...because He died for my sins?

[Through_Anyone]

I often hear Protestant Christians say “I love Jesus because He died for my sins.”

Does anybody else find that alarming? This isn’t the norm is it? I wonder if it’s more of an expression than a statement.

Shouldn’t we love Him unconditionally (He’s God after all and God is Love)?

 

[jesusluv]

That is a fairly normal saying. You have to take it in context. By saying “He died for my sins”, there is the implication that He loved me enough to die for me, therefore I love Him.

It’s a matter of how you look at it. Catholics look at Christs death and resurrection as an act to redeem the whole world and everyone that did in the past, present, and future live in it. While Protestants would agree with that, most take the relationship with Christ as more personal than communal. It’s a “I know he did this for me” thing.

 

[Steadfast]

Jesus tells us to “forgive as we are forgiven”.

Shouldn’t our forgiveness be unconditional?

Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a treatise on love that stands up very well today, in it he describes the progression of love from selfish to selfless.

Anyway, there is nothing wrong with loving because we are first loved or as a response to grace but it is to be ardently expected that such a love would grow into a love which loves solely due to the loveliness of the object.

But now we are speaking of heaven.

 

[brkn1]

I often hear Protestant Christians say “I love Jesus because He died for my sins.”

Does anybody else find that alarming? This isn’t the norm is it? I wonder if it’s more of an expression than a statement.

Shouldn’t we love Him unconditionally (He’s God after all and God is Love)?

That one redeeming act of dying to pay for our sins, which the Lord Jesus did for us, is a pretty good reason to love Him now and forever. He paid the price (penalty) that we deserved.

Revelation describes how we will forever be praising and loving Him for loving us first by His incarnation and His one Sacrifice for our sin.

There are many other reasons to love our Saviour and God, but that is the greatest reason.

We can’t truly love Him back, unless we have been given the gift of saving faith by the Holy Spirit. There is no such “unconditional” love that you mention, unless God is working that out through the indwelling Holy Spirit in us. You also mentioned that “God is love”, which is true. Since we are not God, that proves my point that it is only through God that we can love God. The love that I am referring to is not the natural human affection that many mistake for “love”.