DEVELOPMENT: written up by Claude from an OpenAI reading
Every verse in it is shown whole.
Scripture says that God's goodness reaches all he has made:
"The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." ()
Jesus tells his hearers to love their enemies, and the reason he gives is that God himself is kind to the ungrateful and the evil:
"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil." ()
God's care for an outsider is called love in so many words:
"He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment." ()
God's greatest gift was given because he loved the world:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." ()
Scripture says just as plainly that God hates wicked people, that he judges them, and that the life he gives belongs to those who have his Son:
"The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity." ()
"He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." ()
So the answer depends on what "love" means in the question, and Scripture uses the word in more than one way.
God's goodness, kindness and mercy reach everyone, evil people included: Scripture teaches this.
God's love does not mean that he approves of everyone, that everyone already has the same fellowship with him, or that everyone will in the end be saved. That is not what Scripture teaches.
A plain "yes" that hid God's hatred and judgment would mislead. A plain "no" that denied his kindness and compassion toward evil people would mislead too. Both sides are in the passages themselves. The rest of this answer shows how, passage by passage.
How it was read, replayed
Here the replay stays still. This is the reading in brief; every step of it is listed below, in order.
"Does God love everyone?"
- 24 minutes 56 seconds of reading, by an AI from OpenAI
- 92 searches of Scripture
- 2,315 verses opened, from 98 chapters
- 9 false readings struck out
- 9 conclusions handed on
- then the answer, written by Claude in 5 minutes 54 seconds
The readings it struck out, and the verses each would break
- Only morally good people receive any divine love or kindness. Luke 6:35
- God hates only deeds and never people. Psalms 5:5 · Psalms 11:5
- Divine hatred is merely preference with no actual rejection or righteous opposition. Malachi 1:4
- Every evildoer is morally good in God's sight and an object of his delight because God loves everyone. Malachi 2:17
- God's love means that everyone has life in the Son, or that all finally receive the same saving outcome. 1 John 5:12 · Matthew 25:46
- Universal tender mercies mean that mercy is never withheld in judgment. Isaiah 27:11 · James 2:13
- Judgment or rejection of a people means that God can never again love or show mercy to anyone belonging to it. Hosea 14:4 · Zechariah 1:16
- Love means no correction, or any present sorrow proves absence of love. Revelation 3:19 · John 11:5 · John 11:35
- Particular divine love excludes every kindness to outsiders, or human opposition to evil licenses refusing enemies all good. Deuteronomy 10:18 · Luke 6:27
Verdicts
- The answer must begin with God's disclosed goodness and love, before its verdict or qualifications.
- God's character is described as love, and the sending of the Son manifests that love.
- God loved the world in giving his Son.
- Love shown before reconciliation does not mean that sin has become pleasing or that wrath is unreal.
- God's stated preference is that the wicked turn and live.
- The question therefore receives an affirmative answer concerning God's disclosed compassionate goodness reaching everyone, including the evil.
- Scripture teaches particular fellowship and life in Christ, with named recipients and conditions; everyone does not already possess the same relationship with God.
- God's love is not approval of every evildoer, exemption from rebuke, or a guarantee of universal final salvation.
- An unqualified yes concealing hatred and judgment would mislead.
How it was read, replayed from its own logs in the order it happened, at eight times its real speed (slower through its record, so each part can be read). It pauses once, at the reading's conclusions. The clock is the real time it happened.
What this reading did
Scripture alone. By its words, and by the Greek and Hebrew behind them. Search 5, love all, was the first that found nothing.
In its own context. Never a verse on its own: whole passages, and 76 whole chapters.
False readings fall. It struck out 9 readings, each by a verse it would make false.
Traceable. Every verse it quotes opens in its chapter, as the reading opened it.
The Greek and Hebrew word searches use data from STEP Bible.
Two ways Scripture uses "love"
The question can mean either of two things, so both are answered here.
Love as goodness, kindness and mercy, shown in what God does. This reaches enemies and evil people, as Luke 6:35 and Deuteronomy 10:18 show.
Love as a close relationship with God. Here the Father's love, his presence and his living with a person are promised to those who love Jesus and keep his words:
"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." ()
The difference between these two is learned from the sentences themselves, not from different words in the original languages. The same Greek word for love is used for Jesus' command to love enemies, for the Father's love of the Son, and for Christ's love of the church. Who is loved, and what that love does, has to be read from each passage.
Readings that fall
People give the question several answers. Each of these would make some verse false, so each is ruled out.
1. "God loves only good people; no love or kindness reaches the evil." This would make Jesus' reason in Luke 6:35 false, and Deuteronomy 10:18's love for the stranger. It would also break this:
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." ()
2. "God never hates people, only what they do." Psalms 5:5 names the workers of iniquity themselves as hated, and so does this:
"The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth." ()
3. "God's hatred is only a lesser preference, with no real rejection." This cannot stand beside what God says about Edom:
"Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever." ()
Calling the hatred comparative is not itself ruled out, as long as the real rejection stays in. What falls is any reading that uses comparison to remove the opposition the passage states.
4. "God's love means he approves of wrongdoing, or that there is no wrath." The same chapter that tells of God's love for the world says this:
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." ()
And love itself does not take pleasure in wrong:
"Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;" ()
Scripture rebukes the idea outright:
"Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?" ()
5. "Because God loves everyone, everyone has the same fellowship and saving relationship with him." 1 John 5:12 separates having the Son from not having him. John 14:21-24 names who receives the Father's love and presence in that sense.
6. "God's gift of his Son, his saving purpose, or the word 'all' means everyone will finally be saved." Jesus describes two different outcomes:
"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." ()
A statement of God's purpose, or an "if", is not turned into a report that the outcome came for everyone.
7. "God's goodness to all means unbroken favour toward everyone, in every way, for ever." Scripture records love withdrawn:
"All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters." ()
Nor can mercy be counted on never to be withheld in judgment:
"When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour." ()
"For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment." ()
8. "Once God has judged or rejected a people, he can never love or show mercy to anyone in it again." God promises returning Israel:
"I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him." ()
"Therefore thus saith the LORD; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the LORD of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem." ()
These promises are not handed on to every individual without warrant.
9. "God's special love for some means no kindness at all to anyone else." The promises to particular people never say this, and it would make Deuteronomy 10:18 and Psalms 145:9 false.
10. "Real love never rebukes," or "opposing evil means refusing an enemy all good." Both fall:
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." ()
"But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you," ()
What stands, and what supports it
What is left is not standing just because nothing was found against it. It has its own support in the text. God is good to all and merciful over all his works (Psalms 145:9). Jesus makes the Father's kindness to the evil the reason for loving enemies (Luke 6:35). Scripture calls God's care for the stranger love (Deuteronomy 10:18). God loved the world in giving his Son (John 3:16).
Scripture teaches all of these together, each in its own words: that broad love, God's real hatred, rejection and judgment of the wicked, and a fellowship and keeping love promised to people it names. The breadth of God's goodness does not cancel his judgment, and his judgment does not cancel his goodness.
God's goodness to all, in full
Psalms 145 is a song of praise to the LORD. In the same psalm it speaks of his goodness to all and also draws distinctions:
"The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy." ()
"The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season." ()
"Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing." ()
"The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth." ()
"He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them." ()
"The LORD preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy." ()
The goodness to all and the distinctions are both stated by the psalm itself. Nobody has to bring them together from outside.
