Proponents of the impossibility of apostasy claim that if a child of God can be lost in hell that it means that God does not love, His children as much as heathen parents love theirs. No one, not even an atheist, would cast his wicked child into hell, so if God will do so, He does not love His children as much as human parents.

Answer:

1. All men are God's offspring (Acts 17:29). He is the former and Father of all spirits (Zech. 12:1; Heb. 12:9). According to the above reasoning, if any one, even the vilest unbeliever, is lost it means that parents love their children more than God loves His! The argument rebounds. If it is worth anything at all, it proves universal salvation. (No believer in the impossibility of apostasy can talk five minutes on the subject without inadvertently making an argument that will prove universal salvation as well as it "proves" his position.)

2. God loves every soul (Jno. 3: 16). His love for all men sent His only begotten Son to suffer and sacrifice for sins (I Jno. 4:9, 10). Does the fact that some for whom Christ died shall be lost in hell prove that he never loved them? No, God loved the meanest, most wretched sinners who ever lived, but many of them, murderers and moral degenerates, have passed into eternal oblivion without faith or hope. Did God not love them? Did Christ not die for them? Assuredly, He did! The fact that one is lost does not alter the fact that "God so loved."'

3. No, I would not cast my sons into hell (I am not possessed with perfect mercy and perfect justice as is God), nor would I cast the son of an Adolph Hitler into hell. If what I would or would not do as a parent proves anything, it again proves universal salvation, for I would not cast anyone else's child into hell. But God will cast someone else's, the Devil's into hell. Does that mean he loves them less than I do?

4. God loves His children, however, some will be cast off, cast forth, and cast away (I Chron. 28:9; Matt. 25:14, 30; Jno. 15:6). They will be "cursed" if, in "an evil heart of unbelief," they depart from the Lord (Jer. 17:5; Heb. 3:12).

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XV: 50, p. 3
October 28, 1971