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Pilgrim said:
John,

First of all, the popular teaching that God loves everybody equally has no biblical basis whatsoever. God has a "special" (electing) love for those whom He has predestinated to be saved in Christ. (cf. Jh 13:1; 17:24-26; Rom 8:29, 30; Eph 1:4,5; et al) This love is salvific, based upon God's incomprehensible grace. And there is a general "love", i.e., benevolence which God shows to all. (cf. Matt 5:45; Titus 3:4) There are myriad things which God bestows upon the reprobate (non-elect) because God is merciful to all men, e.g., life itself, intelligence, artistic abilities, etc. See also: Does God Love the Sinner and Hate Only His Sin?", by John H. Gerstner.

Secondly, thus we are to show benevolence to all men as best as we are able. We are to be kind, respectful, helpful, etc. This is what Jesus was referring to when He said to "love your enemies". We are to also "love the brethren". (1Jh 3:14f) But this love transcends that we are to show to all men in general, since we are related by blood; Christ's blood which He shed for them.

Does this help?

Well, I replied to this earlier, and I just noticed my reply is not here. I guess I closed the window before the submission was finished.


I just want to clarify that I did not intend to claim that "God love all". In my question, I said that "At the same time, all those who are not resting in Christ are at emnity with God and under God's wrath. So we do not say that God loves all." I think I could have chosen a better title for the post than the one I did. I wrote "Does God love all" in the title because I was trying to reconcile the command that we should love our enemies with the idea that God does not love all, even if superficially the idea that we should love our enemies might imply that God does love all.

Your post was very helpful though in clarifying the issue. Just to make sure I am understanding what you said though, I will restate it. The basic point is that God loves all in the sense of a general, benevolent love which is commonly bestowed on all mankind due to God's mercy. This general, benevolent love is what we are commanded to show our enemies. However, a specific, salvific love is shown only to the elect. Is this basically the right idea?

Thanks,
John