In Matthew 5, Jesus teaches his disciples, with the crowds in view:
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy." ()
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;" ()
"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." ()
"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" ()
"And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?" ()
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." ()
Luke 6 says the same to those listening in the crowd, and spells out the reason even more clearly (Luke 6:27 and 6:35 above):
"For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them." ()
"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." ()
The argument runs one way: from what God does to what his children are to do. A command given to disciples would not, on its own, prove that God does everything he commands of them. What links the two here are the reasons Jesus himself gives about the Father: he sends sun and rain on the evil, and he is kind to the unthankful.
The words "Thou shalt love thy neighbour" in Matthew 5:43 were traced to the law, where neighbour-love stands with a ban on inward hatred and with love for the stranger. The added words "hate thine enemy" are not in that law's sentence. Nothing in this answer depends on the whole saying being an exact quotation of the law.
"Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him." ()
"Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD." ()
"But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God." ()
Deuteronomy 10 is Moses speaking to Israel. In one address he speaks of God's special choice of Israel's fathers and of God's love shown to the stranger in food and clothing (Deuteronomy 10:18 above):
"Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day." ()
"Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." ()
So the special choice of some and love for an outsider stand in the same passage. And this verse does more than call a good event love by a new name. It says outright that giving the stranger food and clothing is God's love.
What this breadth does and does not mean
This is a claim about how far God's goodness reaches. It does not say that everyone receives the same gifts, that everyone feels comforted at every moment, or that everyone has the same relationship with God. Nor does good provision in this life become a promise of favour without end under final judgment.
Scripture also shows that a bare act of giving does not, on its own, prove everything about the giver's love:
"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." ()
"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up," ()
Kindness belongs to love; delight in wrong does not (1 Corinthians 13:6). That is why this answer rests on passages that themselves explain God's love and his giving, not on a general rule that every gift is love.
The words "love toward man" in Titus 3:4 come from a word used in only one other place in this index. There it describes islanders who made a fire and took in cold, wet shipwrecked travellers:
"And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold." ()
That points to practical, humane kindness. It is not a proof that everyone is saved, and it is not a complete account of how God is disposed toward people.
Goodness that reaches someone who is still refusing
Does God's goodness reach a person who has not turned, or only a group in general? Romans 2 speaks to one person who is judging others while doing the same wrongs:
"Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" ()
"But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;" ()
"But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath," ()
The same person receives God's goodness and patience, which aim at repentance, and is storing up wrath by a hard heart. God's goodness to this person is not approval.
Love that comes before people are good
Romans 5 is written to people now made right with God by faith. It places Christ's death for them at a time when they were still sinners and enemies:
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:" ()
"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." ()
"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." ()
"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." ()
Ephesians 2 tells of people who were once under wrath, and of God's great love while they were dead in sins:
"Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." ()
"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us," ()
"Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)" ()
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" ()
Neither passage widens its "us" to mean every person. But both rule out the idea that being sinful, or under wrath, proves on its own that no love from God can reach someone.
Mark 10 reports Jesus' love for a man who asked him about eternal life:
"Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." ()
"And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions." ()
"And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible." ()
The text does not call the man's going away obedience, and it does not say what became of him. Nothing can be said about where he stands with God.
Jesus' love cannot be set against the Father's, as if the two showed different characters. Jesus says:
"Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?" ()
"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." ()
God's love in sending his Son
John 3
John 3:16 speaks of the world being loved and the Son being given, with life for whoever believes. The verses around it keep both the saving mission and the line between belief and unbelief (John 3:36 above):
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:" ()
"That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." ()
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." ()
"He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." ()
"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." ()
"For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." ()
"The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." ()
The world that was loved is the same world in which people loved darkness because their deeds were evil. So "the world" cannot mean only good people. That reading fails against John 3:19-20 and Luke 6:35. Nor can the love of the world be made into approval of those deeds. Reading "the world" as "people already saved" also fails, because it loses the mission to a world that needs saving and the passage's own line about belief. Nothing is concluded here from the word "world" alone about a decree concerning individuals, or about exactly how the Son's work is applied to each person. God's kindness to all rests on other passages in its own right (Psalms 145, Matthew 5, Luke 6).
The serpent that John 3:14 refers to was traced to its account:
"And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died." ()
"Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people." ()
"And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." ()
"And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." ()
There, the LORD judges a rebellious people, provides a remedy, and the bitten person who looks lives. John links the lifting up to the Son, and believing to life. The account does not say that everyone who was bitten looked, and providing the remedy is not approval of the rebellion.
John 1
John 1 introduces the Word and then gives John's testimony (John 1:10, 1:12, 1:18 and 1:29 together):
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." ()
"He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." ()
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:" ()
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." ()
"No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." ()
"The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." ()
These describe a real saving mission to a sinful world, and a difference between those who receive him and those who do not. "The world" is not defined as people already reconciled, and the Son does not show a character different from God's.
"The world" in John's letter
"And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." ()
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." ()
"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." ()
"And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." ()
The first verse reaches beyond the writer's own circle in describing the Son's work for sins. The others forbid loving the world's lust and pride. John 3 is about people who need rescuing, while 1 John 2:16 explains the forbidden attachment as lust and pride that are not from the Father. These are two different uses of "world", shown by the passages themselves. They are not opposite instructions about the same thing.
The same Greek word is even translated "adorning" in one place:
"Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;" ()
"But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." ()
So the word alone cannot settle how far "world" reaches in any one verse. Each place has to be read in its own setting.
"God is love"
"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." ()
"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." ()
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." ()
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." ()
"We love him, because he first loved us." ()
"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" ()
"And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also." ()
The letter explains God's love by his sending of the Son for sins, not by anyone first loving him. Its "us" are the letter's own beloved readers. That "us" is not quietly changed to mean everyone.
The same letter shows love in deeds:
"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." ()
"But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" ()
"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth." ()
Titus 3
Titus 3 puts kindness and love toward man beside an account of mercy saving people who were once disobedient (Titus 3:4 is the verse discussed above):
"To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men." ()
"For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." ()
"But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared," ()
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;" ()
"That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." ()
Its "us" does not claim that every person has already been saved and renewed in this way.
Reconciliation
"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:" ()
"And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." ()
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." ()
"And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;" ()
"To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." ()
"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." ()
God's reconciling work is real, not just an intention never acted on. The same passage also speaks of the person "in Christ", and it pleads with its readers to be reconciled. The work, the message, the appeal and the actual relationship are kept distinct in its own words. It does not say that everyone already shares the new creation, and it does not erase the two outcomes of Matthew 25.
God's desire that the wicked turn and live
Ezekiel 18 and 33 answer Israel's complaint that God's judgment was unfair:
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." ()
"But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die." ()
"Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?" ()
"But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die." ()
"Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin." ()
"For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye." ()
"Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" ()
"When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it." ()
"If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die." ()
To deny that God has any merciful purpose toward the wicked would make this invitation, and the preference God states, false. To say no judgment follows would make the same passages' judgments false. Both stand. God's compassion here is more than food and rain.
Nineveh actually turned and was spared:
"And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." ()
"And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" ()
That is a real merciful outcome in that setting. It is not a rule that every city will always be spared.
Paul joins prayer for all men, rulers included, to God's will that all men be saved:
"I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;" ()
"For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." ()
"Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." ()
"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" ()
"Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." ()
No limit to good people is stated, and naming rulers includes them rather than leaving others out. That breadth is kept. But a statement of what God wills is not, just by being stated, a report that all men have been saved.
