God’s Love is Not Unconditional as the World Preaches

The difference between the Love taught by the New Spirituality and the true Love of God is where many good people get very confused. The world’s spirituality teaches that “God’s” love is unconditional therefore preaching tolerance as the highest form of love.  In the Church “Our children are to be taught the doctrines of the kingdom, doctrines include the plan of salvation, faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, to trust in the Lord, and to know that they receive the blessings of His love by first obeying His commandments.” The unconditional love and tolerance of God is the lie that has been taught through the ages. The anti-Christ Nehor taught this very idea. Alma 1:4; see also Alma 1:3, 5–6; 2 Ne. 28:8–9. Such an unconditional concept (eternal life for all) would negate the need for ordinances, covenants, and temple work not to mention righteousness. What Nehor taught and what is being taught today woos many into believing these anti-Christ ideologies.

It is hard to recognize the preaching of Love as something evil that will lead one away from God, but it does. It leads a person to stop their progress toward greater obedience and emulation of Christ’s example and also creates a tolerance of sin which breaks down our commitment to righteous principles. If we are loved unconditionally and saved unconditionally then why try to become better? The truth is we are told to shed the natural man and follow Christ in all ways in order to receive God’s highest degree of Love, blessing and glory.

When we take a stand on God’s laws and are called Un-Christ-like we are being judged by an anti-Christ doctrine that says we are not to judge people’s actions as wrong, evil or sinful. It is interesting that they can judge us yet say no one should judge. This is why they feel superior to all persons that believe in a God that judges. They truly believe that the highest love is unconditional and completely tolerant of all that which we would call sin. We are looked at as hate-filled, judgmental and unloving and so is our God. This is why we are hated by them for they say we do not truly love. This is the polarization that is occurring in the world today. Good is called evil and evil good.

The following are some quotes from an excellent talk on the topic of the conditional love of God.

Click Here for link to whole talk.

Russell M. Nelson, “Divine Love,” Liahona, Feb 2003, 12

Divine Love Is Also Conditional

While divine love can be called perfect, infinite, enduring, and universal, it cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional. The word does not appear in the scriptures. On the other hand, many verses affirm that the higher levels of love the Father and the Son feel for each of us—and certain divine blessings stemming from that love—are conditional.

The Conditional Nature of Divine Love

With scriptural patterns of conditional statements in mind, we note many verses that declare the conditional nature of divine love for us. Examples include:

• “If ye keep my commandments, [then] ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” John 15:10

• “If you keep not my commandments, [then] the love of the Father shall not continue with you.” D&C 95:12

• “If a man love me, [then] he will keep my words: and my Father will love him.” John 14:23

• “I love them that love me; and those that seek me … shall find me.” Prov. 8:17

• “God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” Acts 10:34–35

• The Lord “loveth those who will have him to be their God.” 1 Ne. 17:40

• “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.” John 14:21

The Conditional Nature of Divine Blessings

It is equally evident that certain blessings come from a loving Lord only if required conditions are met. Examples include:

• “If thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, … then I will lengthen thy days.” 1 Kgs. 3:14; see also Deut. 19:9

• “If thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep all my commandments … ; then will I perform my word with thee.” 1 Kgs. 6:12

• “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” D&C 82:10

• “When we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” D&C 130:21

• “Unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions.” D&C 88:38; see also D&C 132:5

The Lord declares: “All who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof. …

“And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.

“… The conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed … of him who is anointed, … are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead.” D&C 132:5–7; see also Alma 9:12; Alma 42:13, 17.

