Solparvus
Puritan Board Senior
Ephesians 2 - 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, (ESV)
This leads me to believe there's a sense in which God loves His elect before conversion, but God also seems to hide any sense of love from the unconverted until they are converted. And no surprise, for until they believe they are his enemies. They certainly cannot know Him as Father because at that point they are not yet His adopted children. Ephesians 2:12 says, "remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." Verse 14 describes Christ as our peace and breaking down the wall of hostility, so that means before conversion, that a man may only know hostility and enmity with God, and a sense of God's love would run contrary to these descriptions of their condition (unless God might use the sense of His love to draw to conversion?). The Westminster Shorter Catechism states that by nature our estates are only sin and misery (misery includes complete cut-off of fellowship with God, of which love is a part), and assurance of God's love only benefits His elect when they become the recipients of justification, adoption, and sanctification.
So, does God have love for His elect before their conversion, even though a lost man has no right to know it? And in what sense if He does?
This leads me to believe there's a sense in which God loves His elect before conversion, but God also seems to hide any sense of love from the unconverted until they are converted. And no surprise, for until they believe they are his enemies. They certainly cannot know Him as Father because at that point they are not yet His adopted children. Ephesians 2:12 says, "remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." Verse 14 describes Christ as our peace and breaking down the wall of hostility, so that means before conversion, that a man may only know hostility and enmity with God, and a sense of God's love would run contrary to these descriptions of their condition (unless God might use the sense of His love to draw to conversion?). The Westminster Shorter Catechism states that by nature our estates are only sin and misery (misery includes complete cut-off of fellowship with God, of which love is a part), and assurance of God's love only benefits His elect when they become the recipients of justification, adoption, and sanctification.
So, does God have love for His elect before their conversion, even though a lost man has no right to know it? And in what sense if He does?