Other "all" passages are read with their own settings (Romans 5:1 is quoted above):
"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)" ()
"Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." ()
Romans 5:18 stands beside "they which receive" grace in verse 17, the faith of verse 1, and John 3:18 and 3:36. Romans 11 speaks to Gentile readers:
"Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:" ()
"Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." ()
"And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again." ()
"As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes." ()
"For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." ()
Mercy's purpose toward all in verse 32 stands with the unbelief, faith, warning and regrafting of verses 20-23. Verse 28 says the same people are enemies in one respect and beloved in another. The "all" language is kept in full. But a gift or a purpose is never turned into a report that everyone has received the outcome.
Fellowship and keeping love: promised to people Scripture names
Jesus' promises about the Father's love, his showing himself and his coming to live with someone are tied to loving Jesus and keeping his words (John 14:23 is quoted above):
"Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." ()
"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." ()
"Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" ()
"He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." ()
"For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." ()
Judas' own question separates the disciples from the world. These are not words about one identical relationship that every person has. So the Father's presence and his living with someone must not be promised to everyone without distinction.
"Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end." ()
"I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me." ()
John 15 commands the disciples to continue in his love, and joins abiding with keeping his commandments:
"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." ()
"As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love." ()
"If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." ()
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." ()
"Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." ()
"If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." ()
"But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause." ()
The warning in verse 6 is a real warning, not one only seeming to be. Its "if" does not say what will happen to any particular person.
In John 17 Jesus prays for those given to him, and says plainly that he is not praying here for the world:
"I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine." ()
"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;" ()
"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." ()
"I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." ()
This is the strongest passage for a narrower answer, and it shows a real, particular prayer and a particular love. But it does not say God shows the world no kindness. The prayer itself aims at the world believing and knowing. And that aim cannot be quietly turned into a report that everyone has already believed.
Romans 8 speaks of "us" who are in Christ:
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." ()
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." ()
"Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." ()
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" ()
"As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." ()
"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come," ()
"Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." ()
Verse 36 quotes a psalm in which God's people suffer while still holding to him:
"All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant." ()
"Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter." ()
That supports the point about suffering. It does not promise that everyone has already been justified. The love Romans 8 describes keeps its own recipients, those in Christ.
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;" ()
"That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word," ()
"That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." ()
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." ()
"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." ()
"And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness." ()
Jude, too, commands his readers to stay in God's love and praises God's power to keep them, while also reporting real judgment:
"Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." ()
"Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." ()
"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy," ()
Neither the command nor the praise is set aside. Nothing is concluded from them about where any present person stands.
The Psalms keep the same distinction. Preservation reaches man and beast, while continued lovingkindness and fatherly, everlasting mercy are named for those who know and fear God:
"Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast." ()
"How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings." ()
"O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart." ()
"There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise." ()
"He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." ()
"For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him." ()
"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him." ()
"But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;" ()
"To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them." ()
The people these verses name cannot be dropped to make forgiveness and enduring fatherly mercy belong to everyone. Nor can the verses be given an "only" they do not contain, to cancel Luke 6's kindness to the evil.
"He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD." ()
"Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance." ()
"Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;" ()
"Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually." ()
"God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah." ()
"But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever." ()
Goodness filling the earth stands with God's love of judgment. His lasting goodness stands with the lasting judgment of a wrongdoer. This is the same pattern already found in Psalms 145.
All these passages clearly separate the kindness that reaches evil people from the fellowship, life and keeping that are promised in Christ. But none of them says the reverse: that no kindness or love of any kind reaches anyone outside that relationship. Adding that would clash with Luke 6:35 and Deuteronomy 10:18.
God's hatred is real, and it is aimed at people
Psalms 5 is a prayer to the LORD:
"For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee." ()
"Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man." ()
"But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple." ()
"For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield." ()
The psalm moves from God taking no pleasure in wickedness, to his hatred of all workers of iniquity (Psalms 5:5), to the destruction of the deceitful and bloody. The speaker comes to God only by his mercy. Psalms 11 likewise names the wicked person and the lover of violence as hated (Psalms 11:5), and describes their judgment:
"Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." ()
"For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright." ()
These cannot be reduced to statements about deeds alone. Proverbs lists what the LORD hates, and the list includes actions, body parts that stand for wrong conduct, and people:
"Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy." ()
"These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:" ()
"A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood," ()
"An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief," ()
"A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren." ()
One passage does name deeds as what is hated:
"But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." ()
But what is hated in that verse cannot be carried into every other passage to take the people out of them.
What "hate" means in Scripture's own use
The Hebrew word for hate has no single fixed meaning. In Jacob's family it describes loving one wife less than the other:
"And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years." ()
"And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren." ()
That is real evidence of a comparative use, in that setting. But the same word describes Amnon's violent hatred of Tamar after he wronged her, and his throwing her out (an account of wrongdoing, not approved conduct):
"Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone." ()
"Then he called his servant that ministered unto him, and said, Put now this woman out from me, and bolt the door after her." ()
So the word is not limited to a mild preference. In the New Testament, the Greek word for hate appears both in Jesus' demands about following him and in the world's hostility in John 15:
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." ()
"And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." ()
"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." ()
Matthew explains the family matter as loving family more than Jesus, and as taking the cross:
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." ()
"And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." ()
So a comparative sense is allowed where the setting calls for it. But it does not erase the destruction, rejection and anger attached to God's hatred in Psalms 5, Psalms 11 and Malachi 1. A comparative description that keeps that rejection is not ruled out. It still cannot support equal favour or the absence of judgment. This reading does not claim to measure how much affection God has.
The opposite overreach fails too. God's hatred, as righteous opposition and judgment, cannot be made to mean that no kindness can ever reach any evil person, because Luke 6 says it does. What stands does not move hatred from people to deeds. Nor does it invent a secret favourable verdict behind a sentence of judgment. It affirms God's kindness and his opposition, each in the respects and settings Scripture states. Goodness and righteous opposition are not said of the same thing in the same respect.
Hatred of false worship, and no approval of evil
Amos speaks to Israel and its complacent rulers:
"For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:" ()
"Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph." ()
"I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies." ()
"But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." ()
"The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself, saith the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein." ()
God's hatred of corrupt feasts and palaces ends in judgment on the city and everyone in it. Actions, institutions and the people affected all stay in the passage, and so do the call to seek God and the demand for justice. This guards against two mistakes: reducing every statement of hatred to abstract deeds, and treating love as acceptance of injustice.
Malachi 2 rebukes the claim that every evildoer is good in God's sight and pleases him (Malachi 2:17 above). Just before it:
"For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously." ()
This is direct support against God's love meaning approval. It does not deny Luke 6's kindness to the evil.
Jacob and Esau
Paul quotes:
"As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." ()
The quotation comes from Malachi, where the LORD answers Israel's question about his love (Malachi 1:4 is quoted above):
"I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob," ()
"And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness." ()
This is favour given to one and not the other, and real opposition. It is not equal treatment described in different words.
Romans 9 places God's choosing purpose before the children had done anything, and says it comes from the one who calls:
"Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:" ()
"That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." ()
"(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)" ()
"It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger." ()
The source of verse 12 speaks of two nations and peoples:
"And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." ()
The nations are really in view. So are the children and God's prior purpose in Romans 9. This reading rejects both an account that erases the nations and one that dismisses the brothers and God's choosing. Nothing follows about whether any unnamed person is chosen.
