unconditional love?

Question

do you think that unconditional love comes before or after salvation? if it comes before then how did God demand a whole group of people in the OT killed? and if it comes after then does God only love some people unconditionally?

Answer 1

GREAT QUESTION! The answer, concerning God, depends completly upon how you define God. If you believe in the God of the OT, you are faced with a faith in an abusive father figure who may love you if you love him, but he will beat you if you forget the rules. If you believe in the NT, you are presented with Jesus who embodied unconditional love and encouraged everyone to be kind no matter what other people were doing to you... however his Biblical followers, and most Christians, resurrected the OT God and have focused on death, fear, and punishment again. If you step outside what OT/NT "religions" are feeding us, and start listening to the spiritual aspect inside of yourself, you will find that God is there and loving you all the time. I personally agonized over thoughts like yours for almost 20 years until I realized I was basically trying to understand what people were telling me and not really trying to understand what I believed in my heart. When I finally acknowledged the fact that my turmoil was caused by putting faith into the words of people with religious knowledge but no spiritual understanding, I was able to simply let God speak to me and I could listen without ever doubting that there is divinity in every motion of the world. A creative God would never need to punish anyone, or demand 8 songs on Sunday and mouthful of crackers to prove something... simply be appreciative for the beautiful gift of life, and even if somone else is a bit difficult, see their life as a gift as well. When you begin to see other people as special, when you know that their wants and dreams are as real as yours, and when you give without expecting anything in return, you will understand unconditional love, because you are loving unconditionally... and then you will know God.

Answer 2

Like you say Unconditional Love just is. Perhaps some would think it was less than it is; but I would agree with you. Usually we just aspire to the true reality that unconditional Love is. Eventually we will let the illusion go; Illusion cannot exist without our participation. When we refer to God's Love we are referring as you say to that which is neither with-held or given. Surely unconditional means no conditions; nothing to get confused about. Focusing on what unconditional Love means would/is a beneficial practise probably:))

Answer 3

I don't know what you mean by OT but I understand it as follows.

God loves us unconditionally before, during and after anything we might do, done or will do to each other and ourselves.

Remember God never leaves us even if we leave God, unless you go to the dark side, then you're on your own.

Answer 4

This is a good question. God loves everyone unconditionally. Its when we turn are backs on Him completly and refuse to acknowledge Him, that disciplines or punishes us. As for a whole group of people being destroyed, you will notice, that those who obeyed God, even though they were not Jews, lived. For instance the women with the scarlett rope. She hid the spies in her house, and let know harm come to them. In the end, the saved her, by telling her to place a scarlett rope outside her window so they would know where she lived. Anyone inside her house at that time, lived.

While it does seem at times that God does not love everyone, He really does. It humans who choose to reject God, and not give His love back in return.

Answer 5

God loves everyone unconditionally. It hurts Him when someone turns away from Him or denies Him, but he still loves them with all His heart. It's just like a mother or a father that has raised a child, only for them to run away. Their child didn't want them...but they still love him just as much. It brings Him great joy when His children come home to him and believe! Therefore, I conclude that unconditional love came before salvation.

"You made every star, You taught it how to shine, You knew my name before there was time..." ---AllMyPraise by Selah

Good question!!

Answer 6

--I Timothy 2:3-4 says, "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."
--I take that to mean that God loves everyone. Not everyone is saved, yet God wants them to be. That means he loves them.
--In Ezekiel 18:23, God said, "Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?"
--To me, that means that God didn't like when all those people in the Old Testament were killed, he did it because it had to be done. It is like how we have the death penalty. It helps prevent crime. We should not want the person to die who committed murder, and we should love them, but we must do what it takes to prevent more murders.
--To prove how evil the the people were in the Old Testament that He wanted dead, God said in Deuteronomy 12:31 about those groups he commanded to be killed, "31 You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their god."

Answer 7

Unconditional love for all of humanity. God chose the Jewish people and used examples from their experience to help the rest of us to stay out of trouble. We are all prone to get into trouble because of our sinful logic and choices,

Answer 8

Before.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

As for the rest, I wouldn't say that love and death are mutually exclusive. He loved Adam and sentenced him to death. I'm willing to stake my life that God loves everyone AGAPE. Doesn't mean we're all going to heaven, but we're all invited.

Answer 9

before and God is a just judge and wickedness was dealt with. God knew that even with the children what they were to become. These were really wicked nations of people he judged ones that used to sacrifice babies to their false gods and sexually abuse

Answer 10

you have 2 questions here.

There was Old Testament condtions for salvation.

Christ freed us from conditions and bondage.

Thats why all of these religions that practice Old Testament Doctrine is about hate and death.

They don't believe in the New Testament.