The Secularization of Easter and the Myth of God's Unconditional Love

Elisah's Axehead: Correcting Biblical Misconceptions by Glenn A. Griffis

I was once interviewed by a pastoral search committee and asked whether I thought contemporary Christian music was “worldly.” I responded that since all Christian music had at some time been contemporary, that all Christian music whether contemporary or traditional contained elements of “worldliness.” I never heard back from the committee. The fact that something is popular, disfavored, contemporary or traditional has nothing to do with its value or credibility. The fact that large numbers of people believe something or define it a certain way is no measure of its veracity. Myth is often more ardently defended than truth, and there are many myths in the evangelical world.

A myth is a belief that is culturally accepted but which has little or no basis in truth. Our common evangelical language and culture is full of statements that are commonly held, which have little basis in fact. These myths grow from our secular perceptions about God. None of us are able to isolate ourselves from the influence of media and the world around us. Inevitably there is some blending of the secular cultural values with our beliefs and practices. A blending of the "worldly" with the scriptural is often seen in the way we practice holidays. Easter like Christmas has become secularized and even some our worship and Christian media blends together secular, worldly values have mingled  with our practices.  Some in the Christian contemporary music field have contributed to the secularization of Easter through the near continuous restatement of the the myth of God's unconditional love.

If one more contemporary Christian musician says the Easter message is about the “unconditional love of God” I'm going to scream. Where did we ever get the idea that God's love is “unconditional?” When we claim that Easter is about unconditional love we completely take Easter out of it's biblical context and we teach a false view of God, and a worldly view of love. God loves with out reservation. There are no barriers to His love. It is incipient to His nature. God blesses and answers the prayers of both the righteous and the unrighteous. Where ever God is, love is present. God loves the sinner and saint, those in heaven and those in Hell. God's love drives him to seek relationship even with those who are farthest from him, and draws them to repentance and faith. God loves the most ruthless and despotic of men: Rasputin, Hitler, Stalin, Osama Ben Laden. God loves whether his love is shunned or returned; he love's without reservation, but God's love engenders response; it is conditional.

Love, whether human or Divine, drives toward relationship. No one can live in the real experience of God' love unconditionally. Jesus' life death and resurrection is the penultimate expression of God's love. But the events of Jesus incarnation only show or offer his love; realizing his love demands a response. Had God's love been unconditional, why was redemption so costly? We love Him because He loved us. He met the conditions required to redeem us from sin, so that we might repent and be restored to relationship with Him. Christ took our place because God's love is conditional. The idea of unconditional love leads to confusion about salvation and the Christian life. “How can a loving God send someone to hell, or take the life of someone's child or parent?” This question assumes God's love has no conditions, and yet the fact that salvation takes place in a world where people suffer can only be explained when God's love is understood conditionally. During Holy Week we celebrate the high cost Christ paid and the conditions he had to meet for God to love us. God's love is costly, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Ro 5:8 ESV).

Christ took our place because God's love is conditional.

God is love:¹ he loves naturally and without reservation, or qualification. Though we are saved by faith alone with out works, there are conditions to knowing Him and loving Him, and he us. We are not saved by our works, but our salvation works in us. Since our salvation is the ultimate expression of God's love, and since salvation is conditional, then God's love must be conditional, too. God's love is costly and it is costly to love him!² For a person to experience God's love there must be some response to it. God's love calls to belief and repentance. ³ Take the verse that is typically used to argue for God's love being unconditional. It states conditions:

¹⁶ "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (Jn 3:16-18 ESV)

Notice the progression of this argument: God loved the world. His love motivated him to take a certain action-- he gave his only Son. That act of love demands a condition --experiencing it demands a response-- a person must believe. To live eternally in God's love and to avoid condemnation is conditional-- belief solely in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sin. Love defines boundaries on the our relationship with him.