The other passages Romans 9 draws on were read in their own places:
"And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him." ()
"Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son." ()
"For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him." ()
"And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called." ()
"And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed." ()
"And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink." ()
Right after naming Isaac's line, God provides for the other son. So a special promise to one line does not mean every other kindness is shut off. That is a real counterexample. It says nothing about Esau's inner state or his final destiny.
"For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." ()
"So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." ()
"And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy." ()
That was God's answer to Moses asking to see his glory: mercy freely shown.
"For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth." ()
"Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." ()
"And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had spoken unto Moses." ()
"And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth." ()
"Send therefore now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field; for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die." ()
"He that feared the word of the LORD among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses:" ()
"And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants." ()
The chapter records God's hardening and Pharaoh's continued resistance. In the same chapter as the judgment, there is also a warning to take shelter, and some who feared God's word heeded it. Neither the hardening nor the mercy is erased.
"What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:" ()
"And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory," ()
"Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?" ()
"As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved." ()
"And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God." ()
Paul applies these words to people called from Jews and Gentiles (verse 24). Their source is Hosea, where the English Bible says "mercy" where Romans says "beloved". The link is shown by Hosea's own setting of restoration, not by matching a word:
"And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Loruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away." ()
"Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God." ()
"Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God." ()
"For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal." ()
"And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies." ()
"And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God." ()
Hosea announces rejection, and then being recognised again as God's people.
"Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:" ()
"And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha." ()
"For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness." ()
"For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land." ()
"Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah." ()
In these, judgment and a preserved remnant stand together.
"As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." ()
"Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread." ()
"And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." ()
"And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken." ()
"Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste." ()
"Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place." ()
Here a sanctuary and trust stand together with stumbling and judgment. Romans 9's comparison of the maker and what he makes comes from Isaiah, in a setting of hidden schemes and of people turning things upside down:
"Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?" ()
Together, these passages show real distinctions in God's mercy and calling. They do not say that people outside a chosen line receive no good of any kind.
Love withdrawn, and mercy restored
Hosea 9:15 speaks hard against any claim that God always keeps the same favour toward every person. It declares hatred, being driven out of his house, and "love them no more", because of wicked deeds. The next verse gives the reason:
"My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations." ()
That is not softened into "nothing changed". Yet the same book later calls Israel back and promises healing and freely given love (Hosea 14:4 above):
"O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." ()
"Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy." ()
Hosea 1 and 2 had already set rejection and later restoration side by side. The judgment was real, and so is the restoration. Neither says that every individual in the judged generation later receives the restoration. Neither says the threat was unreal. And neither supports a rule that God can never again love anyone from a people once rejected, because the promise rules that out.
Jeremiah 12 calls God's people "dearly beloved" even while handing them to their enemies, and declares hatred because of their hostile rebellion:
"I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies." ()
"Mine heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest; it crieth out against me: therefore have I hated it." ()
"And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land." ()
"And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, The LORD liveth; as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built in the midst of my people." ()
"But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the LORD." ()
The people and the conditions here must not be flattened into one unconditional outcome for everyone.
"The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." ()
"Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD." ()
"But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge." ()
"Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD." ()
Lasting love and mercy for Israel stand here with each person answering for their own sin, and with God's refusal to cast off all Israel's seed.
"Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance." ()
"Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry:" ()
"And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies." ()
Leviticus 26 explains the two sides within one passage:
"And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you." ()
"If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;" ()
"And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:" ()
"Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land." ()
"And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God." ()
Verse 44 does not deny verse 30. It says God will not abhor them "to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant". Those limiting words decide it, and neither verse can be made into a flat denial of the other.
So two claims fail: that God never hates or withdraws, and that after judgment there is never mercy for anyone again. God's goodness to all must not be blown up into a claim that every favourable relationship is unbroken. And the promises to restore a nation must not be blown up into the salvation of every individual.
Mercy withheld in judgment
Psalms 145:9 speaks of God's tender mercies over all his works. Scripture states just as plainly that in some judgments God refuses mercy. Isaiah 27:11 is quoted above. The same chapter also speaks of peace, purging and gathering:
"Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me." ()
"By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up." ()
"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel." ()
"This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing." ()
"And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them." ()
"Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the LORD hath spoken." ()
"Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness." ()
Jeremiah 21 sets apart God's own hostile judgment on the city, the cruelty of the conqueror, and a stated way to live by surrender:
"And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath." ()
"And afterward, saith the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy." ()
"And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death." ()
"He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey." ()
"For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire." ()
The way of life in verse 9 is kept, and it does not cancel the city's judgment.
Joshua 11 says plainly that the hardening and the destruction without favour were from the LORD. It is not treated as just human violence:
"There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle." ()
"For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses." ()
Deuteronomy 7 holds the instruction for that conquest, and in the same chapter God's particular love for Israel:
"And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:" ()
"For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly." ()
"For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth." ()
"But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." ()
"And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face." ()
These instructions belong to their own occasion and to the people they were given to. They are not a command for anyone reading today to attack anyone.
James 2 warns of judgment without mercy for the one who shows none, and also says that mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13 above). Neither half cancels the other. Its "royal law" was checked in Leviticus 19:
"If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:" ()
"So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." ()
A time of no mercy is not always a verdict that mercy can never return. In Zechariah, the angel asks "how long", and the LORD answers with a return in mercy (Zechariah 1:16 above):
"Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts." ()
"Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?" ()
Two other "no mercy" passages were read and set aside as descriptions of God's own disposition. In them the merciless ones are Babylon and the invading army, though their settings still involve God's judgment:
"I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke." ()
"Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it." ()
"They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion." ()
The "tender mercies" of Psalms 145:9 and the "mercy" of Isaiah 27:11 are different Hebrew words. But that difference does not, by itself, explain how the passages fit together. Their settings do. Compassionate goodness over all God's works does not say that every judgment spares those it falls on. And a refusal to spare in judgment does not say that no earlier provision or patience ever reached them. Romans 2:4-5 shows goodness reaching the very person who is storing up wrath. So the breadth affirmed here is God's compassionate goodness as Scripture shows it, not a promise that mercy can never be withdrawn.
Lamentations 3 holds both together in one chapter:
"It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not." ()
"The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him." ()
"For the Lord will not cast off for ever:" ()
"But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies." ()
"For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men." ()
"Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?" ()
"Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD." ()
"We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned." ()
"Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied." ()
The hope is not erased by the judgment, and the slain are not quietly turned into people who were never judged. The chapter speaks of the soul who waits and seeks, of a living person under punishment, and of a people called to return. Reading verse 31 alone as final salvation for every individual stretches that hope beyond its setting, and would make Matthew 25:46 false. Reading judgment as God simply enjoying human pain fails against verse 33. This chapter shows God's compassion as more than material provision.
Love that corrects, and love that grieves
"So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." ()
"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." ()
Revelation 3:19 joins love with rebuke and calls for repentance, and the invitation in verse 20 stays conditional. The verse tells what the speaker does to those he loves. It does not prove that every judgment is correction meant to restore, or that every condemned person will be restored.
Hebrews 12 quotes Proverbs 3, which was read in its own setting:
"My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction:" ()
"For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth." ()
"And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:" ()
"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." ()
"For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness." ()
"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." ()
Correction is compared to a father's delight in his son, and its aim is holiness, even while it grieves for now. So love need not feel pleasant at the time. Neither passage says that all final judgment is this kind of correction.
