who will accept Jesus, so why punish Jesus for for those who will receive punishment for themselves? It has nothing to do with His love for the elect and hatred for the wicked.
Back to Romans 5, Paul puts God in a bigger picture of love than what we are capable of. Yes Paul is talking about Christians, but it is so much bigger than that! By Paul explaining that a human can go to the death for a good person, but God's love made Him go to the death for His enemies, takes God out of that first category of loving and dying only because He knew we would be saved, but loving to the death because HE IS LOVE (1 John 4:8), and continue on to verse 9, "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him." God sent His only Son into the world SO that we might live though Him, not BECAUSE.
Yes, these verses talk about Christ's love to humanity rather than to individuals, but He still loves all humanity. When it says "us" in 1 John 4:9, it is not talking about elect because of the use of the word "might". It is saying that God's love was made manifest to us in Jesus being born, so to the world in general. John 3:16, "the world" does not mean the "elect" (as is a paradox) but means that God did not only love the Jews, but loves all nations. It also goes further than that though, in that "the world" means humanity in general; because Christ came and died so that anyone could actually get into heaven, in all of history, and Jesus was here explaining the born again process to Nicodemus, not explaining the idea of Jews and Gentiles. Also, go on to verse 17 and the context of using "the world" to mean simply "all nations" does not make entire sense. This view of all nations is seen in this scripture, but is not limited to this, for it is explaining how God loved humanity in general.
God's love is for the sinners, and even if it is in a more general sense rather than an individual sense, God loved His enemies and sent His Son to die to save as many as possible, as 1 Timothy 2:4 explains. The Calvinist or the Arminian view of this verse understands that God "desires" something bigger (being either to display His glory or to preserve free will) that prevents His "desire" for all people to be saved to come into existence.
Yes, God does love us more because we have Jesus in us, but He loves everyone. He loves more than any human on this earth is capable to love, and He hates in a more righteous and intense way than any human on this earth is capable to hate.
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