Romans 1:
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power
of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and
also to the Greek.
17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from
faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in
unrighteousness;
This passage presents a stumbling block to both Arminians and UL Calvinists. What’s a UL Calvinist? It is one who claims the Calvinistic form of theology as reflected in the acronym TULIP while at the same time holds to a doctrine of the Universal Love of God for all men including Judas, Hitler & Attila the Hun! The Arminian makes a no-bones assertion that God absolutely loves everybody... no exceptions. The UL Calvinist also claims a universal love but with qualification. The difference between the two is that the Arminian says that God’s love is all the same for everybody. In other words He loves everybody just the same so that both elect & reprobate are the objects of His love. What separates them is not God’s love but rather how each person responds to that love. This is of course typical of human effort to do something pleasing to God & is not taught in the Bible. The ULC on the other hand says that God has two ‘kinds’ or ‘types’... or whatever other word you want to use to differentiate them... of ‘love’ for all men. They are usually defined as redemptive & non-redemptive. Redemptive love is shown to the elect only whereas non-redemptive is for everybody. I’ll not take time to go into this here; I simply point this out in order to bring the force of this passage into sharp focus & show that this notion is unbiblical. The truth is of course that there is only one ‘kind’ or ‘type’ of the love of God as taught in the Bible. In 1John we read that God is love... not loves. It also tells us how God expresses His love to poor creatures of dust by sending His Son to die for such.
1Jo 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins. see also Jn 3:16!
God expresses His love within the context of redemption... and nowhere else. This is clearly brought out in our passage in Romans which we shall now plunge right into. Paul says, among other things, that the gospel, which speaks of the redemptive purpose of God... the gospel, says Paul, is the revelation of the Righteousness of God. In so saying he is informing us all that Righteousness which is from God... and which a man desperately needs if he is to find acceptance with God... is found in the gospel and in the gospel... ALONE! Notice... “ For *therein* is the righteousness of God revealed”. The Greek enforces this idea by the use of two words... en; meaning ‘in’, and autos; meaning ‘it’. So we may read.. In IT... and in nowhere else... is this righteousness revealed. And apart from this righteousness revealed in the gospel men will go into eternal fire! But now, the process of revelation does not stop in this verse ladies & gentlemen. There is something else revealed by God in this passage and it is found in the next verse and it is the one thing men hate with a vengeance & that we hear very little preaching & teaching on in these days and it is the wrath of a Holy God which all men are under outside of the gospel of salvation! If then God expresses His love in the gospel & the gospel is the revelation of His Righteousness too then Love & Righteousness are inseparable!
Now.... go get a piece of paper & a pencil. Draw a circle big enough to write a four letter word in. Write the word ‘Love’ in that circle. Now... anyplace outside of the circle write the word... 'Wrath' This is exactly what the passages says. Within the circle of the gospel is revealed the Righteousness of God which is the expression of His love to His elect! That is... He loved them to such an extent that He went to all the trouble involved in establishing the one & only Righteousness that would deliver them from the eternal fires of Hell & land them in glory! And ‘outside’ of the circle of this gospel there is, according to verse 18, only one other item of revelation and it is not love folks! It is in fact the very opposite expression of love; it is... Wrath! Therein you now have the complete & proper expression on a piece of paper of the attitude of Almighty God towards every last one of His creatures and it is not Universal Love... Universal Love dear people is nothing but a fabrication spawned by the prince of Hell himself to the intent of deceiving men into the same Hell he will occupy for all eternity! People can only be in either one of two places... inside the circle, or outside of it. If they are inside the circle of the gospel then they are safe under the love of God but if they are outside of it there is nothing... nothing... Nothing but holy wrath! This passage is a devastation to any view of a so-called universal love of God for all men! It exposes such a notion as false doctrine & woe to anyone who teaches such. He who would fights against this passage of the Word of the living God.
John 3:36 He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.
Outside of the protective circle of the gospel of salvation that God
has provided for his people there is nothing but wrath! Not
Love....
Wrath! This is so because it is only within the confines of the gospel
that truth is found and apart from that gospel there is no reception of
or agreement with the truth. Rather, as we are told here,
men
hold down... or suppress the truth in their unrighteousness and the
result
is the invocation of nothing else but the wrath of Almighty God!
And if anyone who imagines himself to be a messenger of the gospel of
salvation...
should take it upon himself to have the presence of mind to stand up
before
a group of people who know not God nor His gospel... and should
carelessly
tell them that God loves them... I say they are teaching that which is
not in accord with the Word of God!
God, ladies & gentlemen, most certainly does not love everybody!