God does not accept me just as I am; He loves me despite how I am; He loves me just as Jesus is; He loves me enough to devote my life to renewing me in the image of Jesus. This love is much, much, much better than unconditional! Perhaps we could call it “contraconditional” love. Contrary to the conditions for knowing God’s blessing, He has blessed me because His Son fulfilled the conditions.

David Powlison’s essay, “God’s Love: Better Than Unconditional,” suggests that people who use the term often have good intentions, wanting to affirm four interrelated truths:

• “Conditional love” is bad—unconditional is shorthand for the opposite of manipulation, demand, judgmentalism.
• God’s love is patient—unconditional is shorthand for hanging on for the long haul, rather than bailing out when the going gets rough.
• True love is God’s gift—unconditional is shorthand for unearned blessings, rather than legalism.
• God receives you just as you are: sinful, suffering, confused—unconditional is shorthand for God’s invitation to rough, dirty, broken people.

These are true—and precious. But Powlison offers several responses. (I will only summarize and paraphrase here—the essay itself contains the arguments in full.)

First, Powlison argues that “there are more biblical and vivid ways to capture each of the four truths just stated.” “People currently employ a somewhat vague, abstract word—unconditional—when the Bible gives us more vivid and specific words, metaphors, and stories.”

Second, it’s not true that unmerited grace is strictly unconditional. Jesus Christ opened a way for us to experience the biblical love of God by fulfilling two conditions: a life of perfect obedience to the moral will of God, and a perfect substitutionary death on our behalf. Powlison writes: “Unconditional love? No, something much better. People who now use the word unconditional often communicate an acceptance neutered of this detailed, Christ-specific truth.”

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