John 11 shows Jesus' love for one family:
"Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick." ()
"Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." ()
"Jesus wept." ()
"Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!" ()
"And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go." ()
Two different Greek words for love are used of this same family. That rules out splitting those words into a "real" love and a "lesser" love. The passage also rules out treating sickness, sorrow or delay as automatic proof that there is no love. It does not promise every person the same experience, or an immediate raising.
Scripture also warns against reading God's love or hatred off what happens to people:
"For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them." ()
"All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath." ()
So nothing is said here about anyone's standing with God from their good times or their troubles.
Two final outcomes
Jesus describes a future gathering and separation of the nations (Matthew 25:46 above):
"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:" ()
"And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:" ()
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:" ()
This goes beyond a bare "if". It describes two groups actually going to two outcomes. The words "everlasting" and "eternal" in verse 46 are the same Greek word, and the same word stands in John 3:15-16. Paul uses it to set what lasts against what passes:
"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;" ()
"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." ()
This supports taking both outcomes seriously, rather than making the punishment vanish by treating its word as unrelated. The word alone does not define a length of time. This reading does not settle every question about the manner of punishment, and the answer does not need it.
What this means for how people treat each other
Following God's kindness to enemies does not mean joining anyone in wrong. Jehoshaphat allied himself with Ahab and went to his war despite the prophet's warning, and was rebuked for it:
"And Ahab king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Wilt thou go with me to Ramothgilead? And he answered him, I am as thou art, and my people as thy people; and we will be with thee in the war." ()
"So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to Ramothgilead." ()
"And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD." ()
"Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." ()
"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." ()
One psalm speaks of opposing God's enemies, and then asks God to search the speaker's own heart:
"Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men." ()
"Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?" ()
"I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies." ()
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:" ()
These passages cannot cancel Jesus' command to do good to enemies, because that would make Luke 6:27 and 6:35 false. And doing good cannot mean endorsing rebellion, because that would go against Ephesians 5:11 and the rebuke in 2 Chronicles 19:2.
Another psalm shows care and opposition together. The psalmist asks to be vindicated against wrongful enemies, yet recalls mourning for them when they were sick:
"But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom." ()
"I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother." ()
"Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause." ()
The words "They hated me without a cause" in John 15:25 match this psalm and another, and the wording does not pick out one of the two as the source:
"They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away." ()
Likewise, the betrayal words in John 13:18 come from this psalm:
"Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." ()
John applies these words to Jesus' own setting. That does not carry every detail of the earlier speaker's sins or circumstances over to Jesus.
God's judgment on a people also gives no licence for human contempt toward everyone in it. Beside what Malachi says of Edom, the law says:
"Nevertheless the LORD thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the LORD thy God loved thee." ()
"Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever." ()
"Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land." ()
"The children that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the LORD in their third generation." ()
These instructions about who could join Israel's congregation name different peoples for different things. Verse 6 stays within its own instructions and its named peoples. It is not applied to every enemy, and it is not made into a statement that God has never shown anyone among them any goodness. The question does not ask about a present rule for admitting nations, and none is drawn.
What this reading leaves open, and its limits
2 Peter 3:9.
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." ()
"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." ()
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." ()
This reading did not decide whether "any" and "all" here reach beyond the letter's own beloved readers. That is a limit of this reading's work. It is not a finding that Scripture leaves the matter undecided. Either way, the answer does not change. Read narrowly, the verse speaks of patience toward the readers with repentance in view. Read broadly, it fits the Son's saving mission to the world (John 3:17). On both readings, the same chapter teaches coming judgment, so the verse cannot be made into a prediction that no one will perish. And on both readings, God's kindness to evil people already stands on Psalms 145:9 and Luke 6:35.
What was not found or claimed. This reading does not measure whether God's affection is equal for everyone. It does not claim to know God's inner disposition toward each person at every moment, and it gives no unconditional promise of favour after final judgment. Hatred is not renamed goodwill, and goodwill is not renamed universal reconciliation.
No verdict on anyone. Nothing here says whether any person, the reader or anyone else, is saved, chosen or forgiven, or why anyone suffers. Of the people Scripture names, such as Esau, the man who questioned Jesus in Mark 10, and Pharaoh, this answer reports only what Scripture says of them. Their final standing is not judged.
How the reading was done. Scripture was read only from the King James text, with searches by word, by concept and by original-language word. The original-language words were used only to find where to look. Their meaning was taken from each passage's own setting, never from a word number or a dictionary. Some other passages were checked only to trace where a quotation came from, and were not used to prove anything about God's love. They include the creation and marriage passages behind Mark 10:6-8 and Ephesians 5:31:
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." ()
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." ()
The whole Bible was not opened. Many search results were listed but not read, and the very broadest searches had pages that were not looked at. All of these are named in the record, which describes none of them and dismisses none of them. So this answer rests on the direct statements that were gathered, tested against the hardest passages that were found. It does not claim that every relevant passage was found, and it does not claim that Scripture is silent on anything.
No question needed to be put to the reader to reach these conclusions.
Every step of the reading
Everything the replay shows, as plain text, in the order it happened. Times are from the moment the reading began.
Every search, in order (92)
- words God so loved 2 found
- words love your enemies 2 found
- words hatest 6 found
- words hated 56 found
- words love all 0 found
- word family love 1600 found
- words hated (page 2) 56 found
- all of God + loveth 8 found
