Within this webpage there will be consideration of the misworded term: "unconditional love" - what it is, what it is not, when it applies, and when it does not apply. Also involved will be elaboration on the responses of recipients to that love......whether they are always and completely submissive and obedient to it, or not, and the Person love originates from. Finally, expounded upon will be the subject of God's love or hate for or against His Bride and to humanity in general, the causes of such, and the subject of who as Divinity or humanity can and cannot be polygamous regarding or concerning individual members of His Bride (the ecclesia, or church) and persons of humanity.
Whenever the English qualifier "un" instead of "non" is applied to an English verb, different ideas are, by default, expressed - though not readily perceived by the dull of mind who are sloppy in their understanding and use of precise English lettering comprising exact English words.
To wit, when something is "un"-done, as for example when something or someone is "un"zipped, "un"clothed, etc. the action "un" is related to a condition or happening that already was (at least at one time) but no longer is, for whatever cause.
Consider a ball of yarn nicely compacted into a tightly-wound ball, but if the strands of yarn are loosened, the ball of yarn is now UN-done. Similarly with something once zipped to start with, but no longer zipped, or someone once clothed, but no longer clothed - at least temporarily.
Applying that to God's love, was there ever a time when God the Creator did not at least initially love His created human creatures without accompanying conditions and obligations on their part, in view of That One Primal Prohibition about not eating The Forbidden Fruit? Comes there a time when He does or will no longer love them because they violated or violate or will violate certain conditions and obligations he requires? At least to start with, the Benevolent Creator's love never was "un"-conditional but instead was and perhaps still is NON-conditional - except that one Divine Directive about not eating The Forbidden Fruit.
Please do not flippantly take so-called "slight" differences in English wording lightly, nor revile such very narrow word targeting as "trite" or being allegedly "nitpicky!" Illumination and preservation of the important doctrinal understanding behind it is crucial, though not "critical" (another potentially-sloppy misuse of precisely-applied English semantics?).
Another illustration. Are you going to me, or instead coming to me? As with everything, there is only one best way to presently say it, according to our current dictionary definitions of the English language. If I tell you that I am traveling to you, the proper word is: going to you....but if I tell you that you are traveling to me, the proper word is: coming to me.
The Bible states that God is love:
1John 4:8 He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.
1John 4:16 So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
The Bible states that God is hate:
Psalm 26:5 I hate the company of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked.
Psalm 97:10 The LORD loves those who hate evil; he preserves the lives of his saints; he delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
Psalm 101:3 I will not set before my eyes anything that is base. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cleave to me.
Psalm 119:104 Through thy precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
Psalm 119:113 I hate double-minded men, but I love thy law.
Psalm 119:128 Therefore I direct my steps by all thy precepts; I hate every false way.
Psalm 119:163 I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love thy law.
Psalm 139:21 Do I not hate them that hate thee, O LORD? And do I not loathe them that rise up against thee?
Psalm 139:22 I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
Proverbs 8:13 The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.
Ecclesiastes 3:8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 9:1 But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hate man does not know. Everything before them is vanity,
Isaiah 61:8 For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Jeremiah 12:8 My heritage has become to me like a lion in the forest, she has lifted up her voice against me; therefore I hate her.
Hosea 9:15 Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels.
Amos 5:15 Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
Amos 5:21 "I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Amos 6:8 The Lord GOD has sworn by himself (says the LORD, the God of hosts): "I abhor the pride of Jacob, and hate his strongholds; and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it."
Zechariah 8:17 do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, says the LORD."
Malachi 2:16 "For I hate divorce, says the LORD the God of Israel, and covering one's garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless."
Matthew 5:43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
Luke 14:26 "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Revelation 2:6 Yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
From the above-stated references, the reader can readily detect that this webauthor is leaning a little heavier on the side of righteous hate and not love, because of the evil one-sidedness of warped and twisted diabolical devils imposing imbalanced but presently-popular buzzwords and buzzphrases involving contemporary legal statutes and customs, sometimes perversely mouthed by demonic media and their mindlessly-demented monkey-see-monkey-do morlocks (excuse me, you fellow young-Earth creationists).
So there are "hate crimes" but also equally-wicked "love crimes" - the latter of which are committed and not performed whenever the impenitent wicked are forgiven, paroled, pardoned, and set free to commit and not perform more destruction and genocide.
Does the LORD discriminate as to who He loves, and who He hates? You already read it previously in the Scripture verses quoted. So He is not injustly non-discriminatory and non-conditionally inclusive, even though:
Matthew 5:45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
On the other hand:
Second Samuel 5:8 And David said on that day, "Whoever would smite the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, who are hated by David's soul." Therefore it is said, "The blind and the lame shall not come into the house."
Second Samuel 22:41 Thou didst make my enemies turn their backs to me, those who hated me, and I destroyed them.
Esther 9:5 So the Jews smote all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering, and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them.
Esther 9:16 Now the other Jews who were in the king's provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and got relief from their enemies, and slew seventy-five thousand of those who hated them; but they laid no hands on the plunder.
