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Some of you may have noticed I keep a running list of “Books I’m Reading” on the side of this blog.  Some of the books are ones I’m going through in discipleship or for men’s groups and Sunday School, but others are books I’m simply reading for my own enjoyment.  One book I’m currently reading for both enjoyment and for an upcoming course at Southern Seminary is David Powlison’s introductory counseling book, Seeing with New Eyes.  As I was reading through it today he brought up an interesting point which I thought was worth sharing with you.

The name of the chapter is “God’s Love: Better than Unconditional,” and the thesis Powlison advances is this:

I’d like to propose that God’s love is much different and better than unconditional.  Unconditional love, as most of us understand it, begins and ends with sympathy and empathy, with blanket acceptance.  It accepts you as you are with no exceptions.  You in turn can take it or leave it.

But think about what God’s love for you is like.  God does not calmly gaze on you in benign affirmation.  God cares too much to be unconditional in his love. (p.164)

Following this Powlison argues for how God’s love in better than unconditional, how it embraces and yet goes further than some aspects of unconditionality, and how the idea of unconditional love is in some ways inadequate to explain God’s love for his people.  Of these the one that struck me the most, and what I believe is the impetus behind why true biblical counseling must be different than secular psychology, is the fact that speaking of God’s love as unconditional misses the point that “God’s grace is intended to change people.”  Powlison says that,

There is something wrong with you!  From God’s point of view, you not only need someone else to be killed in your place in order to be forgiven, you need to be transformed to be fit to live with.  The word ‘unconditional’ may be an acceptable way to express God’s welcome, but it fails to communicate its purpose: a comprehensive and lifelong rehabilitation, learning ‘the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.’ (pp.168-169)

These words are so important for us to hear today.  I would argue that probably 95% of the people in our congregations would affirm that God’s love is unconditional– I might even have raised a hand in agreement  to this at the start of the day– but when pressed to define what the Bible really says about God’s love we have to acknowledge that the modern secular psychological concept of “unconditional positive affirmation” (the jargon equivalent of “unconditional love”) is in no way sufficient to speak of what is revealed to us.  

But even further than this, I think that by referring to God’s love as unconditional we have begun importing the cultural understanding of this concept into our Christian practice.  We are tolerant of all sorts of devaint behavior and sin, especially our own, and so is “God”.  We want to be able to pray a prayer and then go back to business as usual and so that’s what “God” commands.  We have trouble speaking up about the Bible’s comments on gender roles and sexuality and so we find inventive ways to change “God’s” mind on them.  From all of this we get things such as easy believism, free grace theology, and even Christian universalism, which in my mind is the next big conflict rising within the church.  

As our culture becomes more and more tolerant, more and more antinomian, then picturing for ourselves a “God” who embodies all that our culture hails as virtuous makes him less and less  likely to pronounce judgment, discipline those out of line with his commands, or ultimately send unbelievers to an eternal hell.  If we are unable to refine our concept of God’s love as something more than unconditional we are in for a nasty awakening when the somewhat fringe belief in a God who is all-forgiving and all-accepting outside of the requirement of faith becomes the norm in many of our churches.  This is not just a radical dissent from the mainstream, it is slowly creeping into the popular literature that younger generations are picking up and following, and before long it will take our pulpits and seminaries by storm.  

We started the stream by softening God’s commands on those who are known by his name and now the flood is waiting to burst free from the dam.  Now, we must fight to regain control, which starts by once again proclaiming a biblical understanding of God’s love as he has made it known to us in Scripture.