- all of LORD + hateth 4 found
- words good to all 1 found
- words kind 32 found
- original word G25 (page 2) 109 found love 72 · loved 39 · loveth 20 · beloved 7 · thou 2 · doth 1 · have 1 · let 1 · lovedst 1 · us 1 · was 1 · ye 1
- original word G25 (page 3) 109 found love 72 · loved 39 · loveth 20 · beloved 7 · thou 2 · doth 1 · have 1 · let 1 · lovedst 1 · us 1 · was 1 · ye 1
- original word G25 109 found love 72 · loved 39 · loveth 20 · beloved 7 · thou 2 · doth 1 · have 1 · let 1 · lovedst 1 · us 1 · was 1 · ye 1
- words love them 8 found
- words loved us 9 found
- words hateth 30 found
- words lifted 149 found
- words love thy neighbour 8 found
- original word H8130 139 found hate 68 · hated 42 · hateth 20 · hatest 5 · enemies 3 · enemy 2 · foes 1 · hateful 1 · haters 1 · hating 1 · odious 1 · utterly 1
- original word H8130 (page 2) 139 found hate 68 · hated 42 · hateth 20 · hatest 5 · enemies 3 · enemy 2 · foes 1 · hateful 1 · haters 1 · hating 1 · odious 1 · utterly 1
- original word H8130 (page 3) 139 found hate 68 · hated 42 · hateth 20 · hatest 5 · enemies 3 · enemy 2 · foes 1 · hateful 1 · haters 1 · hating 1 · odious 1 · utterly 1
- original word G5543 7 found kind 2 · better 1 · easy 1 · good 1 · goodness 1 · gracious 1
- original word G2889 152 found world 185 · adorning 1 · world's 1
- all of serpent + pole 2 found
- words elder shall serve 2 found
- words mercy on whom 3 found
- words raised thee up 3 found
- words not my people 5 found
- words remnant 91 found
- words stumblingstone 2 found
- all of God + love 72 found
- words loveth the 5 found
- words love toward 2 found
- words no pleasure 10 found
- words all men to be saved 1 found
- words not willing 2 found
- words stumbling 3 found
- words remnant (page 2) 91 found
- words Sodoma 1 found
- words Sara shall 1 found
- words In Isaac 3 found
- original word G5363 2 found kindness 1 · love 1 · man 1
- all of God + love (page 2) 72 found
- original word G3404 38 found hate 16 · hated 12 · hateth 10 · hating 2 · hateful 1 · hatest 1
- original word H157 195 found love 74 · loved 48 · loveth 38 · lovers 17 · friends 8 · lovest 7 · beloved 5 · friend 4 · lover 2 · i 1 · liketh 1 · lovedst 1 · lovely 1 · loving 1
- original word G2889 (page 4) 152 found world 185 · adorning 1 · world's 1
- all of Sarah + son 9 found
- all of stone + foundation 2 found
- all of formed + made 6 found
- words love of God 13 found
- words I rebuke 1 found
- all of Nineveh + spare 1 found
- words of the travail 1 found
- words shall not make haste 1 found
- words thing framed 1 found
- words sheep for the slaughter 3 found
- words goodness 48 found
- words lovingkindness 26 found
- original word G26 106 found love 85 · charity 28 · charitably 1 · dear 1 · love's 1
- original word G26 (page 2) 106 found love 85 · charity 28 · charitably 1 · dear 1 · love's 1
- original word G26 (page 3) 106 found love 85 · charity 28 · charitably 1 · dear 1 · love's 1
- original word G5368 21 found love 10 · loveth 6 · kiss 3 · loved 3 · lovest 3
- original word G5544 8 found goodness 4 · kindness 4 · gentleness 1 · good 1
- original word H7355 43 found mercy 32 · compassion 8 · pitieth 2 · love 1 · merciful 1 · pity 1 · ruhamah 1 · surely 1
- words abhor 18 found
- words everlasting love 1 found
- all of Jehoshaphat + Ahab 7 found
- words he made 157 found
- words made them male 2 found
- words leave his father 4 found
- words whole world 11 found
- words without a cause 8 found
- original word G2889 (page 3) 152 found world 185 · adorning 1 · world's 1
- all of Genesis + male 0 found
- words male and female 7 found
- words not the world 1 found
- words everlasting punishment 1 found
- words lifted up his heel 2 found
- words workers of iniquity 21 found
- words love more 1 found
- original word G2889 (page 2) 152 found world 185 · adorning 1 · world's 1
- words life eternal 4 found
- original word G166 69 found eternal 42 · everlasting 25 · began 2 · ever 1 · world 1
- words goodness of God 2 found
- words loveth righteousness 2 found
- words despise not 6 found
- words whom the LORD loveth 2 found
- words no mercy 3 found
- words not have mercy 3 found
- words no favour 4 found
- original word H7356 44 found mercies 25 · mercy 4 · womb 4 · bowels 2 · compassion 2 · compassions 2 · damsel 1 · love 1 · mercies' 1 · pitied 1 · pity 1
Every time it opened Scripture (14 times, 2,315 verses)
- John 3 36 1 John 4 21 Matthew 5 48 Luke 6 49 Psalms 5 12 Malachi 1 14 Romans 9 33 Hosea 9 17 Jeremiah 12 17 247 verses, 247 new
- John 3 36 1 John 4 21 Matthew 5 48 Luke 6 49 Psalms 5 12 Malachi 1 14 Romans 9 33 Hosea 9 17 Jeremiah 12 17 247 verses, 0 new
- Psalms 11 7 Psalms 145 21 Hosea 14 9 Genesis 29:15–35 21 Mark 10:1–31 31 John 14 31 Romans 2 29 Leviticus 19 37 Numbers 21:1–10 10 Genesis 25:19–34 16 Exodus 33 23 Exodus 9 35 270 verses, 270 new
- Romans 5 21 Romans 8 39 Ephesians 2 22 Titus 3 15 Deuteronomy 7 26 Deuteronomy 10 22 Revelation 3 22 1 Timothy 2 15 2 Peter 3 18 Ezekiel 18 32 Ezekiel 33:1–20 20 Jonah 3 10 Jonah 4 11 Jude 1 25 298 verses, 298 new
- Hosea 1 11 Hosea 2 23 Isaiah 1 31 Isaiah 10 34 Isaiah 8 22 Isaiah 28 29 Isaiah 29 24 174 verses, 174 new
- Genesis 18:1–15 15 Genesis 21:1–21 21 Psalms 44 26 Proverbs 6:1–19 19 2 Samuel 13:1–22 22 2 Chronicles 19 11 Psalms 106:34–48 15 Psalms 139 24 Ecclesiastes 9:1–12 12 Ephesians 5 33 John 16 33 Revelation 2:1–7 7 238 verses, 238 new
- John 13 38 John 15 27 John 17 26 1 John 2 29 1 Corinthians 13 13 Romans 11 36 Jeremiah 31 40 2 Chronicles 18 34 243 verses, 243 new
- Psalms 35 28 Psalms 69 36 Psalms 41 13 Matthew 25 46 Luke 14 35 Matthew 10:16–42 27 Acts 28:1–10 10 1 Peter 3:1–7 7 Genesis 1:24–31 8 Genesis 2:15–25 11 1 John 3 24 1 John 5 21 266 verses, 266 new
- Leviticus 26 46 Deuteronomy 23:1–8 8 Psalms 36 12 Psalms 103 22 Amos 5 27 Amos 6 14 Malachi 2 17 John 1 51 John 11:1–46 46 2 Corinthians 5 21 Romans 2:1–11 11 Hebrews 12:1–17 17 292 verses, 281 new
- Proverbs 3:1–20 20 Psalms 33 22 Psalms 52 9 51 verses, 51 new
- Proverbs 3:1–20 20 Psalms 33 22 Psalms 52 9 2 Corinthians 4:7–18 12 63 verses, 12 new
- Isaiah 27 13 Jeremiah 13 27 Jeremiah 21 14 54 verses, 54 new
- James 2 26 Joshua 11 23 Zechariah 1 21 Isaiah 47 15 Jeremiah 6 30 115 verses, 115 new
- Lamentations 3 66 66 verses, 66 new
The reader's own notes (8)
- The reading will begin with the two named SIFT files in full, then gather and check Scripture through the permitted tools. The record will be completed and read back before the hand-off is written.
- The searches have found both statements of God’s love and statements of his hatred, including hatred directed at people. The reading is checking their settings before deciding what “love everyone” can faithfully mean.
- The passages distinguish kindness toward the evil from promises of fellowship and preservation. They also speak of real judgment. The next checks concern whether those distinctions arise from the text itself, especially in the passages about Esau and about loving enemies.
- The hard passages rule out saying that God never hates people, or that love means approval of wrongdoing. The reading is also checking the reverse claim—that hatred or judgment must exclude every kindness—against passages where mercy, love, and opposition to sin appear together.
- The first record has been written, with the passages, alternative readings, source checks, and search results. Its conclusion distinguishes goodness and mercy reaching everyone from identical fellowship or salvation for everyone. The required read-back will now test that wording against the full question and the passages still unopened.
- The read-back found two explanations needing more work: the special prayer in John 17, and goodness shown to someone remaining impenitent in Romans 2. It also prompted reading passages about abhorrence, covenant mercy, and judgment that the searches had shown but that remained unopened. The record is being revised to include those checks and sharpen its treatment of comparative hatred.
