In the book "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God" (by Don Carson) we discovered that there are 5 kinds of the love of God found in the Bible. They are:
1) The special love the Father has for the Son, and the Son has for the Father
2) God has a 'common' love
3) God loves everyone and desires that they all be saved
4) God has a special love for His chosen people
5) There is a love from God that comes only through obedience
Last time, when we began looking at the third kind of the love of God, I mentioned that there is a lot of disagreement among Christians as to the third and fourth kinds of the love of God. Some agree that the third kind is biblical and not the fourth, while others feel the fourth kind is biblical but not the third. But what I hope to show is that Don Carson is right in saying that both are biblical.
This time we are focusing on the fourth kind of the love of God, which is, that God has a special love for His chosen people.
In order to prove that God does have a special love for His chosen people, I have decided to present it in this way:
First, that God loved Israel in a special way that is different from other nations.
Second, that God loved Jacob in a special way that is different from how He loved Esau.
Third, that God loves some people in a way that is different from how He loves some other people.
Let's begin by looking at verses that show God's special love for Israel:
DEUTERONOMY 7:6
...The Lord your God has chosen you to be His own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.
ISAIAH 45:4
...Israel My chosen one...
I CHRONICLES 16:13
...Jacob's descendants - His chosen ones...
DEUTERONOMY 7:6,8
...The Lord your God has chosen you to be His own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth...because the Lord loved you...
DEUTERONOMY 10:15
Yet the Lord was devoted to your fathers and loved them...He chose you out of all the peoples...
AMOS 3:2
I have known (loved) only you (Israel) out of all the clans of the earth...
As you can see from these verses, God has chosen a people (Israel) for Himself, and He is loving Israel with a special love that all the other nations are not receiving. Does that mean that God does not love the other nations? Let me answer this by giving an example:
A man can love all women, but still have a special love for his wife, that is different from all the other women. In the same way, God's special love for Israel was like a man to his wife. God chose Israel to receive this special love. It was not based on anything that Israel did.
It is important to see that God gave His special love to only Israel whom He had chosen. Once we see how God worked in the Old Testament, it will be easier to accept that He can choose to give His love to whoever He wants in the New Testament too.
Next, let's look at God's love for Jacob and God's love for Esau. We need to see that God chose to love Jacob in a special way that He didn't show to Esau. The best place to study this is Romans 9:10-13.
...when Rebekah became pregnant by Isaac our forefather (for though they had not been born yet or done anything good or bad, that God's purpose according to election [His choosing] might stand, not from works but from the One who calls) she was told: The older will serve the younger. As it is written: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.
Notice that God loved Jacob and hated Esau before they were born or had done anything good or bad. Why did God love Jacob and not Esau? The answer is because it was God's plan to show a special love to His chosen people, and Jacob was one of them. We see that where it says, "...that God's purpose according to election [His choosing] might stand."
One question that needs to be answered is, why does God 'hate' Esau? Actually, when we translate the way they communicated back then, into todays language, it ends up having a different meaning. That's the difficulty of interpreting languages. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
GENESIS 29:30,31
And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And the Lord saw Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barrren.
DEUTERONOMY 21:15,16
If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn.
In both passages I used the KJV because it seems to make the same love/hate comparison that we have in Romans 9. In both passages the husband has two wives, one is loved and the other is hated. But does he really hate the other wife? Actually it's just the way they expressed a special love for one of the two wives back in those days. You show your special love for someone by saying that you hate the other.
We also see this love/hate language is Luke 14:26.
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Is Jesus really telling us to hate our father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters??? No, not at all. Jesus is expressing that he must be the one that we have a special love for. The love/hate language simply expresses a special love.
Now let's go back to Romans 9. When the Bible says that God loves Jacob but hates Esau, what does it really mean, based on what we just discovered?
I think the answer has to be that God has a special love for Jacob that He doesn't have for Esau. God loves Esau, but Jacob was chosen to receive this special love.
First,we saw that God has a special love for chosen Israel. Second, we saw that God had a special love for chosen Jacob. Now, we want to look into Scripture and see if God has a special love for His chosen people.
As we look at the following verses, can you see that God has a special love for His chosen people?
Note: By the way, the words "election" and "elected" simply mean "chosen by God".
COLOSSIANS 3:12
Therefore, God's chosen ones, holy and loved, put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience...
1 THESSALONIANS 1:4
...knowing your election, brothers loved by God.
2 THESSALONIANS 2:13But we must always thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God has chosen you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth.
ACTS 13:48When the Gentiles heard this, they rejoiced and glorified the message of the Lord, and all who had been appointed to eternal life believed.
1 PETER 2:9...you are a chosen race...
2 TIMOTHY 2:10This is why I endure all things for the elect...
As we can see from these verses, God does have a special love for His chosen people. This fourth kind of the love of God is different from the third kind of the love of God.
We have one more kind of the love of God. It is a love of God that only comes through obedience. We'll look at that next time!
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