God is love (1 Jn 4:8, 16) and many passages indicate that God’s love toward us is unconditional e.g. Rom 5:8
However, some passages sound like God’s love is conditional upon our love and obedience e.g. In John 14:21,23, Jesus says
I was wondering what people make of this - is God’s love conditional or unconditional?
It’s not so much a case of either/or but BOTH… “context” is what distinguishes one from the other in terms of the general rule and or the exception, that being the specific rule. For example: the conditionality of “The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” – is pretty much in line with Timothy’s specific “…especially of those who believe” of the generic “we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men…”. IOW, we have one BECAUSE OF the other.
Again the principle is seen here…
Gal 6:10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all (general injunction), especially to those (specific injunction)* who are of the household of faith.*
So, it is not a case of contradictions, but simply that of “context” clarifies.
What John 14:21,23 above shows is that obedience to God is an outflow of love for God; it says nothing of whether or not love is conditional. And the problem it highlights is not a lack of obedience but a lack of love. Love for God and others is revealed in how we treat God and others.
Love is not conditional, because love is an outflow of character. If a person is loving, then he will love others whatever the conditions. This is especially true in family relationships. I love my children unconditionally. Though they be estranged from me for whatever reason, I still love them and long to be reconciled to them. And things are not right, just, good until we are restored to a healthy relationship. Trust and intimacy is conditional because love demands such, but love is unconditional.
God’s love is unconditional, but it is not stupid.
God loves everyone in whatever condition they are in, but He does not allow people who are in certain conditions full access to everything He has available to those who love Him.
Even if we love God, immaturity can cause some facets of His grace to be unavailable to us. This doesnt always look like love, but it is.
The refusal of people to accept unconditional love often leaves them suffering the effects of shutting the door on it.
While God loves me unconditionally, certain conditions I put upon His love can prevent some degree of His grace in my life.
So as I learn to love unconditionally, I have to learn wisdom, because sometimes unconditional love sometimes looks like foolishness- but sometimes foolishness looks like unconditional love.
If God’s love is unconditional, then how is Psalm 11:5 explained?
The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. (ESV)
Or does He love and hate the wicked simultaneously—a kind of love/hate thing?
Somebody who knows Greek should help us here.
Here’s what I do know: Love/hate sometimes should be translated as preference in favor of or against. Whoever obeys God gets preferential treatment.
Yea, the English loved that word hate, but it didnt mean in 1600 what is means now. It meant to reject. I noticed for instance that while some extremists have taught that we have to to “hate” our own family, and people get into all kinds of weird head trips from that, Jesus made a point of rebuking the Pharisees because they would teach people that they could avoid their responsibility to take care of their parents if they gave it as a gift to the temple. Why would He bother with that if you are supposed to hate your parents. The original Greek word and/or Hebrew thought has to indicate comparitive value not emotionally despising. but i do believe God does get angry at times at those whom He loves.
I was thinking that I may love a person, but if some attitude or action of theirs is destructive in some way to my family or my house, I really have to ask God what to do, because maybe i am not loving my spouse or my neighbor or my employee by allowing some out of control person to do their thing.
I think God is like that, if you go too far He will throw you out da house. But if you come to your senses He will let you back in, because he loves you- and He always did, and he never stopped- but He is God, and you gotta get that straight and act right, because God is love 
Thanks everyone for your responses so far.
Sherman,
I agree
I would like to agree with you Sherman, but I think a simple reading (but not necessarily correct reading?) of these verses would indicate that Jesus’ love (and the Father’s love) for us is dependent/conditional upon something - our loving Jesus.
Jesus says that he and the Father will love those who love him.
This sounds like Jesus is saying “if you love me, I and the Father will love you” - and this could imply “if you do not love me, I and the Father will not love you.”
As a father, I would never talk to my three children and say “I will love those of you who love me” because they could take it to imply “I won’t love those of you who do not love me”. I don’t really follow why Jesus would talk like that if he wants us to know that his love is unconditional.
In my heart, I believe that God’s love for me is unconditional, just like the father in the prodigal son parable, but there are verses like Jn 14:21,23 that I mentioned in the OP, and Jeremiah 16:5 where God declares “I have withdrawn my blessing, my love, and my pity from this people” that I am wondering how to understand.
Davo,
Are you thinking that Jesus is meaning “I love everyone - as you know from many other things I have said - but I especially love those who love me”?