Following his resurrection Jesus confronted Peter about his denial, and sought to restore love to their relationship:

¹⁵ When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs." ¹⁶ He said to him a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep." ¹⁷ He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." ¹⁹ (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, "Follow me." Jn 21:15-19 ESV

On each occasion when Jesus asked Peter whether he loved him. Peter affirms his love and Jesus states a condition for restoration of their broken relationship:

Do you love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord... I love you." "Feed my lambs."Do you love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord... I love you." "Tend my sheep."Do you love me? you know that I love you." Feed my sheep

Twice he asks Peter, “do you love me more than these?” Does Peter love him more than he does the disciples (or by implication any other relationships)? Twice Peter confesses that he loves Jesus above all else. Jesus commands Peter to show his love through active service, a condition. He commanded him to feed and tend the sheep. Jesus goes further, “Do you love me?” Is your love without reservation: is it unqualified; is it enduring; is it even greater than his love for himself. Peter again confirms, “You know that I love you?” Once again Peter affirms his unreserved love for Jesus, and Jesus says that love can only be true if it cares for the saints. Loving Jesus above all else compels service. It is conditioned. The relationship is restored. Peter confesses his love for Jesus, but Jesus wants more than confession. There are consequences in Peter's life to loving Jesus. It costs to love Jesus:

18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young,you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." ¹⁹ (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, "Follow me." (Jn 21:18-19ESV)

To restore the broken relationship that resulted from Peter's denial requires more than his reaffirming his love. Loving God demands more than assent, more than appreciation or celebration for what he did, or more than passion or worship. Relationship with Christ, costs everything.⁴ Love is conditional, because it reflects the nature of God.

God's love is eternal; he love's without reservation and or prejudice. Love is at the heart of who God is and all that he does. Jesus death, resurrection and ascension breaks down all barriers between each of us and God. God's love seeks the sinner. He seeks and he saves all who trust solely in him. The essence of God's love is active, it is transactional. “We love, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19).  His love is never inert, always active. God's love engenders a response. We turn to him, we turn away from him we ignore him.

Human beings created in the image of God will naturally love like he loves. Human love will in many ways reflect God's love. Conditions are incipient to human love. The great description of love in First Corinthians 13 is a list of relational actions and attitudes:

Love is: patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

If we can define what love is, we can define what love is not. If we can measure the qualities of loving relationship, then love is conditional. Can love be extended to someone without them responding, absolutely? Can we love someone without setting boundaries or respecting theirs? No, to do so is abusive. I love each of my children, none of whom lives close to me. My love never wanes for them. I love my late wife; my love for her never wanes. As a chaplain I observe people who love family members who are comatose, unable to respond with affection. Love is unreserved, but love that is one sided is incomplete. There is something missing in the heart of someone to whom love is unrequited. It is unnatural. Love without reciprocation is grief. What is missing in unrequited love is a willing transaction, or response. Love without condition is incomplete

Many years ago a family member offered to buy my wife and me a piece of furniture she thought we needed. We politely declined her kind offer. The person responded, “If you loved me you would let me do it.” In other words, love prevent us from declining her offer, because love was unconditional. We had to accept whatever she did as an act of love. Love without condition can be manipulative. Imagine a young mother who has repeatedly told her 4-year old to clean up his room and go to bed. After the third request she uses an acceptable behavioral management strategy (My wife and I used a wooden spoon, but we probably shouldn't admit that) to compel behavior. After the room is clean and the child is in bed she comes into the room and tells the child she loves him and explains why he has to obey and why she disciplined him. The child sticks out his lower lip and says, “You don't love me.” The child has an immature understanding of love, he believes, love is unconditional, meaning it allows and approves anything.