Malachi 1:3 but I have hated Esau; I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert."
John 15:18 "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
John 15:24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.
John 15:25 It is to fulfil the word that is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause.'
John 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them (including Jerry Falwell and George W. Bush and Christian-fundamentalist religious right) because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Romans 9:13 As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
Titus 3:3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one another;
Hebrews 1:9 Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness beyond thy comrades."
The Creator's created phenomena displays His awesome and consistent benevolence (thus initial love) for His human creatures, with just the right amount and dependable consistency of gravity, composition of atmosphere, convenient air pressure, intensity and duration of sunlight, distance from the Sun and composition of it, size of the Earth, protective magnetosphere diverting away harmful ionic solar radiation, nucleonic cohesion preventing things from falling apart, reliability of electricity, stability of chemicals, perfectly-orbiting stars and planets avoiding eventual cataclysmic collisions, compatible oceans and moderate weather temperatures, tides, evaporation into clouds and condensation from clouds, photosynthesis, floating instead of sinking ice on lakes, stability of rock mantle crust under molten-core lava, controllable animals, antibodies, multi-purpose body parts, resurrection-like recuperation of wounds and recovery against sicknesses, etc.
That Divine love has been given to humanity in general, and also to individual humans who respond - whether with their own non-conditional love or instead non-conditional hate, which in their case can legitimately be described as non-conditional subjection and compliance, or instead non-conditional defiance and non-cooperative disobedience.
When one man and one woman get married, they pledge their sexual loyalty to each other, being that:
Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
The newly-married couple do not say: "I will generally love you, but once in a while I will have an adulterous affair with a few others here and there."
An understanding wife or concubine can live with a husband having multiple wives or concubines of his own and only his own, but she will not and should not allow him erotically consorting with women not presently married to him. And we are not merely talking about well-publicized Tiger Woods and John Edwards, both fascinating to Joy Behar.
All throughout Scripture, many references prove that idolatrous adultery will not temporally nor eternally be tolerated by the once-loving God.
The Bride of Christ consists not only of a single corporate submissive association of penitent believers, but a vast number of concubines-equivalent persons comprising that aggregate Body of Christ.
That is why there is practically no condemnation from God portrayed in the entire Bible against the patriarchs who had multiple wives simultaneously as sexual spouses (e.g. Lamech, Abraham, Jacob, Elkanah, David, etc.) and children by those wives.
Genesis 22:24 Moreover, his concubine, whose name was Reumah, bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
Genesis 35:22 While Israel dwelt in that land Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine; and Israel heard of it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve.
Genesis 36:12 (Timna was a concubine of Eliphaz, Esau's son; she bore Amalek to Eliphaz.) These are the sons of Adah, Esau's wife.
First Chronicles 1:32 The sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine: she bore Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. The sons of Jokshan: Sheba and Dedan.
First Chronicles 2:46 Ephah also, Caleb's concubine, bore Haran, Moza, and Gazez; and Haran was the father of Gazez.
First Chronicles 7:14 The sons of Manasseh: Asriel, whom his Aramean concubine bore; she bore Machir the father of Gilead.
Even in the New Testament, harems were disallowed only for certain people:
First Timothy 3:2 Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher,
First Timothy 3:12 Let deacons be the husband of one wife, and let them manage their children and their households well;
But for women, representing the Bride of Christ, multi-husband polygamy is illegal and sinful bigamy:
Exodus 34:14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),
Joshua 24:19 But Joshua said to the people, "You cannot serve the LORD; for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.
Ezekiel 16:32 Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!
Matthew 19:9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for [her] unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery."
Romans 7:3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she belongs to another man while her husband is alive......
Second Corinthians 11:2 I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband.
Now, for the love-not-hate flip side:
First Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
Oh oh. Remember that God is a jealous God? So Love is not? jealous, according to First Corinthians 13:4 - another one of those "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies" and "do not resist one who is evil" verses?
Revelation 22:11 Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy."
So God is instead or also Hate?
Nahum 1:2 The LORD is a jealous God and avenging, the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.
Zephaniah 1:18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the LORD. In the fire of his jealous wrath, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full, yea, sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.
Zephaniah 3:8 "Therefore wait for me," says the LORD, "for the day when I arise as a witness. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all the heat of my anger; for in the fire of my jealous wrath all the earth shall be consumed.
Matthew 13:41 The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers,
Matthew 13:42 and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.
Matthew 18:8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.
Matthew 25:41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;
Matthew 46 And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
Luke 16:24 And he called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame.'
Second Thessalonians 1:9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
Jude 1:7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in non-natural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Revelation 14:10 he also shall drink the wine of God's wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and he shall be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
Revelation 14:11 And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name."
Revelation 19:20 And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur.
Revelation 20:10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Revelation 15 and if any one's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Is it not clear that God is the epitomy and dictionary definition of "hate" according to the references above? If those verses do not adequately and thoroughly describe "hate," we do not know what "hate" really is, and the word is then quite meaningless.