Eaglesway,
Are you thinking that Jesus is saying “I love (in the sense of giving full access to my grace and blessings) those who love me (like the prodigal son when he returned home). I still love those who do not love me, but they do not experience my love in the same way (like the prodigal son when he was away from home).”?
He could have said “if you do not love me,…” but he didn’t. Rather, Jesus affirmed that as we love God, we experience more of the love of God. That is the way it is with any relaionship.
If the statement was said by someone who’s love was conditional, then they could imply “I won’t love those of you who do not love me.” But I would never think that my father would imply that because I know that my father loves me and he loved me first, before I was even born. And I’m speaking of my physical father; how much more do I believe that God loves me!
The blessings of relationship with my father are conditional though, conditional upon me honoring, respecting, and being involved with him. And if I cut him off and totally rebelled against our relationship, for my good, because he loves me, he’d withdraw his blessing, and even love and pity. Though he’d desire to get me outta jail, he might leave me there if he thought it was for my good. And Jeremiah 16:5 must be understood in context. Jeremiah is prophecying judgment upon the children of God because they have forsaken God. God, because of his love for them, is going to withdraw his protection and blessing from them and thus allow/send them into captivity. It is for their good though and to ultimately restore them to himself.
Though his anger lasts a moment, his mercy endures forever.
Hi Eaglesway
I’d never heard this idea before and I want it to be true because it would explain a lot but I cannot find any evidence that the word meant ‘reject’ rather than ‘intense dislike’. Can you give me any source to confirm this position?
In addition, I suppose what is more important is what the koine Greek meant in Romans 9 v 13 (rather than an English translation):
Rom 9:13 according as it hath been written, `Jacob I did love, and Esau I did hate.’
Here the Greek is ‘miseo’ (from misos) and once again, I cannot see the idea of rejection in the Greek lexicon, rather the meaning is ‘to detest’
Hi Sherman,
Thanks for these thoughts Sherman. I think this is possibly the best understanding of these texts.
God’s love - his commitment to do us good is unconditional - but our* experience of the blessings* of his love is conditional.
I agree with this.
I would normally understand “God’s love” and the “experience of God’s love” as slightly different concepts. I would have had no problem at all if Jesus had said “If you love me, you will experience more of the blessings of my love”. That would make sense to me. My problem is that the way it reads, he seems to be making his “love” conditional rather than “the blessings of his love” conditional.
You are understanding the term “love” in the bible to at times mean “the experience of the blessings of love” rather than just “love”. This may be the best way to read these texts.
Yes. I think Tom Talbott would would call this the “severity” of God’s love.
We know that God rejected Esau because he traded his birthright for a bowl of stew. For this reason he was rejected from the inheritance, yet, he was prosperous, received his brother jacob back graciously upon his return, fell upon his neck weeping as i recall, took him in, and protected him. I see no evidence that Esau resisted jacob’s inheritance rights, and Esau was made a great nation. As I see it, at least in this context and in Luke 14:26, the word hatred was used of comparative value, one over the other, and specifically in regard to the blessing of the inheritance. Altho Strong and Thayer , they both allow for it,
Strong 3404
miseó: to hate
Original Word: μισέω
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: miseó
Phonetic Spelling: (mis-eh’-o)
Short Definition: I hate, detest
Definition: I hate, detest, love less, esteem less.
from Thayer…
Not a few interpreters have attributed to μισεῖν(śə·nū·’āh) in Genesis 29:31(Rachel loved, Leah hated…my note)(cf. Genesis 29:30); Deuteronomy 21:15(the unloved of two wives); Matthew 6:24(of service divided between two masters); Luke 14:26(of loving mother and father less than Christ); Luke 16:13; (John 12:25); Romans 9:13, the signification to love less, to postpone in love or esteem, to slight, through oversight of the circumstance that ‘the Orientals, in accordance with their greater excitability, are accustomed both to feel and to profess love and hate where we Occidentals, with our cooler temperament, feel and express nothing more than interest in, or disregard and indifference to a thing’; Fritzsche, Commentary on Romans
HELPS Word studies from BIBLOS leans even stronger towards that interpretation…
3404 miséō – properly, to detest (on a comparative basis); hence, denounce; to love someone or something less than someone (something) else, i.e. to renounce one choice in favor of another.
Lk 14:26: “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate (3404 /miséō, ‘love less’ than the Lord) his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (NASU).
[Note the comparative meaning of 3404 (miséō) which centers in moral choice, elevating one value over another.]