- The revised record now includes passages that expressly withhold mercy in judgment. Its affirmative wording therefore concerns God’s disclosed goodness and compassion toward everyone, including the evil, while preserving those judgments. The record is complete and has been read back; the hand-off will now be written from it.
- Completed RECORD.md and HANDOFF.md, including the read-back revisions and quotation checks.
What its record and its hand-off say, in their order
Question and scope
"Does God love everyone?"
This is a question about God and every person, not an assertion that everyone is saved. No personal circumstance, danger, particular person's standing, or intended act was disclosed. The word love needs checking because the passages speak both of kindness toward evil people and of a relationship with those who love God. The reading answers both uses. Everyone is not silently changed into some people, and a promise to specified recipients is not silently given to everyone.
The initial expectation was that the answer would require a distinction rather than an unqualified yes or no. The passages about hatred were therefore gathered early and given the same weight as the passages about love. No worked answer or other run was consulted. Blindness is by instruction, not independently proved.
From its hand-off to the writer
Their words
"Does God love everyone?"
This is a question, not a claim that everyone is saved. No circumstances, personal standing, particular sufferer, danger, or intended action were disclosed. The answer must preserve everyone and explain the relevant uses of love. No clarification is needed before giving the distinctions established in the record.
Hard passages
Hatred of people
Psalms 5 and 11 concern God's holiness, opposition to wicked people and real judgment. Their personal objects cannot be changed into deeds alone. Revelation 2:6 does name deeds, but that object cannot be imported into the other sentences.
"Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man." ()
"The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth." ()
"But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." ()
The answer is not that hatred secretly means the absence of judgment. The record retains opposition and judgment while also retaining Jesus' explicit kindness to evil people and Romans 2's goodness toward an impenitent recipient. Goodness and righteous opposition are not asserted in an identical respect.
Genesis 29 permits a comparative reading of hated in its own setting. It supplies no rule removing opposition from every other occurrence. This is the read-back correction: the rejected alternative is preference that erases actual rejection, not every use of comparative language.
"And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years." ()
"And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren." ()
Jacob and Esau
The source of Romans 9:13 was read in Malachi 1. It concerns brothers and, expressly, Edom's devastated heritage and continued opposition. Genesis 25 explicitly speaks of nations and peoples; Romans 9 also retains the children and God's electing purpose before deeds. Neither element may be removed. This is not equal favour, and no unnamed person's election is inferred.
"(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)" ()
"As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." ()
"And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness." ()
"Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever." ()
"And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." ()
Particular promise is not a statement excluding every other kindness. The record's Genesis 21 comparison records provision for the other son after specifying Isaac's line. It does not describe Esau's final destiny.
"And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called." ()
"And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink." ()
Withdrawn love and restored mercy
Hosea 9:15 is not softened: it declares hatred, expulsion and love no more for wicked doings. The same book calls Israel to return and promises freely given love with turned-away anger. Judgment is real; restoration is real; neither sentence says every individual in the judged generation receives the later promise.
"All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters." ()
"O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." ()
"I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him." ()
Jeremiah calls the heritage dearly beloved while delivering it to enemies and also declares hatred because of its hostility. The further promises retain mercy and accountability without making every favourable relationship universal.
"I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies." ()
"Mine heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest; it crieth out against me: therefore have I hated it." ()
"Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD." ()
"But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge." ()
The history likewise retains abhorrence and covenant mercy.
"Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance." ()
"And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies." ()
The read-back added Leviticus 26. Its explanation is especially direct: abhorrence and devastation in verse 30 coexist with the specified refusal to destroy utterly and break the covenant in verse 44. The purpose words in the latter qualify that refusal; it is not an unrestricted denial of the former.
"And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you." ()
"And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God." ()
Particular prayer, fellowship and enduring mercy
John 14's promise and John 16's stated reason retain their recipients. Neither sentence states the converse that no kindness reaches anyone else.
"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." ()
"For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." ()
The read-back added an explicit explanation of John 17. Jesus' prayer distinguishes those given to him from the world; it extends to later believers and expresses an aim concerning the world's belief. Particular intercession is real. Neither no kindness to the world nor everyone has already believed follows.
"I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine." ()
"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;" ()
"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." ()
The read-back added Psalms 36 and 103. Preservation reaches man and beast, while continued lovingkindness and fatherly, enduring covenant mercy have named recipients. The latter cannot become universal forgiveness, and an unstated only cannot cancel Luke 6's kindness to the evil.
"Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast." ()
"O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart." ()
"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him." ()
"But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;" ()
"To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them." ()
The read-back also added Psalms 33 and 52. Goodness filling the earth stands with love of righteousness and judgment; enduring goodness stands with permanent judgment of the wrongdoer. These reinforce the distinction already present within Psalms 145.
"He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD." ()
"Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually." ()
"God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah." ()
Mercy withheld in judgment
The read-back added Isaiah 27, Jeremiah 13 and Jeremiah 21 after checking the actual opposite wording of mercy and favour. The denial of mercy in the announced judgments must be stated. Universal goodness cannot mean that every act of judgment spares its object. Those denials also do not say that prior goodness or patience never reached their objects; Romans 2 positively supplies that distinction.
"When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour." ()
"And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them." ()
"For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire." ()
Jeremiah 21 also states a way of life by surrender in the very oracle announcing hostility against the city. That clause is retained without cancelling the city's judgment.
"He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey." ()
Joshua 11 was added from the no-favour search. Its hardening and destruction without favour are expressly attributed to the LORD, not dismissed as unrelated human conduct. Deuteronomy 7 had already been read; the read-back promoted its conquest instruction into direct support for this connection. The same chapter names God's particular love for Israel. These instructions retain their occasion and recipients; they are not a command for the questioner to attack anyone.
"For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses." ()
"And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:" ()
"But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." ()
James 2 was added from the no-mercy search. Both the warning and mercy's triumph remain; the second clause is not made to erase the first.
"For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment." ()
Zechariah 1 was added from the not-have-mercy search. Its declared return with mercies answers the plea after a period of indignation. A withholding of mercy is not thereby always a declaration that mercy can never return.
"Therefore thus saith the LORD; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the LORD of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem." ()
Isaiah 47 and Jeremiah 6 were added from the no-mercy search and set aside as independent descriptions of God's immediate disposition: Babylon and the invaders are the merciless actors in those sentences. Their settings still involve divine judgment. The answer must not misattribute the immediate subjects.
"I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke." ()
"They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion." ()
Hatred of corrupt worship and the denial of universal approval
The read-back added Amos 5-6. Hatred of corrupt feast days and palaces culminates in judgment on the city and its inhabitants. The call to seek God and the demand for justice remain. This guards against both reducing every hatred statement to abstract deeds and representing love as acceptance of injustice.
"For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:" ()
"I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies." ()
"But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." ()
"The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself, saith the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein." ()
The added Malachi 2 passage gives especially direct support: calling every evildoer good and pleasing to God is itself rebuked. It strengthens the rejection of universal approval without denying kindness to evil people.
"Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?" ()
The world, reconciliation and belief
John 3's love and saving purpose stand with its condemnation of unbelief; they must not be reduced either to approval or to an automatic achieved outcome.
"He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." ()
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." ()
The read-back added John 1. Creation, the world's failure to know him, believing reception, the Son declaring God, and the Lamb's work for the world's sin retain their own assertions. Jesus is not set against a supposedly different character in God, and world is not mechanically defined as already reconciled persons.
