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The sixteenth-century Reformer John Calvin is one of my heroes. When studying his commentaries and his Institutes of the Christian Religion, I am confronted by his passion for truth and humbled by his pastoral concern for his congregation. He loved the Lord, and he believed that his love for the Lord was founded upon the Lord’s love for him.
Nevertheless, although he is my hero, and although I agree with him concerning many doctrines of the Christian religion, it is not my habit to refer to myself as a “Calvinist.” Like Calvin, I am a student of God’s Word, and as such, that which I believe is founded upon Scripture alone. Thus, when I am confronted about particular doctrines to which Calvin held, I turn first not to Calvin but to Scripture. For instance, there have been many occasions when someone has requested that I explain certain aspects of the “Calvinistic” doctrine of predestination. Each time, I have made a conscious effort to rely solely upon God’s Word for answers.
A question often raised pertains to the concept of God’s love. It is often asked, as I too once asked, whether the love of God extends to all people without exception. Many passages in Scripture speak of God’s love, and many of them use words to describe the nature and extent of His love. One such passage is John 3:16, to which many people refer when attempting to demonstrate that the love of God is upon all people. Many people, not understanding the doctrine of predestination, have appealed to this passage and others like it that contain such words as all and world, making every effort to discredit the doctrine of predestination and thus debunk the teaching that the love of God has been set upon certain individuals of God’s choosing.
However, what is understood by some to be a very complex theological issue is not complex in the least. For when we consider the whole counsel of Scripture, observing each passage within its particular context, we are brought to conclude that such universal terms as world are universal only as the love of God is Biblically defined. Simply, the saving love of God is a special love. It is a love that is demonstrated to those whom God disciplines (Heb. 12:6); it is a love that protects God’s children from all evils (Rom. 8:35ff.); it is a love that is upon people of all classes of society (1 Tim. 2:2ff.); it is a love that has been poured out into the hearts of those to whom the Holy Spirit has been given (Rom. 5:5); and it is a love that is not only upon ethnic Jews, as Nicodemus wrongly surmised (John 3:16), but upon all people without distinction of race, ethnic background, or color.
Indeed, the love of God is awesome, and it is because of His special love that we can sing, “Oh, how I love Jesus, because He first loved me.”