To me that’s more than just a whimsy of witnesses- and I believe as a context of them all together is actually pretty weighty. Also, as Jesus tells us if we want to be perfect, we must love our enemies as does our Father in heaven(Mt 5:43-48), I find it hard to accept any interpretation that makes God personally hating anyone for any reason, tho He may hate their works and get angry and punish them, if he personally hates them, Jesus is confused, the word is undependable.
So when there are conflicting witnesses among scholars as to what a word means in a particular verse, I will go with the larger context of what Jesus taught every time to tip the balance in my understanding- making my choice accordingly.
I agree with Eagle. Clearly, hate is a poor translation. I have read a lot about this; surprised pilgrim had not heard this before.
“Hate” is certainly a poor translation for US, who have been indoctrinated to take the Bible is a literal document. It is not and never has been. It was written by ORIENTALS, and it’s very silly of us to insist that every word have the sort of precision expected of a mathematics text. As others here have said, “love less” would be more appropriate for OUR culture. The Bible wasn’t written to our culture, though. We need to look at the culture into which it WAS written and try to understand how THAT culture would have understood Jesus’ words. When we read the Bible, we are reading someone else’s mail. We will understand it much better if we take into account both the persons who wrote, and the persons to whom they wrote.
Eaglesway and Gabe
Yes, thank you, I agree that the word is used comparatively and therefor can be interpreted as ‘love less’. I should have included this in the definition I gave (my bad). This is not new to me.
What WAS new to me is an idea that the English word ‘hate’ had changed its meaning and, in past times, had meant ‘reject’. I just don’t want to repeat this interesting thought unless I can support it. I still see no support and I note that modern translations still use the English word ‘hate’ rather than ‘reject’ so I’ll just have to stick with ‘love less’ when talking with hardened Calvinists (which is generally seen by them as a weak point).
All the best and thanks once again.
I think “love” is the default position… but like anything, when “relationship” comes into it there is a strength present which is not known outside of that relationship.
As for the issue of “hate” equalling “reject/ion”… I have no knowledge of 16th century English, but I think a case can be made for it having biblical merit.
As I understand it… God’s dismissiveness towards Esau “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated” wasn’t in terms of a carte blanch rancid hatred emblematic of the likes of callous Calvinism, no. When God “hates Esau” it means God had no regard towards him – in relation to the outworking of the Divine redemptive plan. IOW, said “hatred” needs to be viewed in the greater context of Israel’s redemptive story. In Israel’s redemptive plan Esau was NOT called and NOT chosen, but was rejected as being God’s vessel through whom which the Messiah would come (Rom 9:11).
Similarly this then can be demonstrated accordingly in the story of David’s calling…
1Sam 16:6-7 So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, “Surely the LORD’s anointed is before Him!” But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused [rejected] him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
Thus refusal or rejection – or as some wrongly label “reprobation” – simply means: NOT chosen or called for the higher redemptive purpose or ministration. Simply put… scripturally speaking “rejection by God” was NEVER about post death retributive judgment via damnation or obliteration; it was simply NON-election to the greater redemptive purposes of God – nothing more and nothing less.
Then there is the case of Rachel and Leah and Jacob’s response to both…
Gen 29:30-31 Then Jacob also went in to Rachel, and he also loved Rachel more than Leah. And he served with Laban still another seven years. When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.
This word “unloved” literally means “hated”… Jacob rejected Leah because he loved Rachel more. As cold and as callous as Jacob was his rejection was NOT the rancid all-consuming wrathful burning hatred the likes of which Rom 9:13 is painted by some. It is worth noting that the root word μισέω (miseo) is used in both these texts, LXX (unloved) and GNT (hated).
Again such expressed hatred is likewise seen elsewhere in terms of the hyperbolic requirement to “hate” even ones very own family… Lk 14:26 – an embellished hatred relative to the commitment of Israel’s redemptive cause with NO literal intent of caustic abhorrence.
And like I read on Twitter from someone who is actually sympathetic and, I think, has many leanings towards Calvinism - "Election is about God choosing people for the world, not instead of it 
I don’t think you could easily demonstrate as a doctrinal point, the morphology of hate in the “loves less” or comparative manner, but it was used frequently in old english literature and imo the English preponderance for using it that way came through the translation of the KJV as a common expression then that is no longer common now.
today, hate is not used in the miseo(comparative) sense any longer. back then it was common.
I see! Thanks Eaglesway.
When you look up every occurrence of the the Greek word translated as “hate” (Strongs 3404), most occurrences seem to mean “hate” in the modern sense. Indeed I cannot find ANY occurrence which necessarily means “love less”.