This was the conclusion of a seminar last Sabbath at the Bangkok Chinese Adventist Church about “Unconditional Love”. Around a month ago, the pastor preached a sermon in which he mentioned this phrase, and one church member told him that was not Biblical. The pastor was quite interested in this, and invited two professors at the SDA seminary in Thailand (Mission College), to come and hold a seminar on this topic. He related how he had not believed in unconditional love when he first became a pastor, but after training at the SDA seminary in Singapore, he became a believer.
Both of the professors have doctorates, i think from Andrews University, the flagship seminary of Seventh-day Adventists. One of them was Dr. Kai, and the other Dr. Fanwar. My only prior exposure to these two men is that one time i listened in a Sabbath school to Dr. Kai’s good lesson, and one sermon at RAIS by Dr. Fanwar in which he said that “We have been told that David was a small boy when he fought Goliath, that he used a little sling, and that he won because of his faith in God. Nothing could be farther from the truth.” I asked him to repent when i left that meeting place.
The introduction by the pastor during church service in the morning was quite “pro unconditional love”, so i was expecting a multitude of words about how this doctrine is true and good, and the PhDs to add some scholarly remarks. Maybe i should say i was “hoping”.
Br. Kai led off with remarks that the SDA church has no official position on this matter. Then he mentioned that it is probably OK for each person to consider themselves as the most loved of God, but it can become a problem if we start to think we are more loved or favored of God than other people. All very well and good.
Br. Fanwar talked next about marrying and having a daughter. He unwittingly made the strongest remark i heard all day about how love is not unconditional. He mentioned how when he saw his newborn daughter, he knew that here was someone he loved so much he could give his life for, and also he would kill anyone who tried to kill her. It seemed to go completely over his head, and over most of the listeners’, that he had just given a strong statement that he doesn’t believe in unconditional love. Of course with his mouth he was quite adamant that he DOES believe in unconditional love.
Pastor Songrit, who called the seminar together, next got up and thanked them, asked for questions from the audience, and after one question, asked his own question, which was quite appropriate. He read Psalms 5:5-6 about how God hates the workers of iniquity. Wow. That is not dodging the issue at all. Br. Kai gave a comment mostly how some things in the Bible are hard to understand. Br. Fanwar gave a convoluted response, asserting that the translation was at fault, and that this text does not negate the idea of unconditional love.
I’m not sure if i was next to get up, or two later, but after one elder who asked a very strange question about how to tell if people really love their country or not, i got the courage to go up front. I agreed that God’s love is very big, and that the Bible talks much more about the love of God than his wrath, but i wanted to introduce some texts that show that God’s love is not unconditional. We read 2Chronicles 19:1,2, Hosea 9:15, John 14:21-23, and then i read a quote from 5RH 06-22-97 about Judas passing the barrier of God’s love. I thank the Lord that i was able to overcome the butterflies in my stomach, and give a straight testimony.
Br. Kai answered first, saying how he had once gone thru the Concordance and counted all the entries related to God’s wrath, and then those related to God’s love, and found that the “wrath” ones were around 100, and the “love” ones were around 80. Then he noticed that the “wrath” ones were usually against some specific object, and the “love” ones were universal in scope.
Br. Fanwar then got up and read something from the Testimonies to the Church, about how God’s love is like the air we breathe, abiding around us. “God’s wrath is his love as experienced by the lost.” What?! I thot God’s wrath was fire at the end time, and has been floods, hail, fire, stones, angels etc. in the past. He tried to make some connection between the air around us is unconditional so God’s love is too, and he can’t believe God would not do something good for the 97% of his fellow Asians who do not know him, etc. Totally unrelated. He closed with something about how God’s love is unconditional, but that doesn’t mean that he looks on the actions all the same. Of course this is to try and cover any questions about him believing that God will save everyone at last. But in this seminar, no one asked such a question.
The pastor ended the seminar with a nice statement about everyone learning things, and that perhaps more time could be devoted to this subject in the future. Then he said that he still believed in unconditional love.
Does it really matter what we believe? Is it really OK for some of God’s people to believe in unconditional love and some not to? I don’t think so. I see the ultimate end of believing this doctrine, and that is that all will at last be saved. Because how can God possibly burn anyone in the lake of fire, and keep other out of the lake of fire, if his love is actually unconditional? How can he love you or i or even his son Jesus any more than Satan himself, because, after all, “unconditional” naturally means that God would have to love everyone exactly equally.
What struck me most about this seminar, is the shallowness of the thinking of most of our church leaders and members. No one dug down to the meaning of the term, or the natural consequences of believing such a doctrine. And when strong texts were quoted showing that God’s love is not unconditional, they were mostly ignored, or assigned the status of “misunderstood”
May we study the inspired words to “show ourselves approved unto God.”