by Dennis Gladden, By Green Pastures, ©2026
(Sep. 16, 2026) — Question: I have heard pastors like Charles Stanley say God loves us unconditionally, and I have seen posters and memes boil this message down to, “Hate sin and love the sinner.” But some preachers say God hates sinners. What am I to make of these conflicting messages?
Response: The short answer is God loves conditionally and unconditionally. The particular love we experience depends on our relationship with Him through Christ. Let’s unpack this.
Human relationships have two measures or dimensions of love that help me understand how God loves us. (Not surprising, since we are created in His image.)
- Public Displays of Affection (PDAs);
- The intimate love reserved for marriage.
Marriage includes PDAs but enshrines an intimacy that is sacred. At this level, love is where the man and woman say, “I am for your eyes only.”
This is why we call the Church the Bride of Christ. Followers of Jesus know God, and He knows them, in ways the world will never experience (John 14:16–17).
Both measures of God’s love, public affection and private intimacy, appear in the Old and New Testaments.
God’s unconditional affection
Certain affectionate acts are appropriate in public and are something you share with any date—holding hands, sitting beside each other, a brief kiss. Beyond that, they become uncomfortable, and someone will chide, “Get a room.”
Some call God’s affection His providence or common grace. Jesus refers to it in the Sermon on the Mount: “Your Father in heaven makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
John 3:16, of course, expresses God’s expansive love for the world. John picked up on this in his letter: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). He concludes, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
The order is important: God loved us first. He courts us. He expresses His love in the PDAs, which go beyond sunshine and rain to include proclaiming the Gospel: He has sent His Son to save us. This is the ultimate demonstration of His love, and Jesus said the Gospel “will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations” (Matthew 24:14).
Everyone experiences this measure of God’s love. In the Apostle Paul’s words, “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men” (Titus 2:11).
This echoes the Old Testament, where God told Israel that, before He sent Moses to deliver them from Egypt, “The LORD set His love on you…and loves you;” therefore, He redeemed them (Deuteronomy 7:7–8).
See the parallel. God loved Israel before He did anything for them. God loved us before He sent Christ. God loves first. Such is the nature of grace.
God’s conditional love
But PDAs go only so far in expressing love for one another.
The next measure of God’s love is a deeper intimacy. This is not for everyone; this love is conditional, reserved for those who respond to His affection.
Staying with the Old Testament, God showed Israel this next phase:
The LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; … He will love you and bless you and multiply you. (Deuteronomy 7:9, 13, emphasis mine).
He has already said He set His affection on Israel, and now He says He will love them, on this condition: He keeps covenant with those who love Him. Marriage is a covenant between two individuals. You don’t marry everyone; you forsake all others and devote yourself to the one who receives and returns your love.
Jesus said something similar.
He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. (John 14:21, emphasis mine)
Jesus said in John 3 that God loved the world, but only those who believe will not perish. Now, a few chapters later, He reveals that the one who loves Him receives a greater measure of God’s love.
This initiates an intimacy where “I will manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21, and “We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23).
To summarize: God loves us, courts us, and showers us with the rain, sun, crops, and untold blessings. These are His common grace, His displays of affection suitable for the public square.
Most consume them and think nothing of Him. Others accept and abuse them. But some receive His grace—not in vain, as Paul says (2 Corinthians 6:1)— but with open arms. They love Him for loving them. And to these, God reveals Himself in a way that is “for their eyes only.” They become His bride.
They see God as the world never will and will dwell with Him in a world without end.
A less-than-happily-ever-after ending
But what about those who do not reciprocate, who hear and do not obey, who accept God’s affection but despise the deeper relationship He wants through Christ?
The sentimental meme, “Hate the sin but love the sinner,” will fail them in the end.
Read the rest here.
Leave a Reply