The Love and Hatred of God (from The Blood of God)
What do we do with the love and hatred of God? Dive deeper with this excerpt from The Blood of God, by Malcolm Webber.
Malcolm Webber
In several Scriptures it is stated that God not only hates sin, but He also hates the sinner who commits the sin:
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (Romans 9:13)
…thou hatest all workers of iniquity.…the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. (Psalm 5:5-6)
The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth. (Psalm 11:5)
All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters. (Hosea 9:15)
…when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son… (Rom. 5:10)
How then do we reconcile this with God’s love for fallen mankind? After all, doesn’t the Bible teach that God loves the world? We often use the expression: “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.” So how could He hate sinful men?
Firstly, sin has no existence apart from the sinner who commits it. Sin is in the heart and nature of sinful man. He himself is sinful. That is his nature. He only sins because his nature is sinful. So to hate sin is to hate the nature that produces it; which, in turn, is to hate the sinner himself, because you cannot separate a man from his nature. His nature is who and what he is.
Then consider this: which is worse – the sin or the heart that motivated it? The sin is merely the compliant instrument of its author. If a man chose not to sin, then the sin would not exist! So then who is to blame? If God hates sin, then He certainly hates that which originated it – that is, the heart of sinful man!
Furthermore, what is it that God judges? Does He pour forth His wrath upon the action of sin per se, or upon the sinner who committed it? Obviously the sin itself is not punished – the sinner is punished! He is punished for his sin, but it is he himself who actually experiences the punishment. So who or what is the object of the wrath and hatred of God? The answer is plain.
But if all that sounds a little obscure, let us put it another way. You will understand this if you see the hatred of God toward sinful man as being not an emotion, which is what we think of when we speak of hatred, but rather as the reaction of the infinite holiness of God against what is diametrically and violently opposed to Him – that is, sin. God cannot – by His very nature – tolerate sin. In His holiness, He cannot have any attitude toward sin other than violent wrath.
Think for a moment of hell. It is a real place. It is a place of eternal suffering and agony. And it is not Satan who sends sinful men there – it is God!
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- God is very different from what He is often presented to be in contemporary theology.
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- God is infinitely holy, and in His holiness He has infinite wrath and hatred against sinners and their sin.
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- God is also infinite love, and in His love He has great mercy and pity toward His fallen creation.
Don’t think of God being as a man. We cannot love and hate at the same time. Yet there is no contradiction in the co-existence of the holiness (which expresses itself in hatred toward sin and everlasting wrath) and the love (which expresses itself in redemption) of God.
God is both holiness and love. There is much in God’s universe that cannot be understood by our finite minds; but as we seek Him for revelation of it all, He will give us wisdom!
About The Blood of God, by Malcolm Webber:
The importance of understanding the Atonement cannot be overstated. The cross of Jesus Christ is central to everything, to all of history. There has never been, and never will be for all eternity, an event of greater consequence than the death of Jesus on the cross. Neither will there ever be an event of greater glory. Yet few Christians know the power that is in the shed Blood of the Lord Jesus. This book reveals the truth of the precious blood of Jesus – the precious blood of God!
The Blood of God is available for purchase here. To purchase more of our books, visit https://www.strategicpress.org/.
