Does God’s love have limits?

from the old testament

• When God led men to write Scripture, He condescended (lowered Himself) to use language we can understand. Throughout it, we learn various truths about God, such as that God is just (Deuteronomy 32:4), holy (Isaiah 6:3), loving (Psalm 103:8), merciful (Psalm 86:15), and so forth. We refer to those different descriptions as God’s attributes.
• We must be careful, however, because God is describing Himself in a way to which we, as finite creatures, can relate and understand. However, God is infinite (Psalm 147:5; Psalm 103:11). This means that everything He is is also infinite. Scripture also teaches that God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4), which, in part, means He is not made up of multiple parts. Theologians refer to this oneness of God as Divine Simplicity. He is “simple” in the fact that He is not an aggregate of attributes, but is entirely love, entirely just, entirely merciful, and so forth. Because the attributes are not parts but partial descriptions of the one God, theologians also sometimes refer to them as perfections to emphasize that they are infinite and perfect.
• So, God’s perfections are all in operation at the same time and not in contradiction or competition with each other. Thus, when Scripture talks about God’s love and justice, they are never limiting each other. God’s love never means that He ignores sin (Nahum 1:3), and His justice never overrides His love (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11).
• When describing Himself to Moses, God said, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:6–7). God being both merciful and forgiving, yet also just, exemplifies the reality that the two do not negate each other.
• Elsewhere, Moses reiterated God’s relationship to Israel, saying, “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today” (Deuteronomy 7:9–11). Moses affirmed God’s love while also reminding them that there were just consequences for sinning. God’s love does not mean He overlooks sin.

from the new testament

• When John said, “God is love” (1 John 4:8), He was not teaching that God’s love overrides His justice or is limited by it. Rather, He said that God’s love was demonstrated by sending “His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10; cf. Romans 3:25).
• In His Gospel, John recorded Jesus as saying, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16–17). In both 1 John and the Gospel of John, we learn that God’s love is not the absence of justice but is intertwined with it. John later recorded John the Baptist saying, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36).
• It is because of this that Paul could say of Jesus’ death, “[it] was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at present, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:25b–26). God delayed His justice for love, not subverted it. And He displayed His love through His just punishment of Jesus in place of sinners.
• God’s just wrath does not mean His love is limited. Because He is both love and just, His justice must be satisfied. That is either through receiving the offer of salvation through repentance and faith in Jesus (Romans 10:9–10), or by personally receiving God’s wrath one day.
• Because God is love, He has not yet judged the world. Rather, He has delayed it to give people time to repent (2 Peter 3:9). God’s love will continue for eternity but so will His just wrath. What one experiences in the life to come depends on how they respond to God’s love now.

implications for today

In our society, love is defined as an emotional attachment to someone or something. Thus, to be loving means accepting others for who they are and what they do. When we ask whether God’s love has limits, we often think that if God doesn’t accept or tolerate everyone’s proclivities, then His love must be limited.

However, biblical love is not defined as tolerating someone but as valuing them and desiring their well-being, even when they are intolerable. This is why Jesus died for us even while we were still sinners. God’s love is not tolerance for evil; it’s shown in sacrificially offering His perfect Son, whom He eternally loved, for those who hate Him. It’s shown in God taking no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11), giving them every opportunity to repent and believe in Jesus (2 Peter 3:9). It’s demonstrated in His patient long-suffering, allowing humanity to redefine love around its lust without immediately destroying it.

While God’s love is not limited in the sense that He will save anyone who repents and believes, He has placed limits on how long He will offer that love. He has fixed a day when each person will die (Hebrews 9:27). At that moment, His display of love ends, and eternal judgment of the unrepentant begins. Consider your eternity. God’s love is infinite, but so is His justice. Don’t mistake His loving-kindness as tolerating your sin. Rather, repent and run to Jesus while God gives you time!