"He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." ()
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:" ()
"No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." ()
"The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." ()
The read-back added 2 Corinthians 5. God's reconciling work is actual, not a merely unacted intention. The same passage describes the person in Christ and makes an appeal for reconciliation. Work, proclamation, appeal and actual relationship are distinguishable in its words; it does not warrant erasing Matthew 25's two outcomes.
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." ()
"To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." ()
"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." ()
The declaration of God's saving will is retained at its stated breadth. A statement of will is not by itself a report that every person has been saved.
"Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." ()
"Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." ()
Personal care, correction and grief
The read-back added John 11 to check uses indexed under G25 and G5368 concerning the same family. The narration explicitly reports love, tears and Lazarus's raising. It defeats a rigid division of the words into supposedly real versus lesser love and the inference that distress or delay automatically means no love. It does not promise each person the same experience.
"Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." ()
"Jesus wept." ()
"And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go." ()
The read-back added Hebrews 12 and traced its quoted exhortation to Proverbs 3, read in its setting. Correction is compared to fatherly delight, and its purpose is holiness. This supports love including painful correction; it does not prove every final judgment remedial.
"For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth." ()
"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." ()
"For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness." ()
Lamentations 3 was added from the mercy indexes. Unfailing compassion, hope beyond casting off and grief, and the denial of willing affliction of human beings all remain. The context names the waiting and seeking soul, a living person under punishment, and a community called to return; it also confesses actual unpardoned and unpitied judgment. Its hope is not turned into a promise that each individual finally escapes the outcome in Matthew 25.
"It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not." ()
"The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him." ()
"For the Lord will not cast off for ever:" ()
"But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies." ()
"For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men." ()
"Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied." ()
Final outcomes
Matthew 25 describes a future separation and two actual outcomes, not merely an if without any asserted fulfilment. The read-back checked its two adjectives, indexed under the same G166. The added 2 Corinthians 4 passage contrasts momentary/temporal things with eternal glory and unseen things. The word number supplies no definition by itself; the sentences support taking the distinction seriously. No complete account of the manner of punishment is claimed.
"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." ()
"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;" ()
"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." ()
Human conduct must not be inferred without its setting
The read-back added Deuteronomy 23. The national/congregational instructions name differing objects, and the prohibition of abhorring an Edomite or Egyptian matters beside the text about Edom. God's judgment does not license indiscriminate human contempt. The prohibition of seeking the named peoples' peace remains in its own instructions, rather than becoming a statement that God has never shown anyone among them any goodness.
"Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever." ()
"Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land." ()
The original record also checked Jehoshaphat's alliance and the command against fellowship with dark works. Enemy love is not endorsement or assistance in rebellion.
"And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD." ()
"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." ()
Ruled out
Only morally good people receive any divine love or kindness. This would make Jesus' reason for loving enemies false.
"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil." ()
God hates only deeds and never people. The verse names the workers, and the parallel names the wicked person and lover of violence.
"The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity." ()
"The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth." ()
Divine hatred is merely preference with no actual rejection or righteous opposition. That removes the judgment in the quoted setting of Esau. A comparative description retaining actual rejection is not ruled out merely because it is comparative; the record does not measure affection.
"Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever." ()
Every evildoer is morally good in God's sight and an object of his delight because God loves everyone. That claim is expressly rebuked.
"Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?" ()
God's love means that everyone has life in the Son, or that all finally receive the same saving outcome.
"He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." ()
"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." ()
Universal tender mercies mean that mercy is never withheld in judgment. The mercy clause and the refusal of favour in Isaiah must stand.
"When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour." ()
"For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment." ()
Judgment or rejection of a people means that God can never again love or show mercy to anyone belonging to it. The restoration promises make that reading false; those promises are not reassigned to every individual.
"I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him." ()
"Therefore thus saith the LORD; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the LORD of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem." ()
Love means no correction, or any present sorrow proves absence of love.
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." ()
"Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." ()
"Jesus wept." ()
Particular divine love excludes every kindness to outsiders, or human opposition to evil licenses refusing enemies all good. The converse is not stated by the particular promises and would contradict these commands and explanations.
"He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment." ()
"But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you," ()
Verdicts
The answer must begin with God's disclosed goodness and love, before its verdict or qualifications. God's goodness and tender mercies reach all his works. Jesus expressly grounds love for enemies in the Father's kindness to the unthankful and evil. Provision for a stranger is explicitly called God's love. Scripture teaches this breadth of love, including evil people.
"The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." ()
"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil." ()
"He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment." ()
God's character is described as love, and the sending of the Son manifests that love. The us addressed in the letter is retained rather than silently changed into every person.
"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." ()
"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." ()
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." ()
God loved the world in giving his Son. That saving mission and the promise to whoever believes must both be said; the gift is not reduced to rain and food.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." ()
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." ()
Love shown before reconciliation does not mean that sin has become pleasing or that wrath is unreal. Love toward sinners and goodness toward an impenitent person are positively established. Romans 5 addresses those now justified; its us is not silently universalized. Romans 2 directly addresses a recipient of goodness remaining hard.
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." ()
"Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" ()
"But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;" ()
God's stated preference is that the wicked turn and live. That invitation and its reason remain alongside the passages' real warnings of death; compassion is not reduced to material provision.
"Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" ()
The question therefore receives an affirmative answer concerning God's disclosed compassionate goodness reaching everyone, including the evil. This is not an assertion of equal gifts, identical affection measurable in degrees, or uninterrupted favourable treatment in every respect at every time. The answer must also say that God really hates, rejects and judges wicked people and can withhold mercy in judgment. The breadth of goodness does not erase those statements.
"The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity." ()
"When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour." ()
Scripture teaches particular fellowship and life in Christ, with named recipients and conditions; everyone does not already possess the same relationship with God. The Father's manifestation and indwelling must not be promised indiscriminately. The saving love described in Romans 8 retains its recipients in Christ, named in the record's surrounding reading.
"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." ()
"He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." ()
"Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." ()
God's love is not approval of every evildoer, exemption from rebuke, or a guarantee of universal final salvation.
"Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?" ()
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." ()
"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." ()
An unqualified yes concealing hatred and judgment would mislead. An unqualified no denying kindness and compassion to evil people would also mislead. These are actual distinctions in the fetched passages, not different meanings assigned mechanically to different word numbers.
Open
No unresolved alternative changes the answer concerning universal goodness, real hatred and judgment, or the absence of identical saving fellowship for everyone.
The record did not decide whether any/all in 2 Peter 3:9 reaches beyond its expressly addressed readers. This is a stated limit of this reading, not a finding that Scripture leaves the scope undecidable. The addressed-group reading retains patience toward the beloved readers; the broader reading retains the saving mission toward the world. Both retain the chapter's actual judgment, and neither changes the answer established independently by Psalms 145:9 and Luke 6:35.
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." ()
"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." ()
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." ()
No measurement of equal affection, hidden verdict on an individual's standing, or explanation of an individual's suffering was established. The answer must not supply one. The searching was not exhaustive; unread hits and uninspected pages are identified in the record. This is not a claim of Scripture's silence. No question to the person is required for the conclusions reached.
Other readings that quote its verses
- Why would a loving God send anyone to hell?75 verses in common
- Does God choose beforehand who will be saved?70 verses in common
- Is hell real, and is it forever?46 verses in common
- Why does God allow suffering?37 verses in common
- Is a person saved by faith alone, or are works required?36 verses in common
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