Other laws are designed to bless us here in mortality. One such law is tithing: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, … and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord … , if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” [ Mal. 3:10 see also 3 Ne. 24:10 The Lord did not restrict how He would bless tithe payers. Some are blessed spiritually more than they are temporally.]  Such a blessing is conditional. Those who fail to tithe have no promise. [See D&C 119:4–5. Tithing is also required for one to be enrolled with the people of God (see D&C 85:3)]

Again, “all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised … that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.” [Mosiah 2:22; emphasis added. That conditional counsel is repeated many times throughout the scriptures. See 1 Ne. 2:20; 1 Ne. 4:14; 2 Ne. 1:9, 20; 2 Ne. 4:4; Jacob 2:17–19; Jarom 1:9; Omni 1:6; Mosiah 1:7; Mosiah 2:31; Alma 9:13; Alma 36:1, 30; Alma 37:13; Alma 38:1; Alma 48:15, 25; Alma 50:20; Hel. 3:20]

Why is divine love conditional? Because God loves us and wants us to be happy. “Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.” [Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (1976), 255–56]

Our Defense against False Ideologies

Understanding that divine love and blessings are not truly “unconditional” can defend us against common fallacies such as these: “Since God’s love is unconditional, He will love me regardless …”; or “Since ‘God is love,’ 1 Jn. 4:8, 16 He will love me unconditionally, regardless …”

These arguments are used by anti-Christs to woo people with deception. Nehor, for example, promoted himself by teaching falsehoods: He “testified unto the people that all mankind should be saved at the last day, … for the Lord had created all men, … and, in the end, all men should have eternal life.” Sadly, some of the people believed Nehor’s fallacious and unconditional concepts. [Alma 1:4; emphasis added; see also Alma 1:3, 5–6; 2 Ne. 28:8–9. Such an unconditional concept (eternal life for all) would negate the need for ordinances, covenants, and temple work.]

In contrast to Nehor’s teachings, divine love warns us that “wickedness never was happiness.” Alma 41:10. Jesus explains, “Come unto me and be ye saved; … except ye shall keep my commandments, … ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” 3 Ne. 12:20

Divine Love and the Sinner

Does this mean the Lord does not love the sinner? Of course not. Divine love is infinite and universal. The Savior loves both saints and sinners. The Apostle John affirmed, “We love him, because he first loved us.”1 Jn. 4:19. And Nephi, upon seeing in vision the Lord’s mortal ministry, declared: “The world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.” 1 Ne. 19:9 We know the expansiveness of the Redeemer’s love because He died that all who die might live again.    Rom. 5:8

2 Cor. 5:14–15

1 Cor. 15:22

Divine Love Provides Us with a Pattern

Jesus asked us to love one another as He has loved us.  John 13:34; John 15:12. Is that possible? Can our love for others really approach divine love? Yes it can! [ Ether 12:33–34;   Moro. 7:46–47] The pure love of Christ is granted to all who seek and qualify for it. Moro. 7:48 Such love includes service Gal. 5:13; Mosiah 2:18–21; Mosiah 4:15 and requires obedience.[John taught, “Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected” (1 Jn. 2:5)]

Compliance with divine law requires faith—the pivotal point of mortality’s testing and trials. At the same time, faith proves our love for God. Deut. 13:3; John 14:15; John 15:6–7 The more committed we become to patterning our lives after His, the purer and more divine our love becomes. Matt. 6:19–22; D&C 88:67–68; D&C 93:11–20.

Perhaps no love in mortality approaches the divine more than the love parents have for their children. As parents, we have the same obligation to teach obedience that our heavenly parents felt obliged to teach us. While we can teach the need for tolerance of others’ differences, [See A of F 1:11] we cannot tolerate their infractions of the laws of God. Our children are to be taught the doctrines of the kingdom, [Doctrines include the plan of salvation, faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost (see Moro. 8:10; D&C 68:25; Moses 6:57–62).] to trust in the Lord, and to know that they receive the blessings of His love by first obeying His commandments. Mosiah 4:6–7.

Divine love is perfect, infinite, enduring, and universal. The full flower of divine love and our greatest blessings from that love are conditional—predicated upon our obedience to eternal law. I pray that we may qualify for those blessings and rejoice forever.

What Does Conditional Mean?

The term conditional comes from Latin roots—con, meaning “with,” and dicere, meaning “to talk.” Thus, conditional means that “bounds or conditions have been communicated verbally.”

The term unconditional means “without condition or limitation; absolute.”