I know a woman who divorced her husband after multiple affairs and a refusal to work and support the family. Shortly after they separated he asked for forgiveness, and asked to move back in to the family home. A good friend of this woman's, who was the wife of a prominent pastor in the community, told her God's unconditional love required her to take her husband back into her home and her bed. I advised her differently. I advised that disrespect denudes love. Love is transactional. Respect, trust and faithfulness is incipient to love. My advice to her was that she could offer forgiveness without restoring the relationship, but love required trust. I believed trust had to be rebuilt before they could move toward loving reconciliation. Jesus said trust is rebuilt in a process over time. Her ex-husband needed to show his love through earning back her trust before any kind of restoration was possible (Luke 16:10). When two people marry they take vows, those vows are the conditions that define a loving marriage. A marriage ceremony assumes that love is conditional.

When Christians declare that God's love is unconditional they teach a harmful doctrine. One of the argument for the acceptance of sinful conduct, gay marriage, or the ordination of homo-sexual clergy is that Jesus loved unconditionally. God love gays Jesus died for gays, therefore, the argument goes if we love as God loves then we can put no conditions on whom we embrace. Very few churches practice discipleship, accountability or church discipline. Usually if a church seeks to discipline a member for a reprobate action someone will assert that God's love is unconditional. If we are a witness to the world of God's love, we will refuse to dis-fellowship anyone. Then there is the argument we evangelicals encounter often. “How can a loving God send someone to hell?” That question presumes love is unconditional. People are sent to Hell because God's love is just. 

When Christians declare that God's love is unconditional they teach a harmful doctrine.

One of the most commonly cited passage as a teaching that God's love is unconditional is the parable of the prodigal (Luke 15:1 -32). A closer look at the parable makes me question whether love is the parable's subject. The issue that leads to Jesus telling the parable is his preference for eating with sinners as opposed to the Pharisees (15: 1& 2). Jesus answers the Pharisees with a three part parable. It is made up of three stories each of which ends with a concluding statement. The first story is about lost sheep (15: 3-7). At the end of the story Jesus states it's conclusion, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (15: 7). The second story is about the lost coin (15: 8-10). Jesus tells us its conclusion, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels over one sinner who repents.(15:10)” The third story is about the tension between a father and his two boys (15: 11-32), and one boy take his inheritance, leaves and squanders it. The Prodigal leaves then returns to the father. The other son stays and works faithfully. The father celebrates the son who repented, not the one who thought love would be rewarded. Notice the father's conclusion, “it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found. (15:32)” The father's love is unreserved. He loves the two boys regardless of their actions, but it is not unconditional. Only repentance celebrates his love. Jesus meets with sinners rather than the Pharisees because like the younger brother they are repentant. Repentance is the condition God's love demands.

Repentance is the condition God's love demands.

God's unconditional love is a myth often promoted at Easter that misunderstands the nature of God and salvation and leads to a confused gospel. The argument goes like this: God saw man's sin as a dilemma. So God came up with a plan to repair the breach. God sent his Son to die on the cross, to pay for sin, and the power of God's love resurrected Jesus. So now Jesus accepts everyone. Although love is one of the motives that leads God to save, the purpose of salvation is to possess a people who live for his glory, not solving our problem, the means by which salvation is accomplished is grace, and the end result of salvation:

¹¹ For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, ¹² training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, ¹³ waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Tit 2:11-14 ESV

God's plan to possess a people for his glory is the reason God saves. The focus of salvation is on God not on us. The motive for salvation is God's grace. The effect of salvation is people who live "upright, and godly lives in the present age.” God does love us without reservation or hesitation, but Jesus did not come, to die and rise so that so that God would love us no matter what. Love drove him to pay a high price that would demand a response. God's love is always conditioned on repentance. We worship him because of his unreserved love and grace. He celebrates repentance. I submit that rather than being a message about God's unconditional love that Easter is a call to unreserved repentance.

11 John 4:8

21 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23

3Some will argue that the parable of the Prodigal is about God's love, but theme of the parable is that God's love brings repentance (15:7,10,32). Of the two sons the one who know God's love is the one who repents.

4 Matthew 12:34-40