(As always, I highly recommend and encourage clicking on all
the Scripture verses I linked as you read along. Thanks and have a thoughtful reading!)
You may have heard of the heliocentric vs. geocentric models of the solar system. People used to assume that the earth was the center of the solar system until Nicolaus Copernicus proved that the sun is actually the center of the solar system.
Christians often make the same mistake in theology by starting with themselves at the center of theology instead of God. Since this is an assumption, a starting point, it is almost impossible to realize this mistake. Sort of like a drivers’ blind spot, it is a very common blind spot, but it affects our theology greatly.
Here is a classic example: Someone asks, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” This person has a ‘geocentric’ assumption. Really, the Son is at the center, so the right question should be, “Why do good things happen to bad people?” The person asking the question assumed that there are ‘good’ people (like perhaps himself) but “There is no one is good but One, that is, God.” (Luke 18:19.) So his perspective is incorrect. Instead, people have “together become corrupt,” (Psalm 14:3) and it is truly a wonder how God could be so kind as to do anything ‘good’ for anyone when what we deserve is His wrath in hell. “What is this?!” he asks. “Wrath? Hell? How harsh!” Again, an incorrect perspective, biblically. This person doesn’t have much of an idea of what God is like. To them, He is more like a powerful servant who caters to his idea of justice. How prone we are to think this way, though!
The other night I was simply trying to ponder the size of God. I used to think that humans were like ants in comparison to God. Haha. Until I thought, “Wait a minute. You can fit millions of earths inside the sun. The sun is puny compared to many of the other stars. Take thousands, millions, billions of stars - a number we have a hard time comprehending - and you have a galaxy. There are large clusters of galaxies that look like specks from farther out in the universe, and that is just one corner of the universe. There are billions of galaxies, big beautiful gas clouds, and so many other wonders out in space, and we have only discovered a small part of the universe. If God were as big as the universe, we could not wrap our minds around the size of Him. But the Bible says that He measures the heavens with a span (the size of one’s hand - about half a cubit in human terms) (Isaiah 40:12.) I am sure this is probably just an analogy to represent how truly incomprehensible His size is. He is likely infinitely large. How He is even able to see us, I don’t understand. Examining something so small would take so much work that I would never even think of it. It would never cross my mind. And yet His thoughts for us are more numerable than the sand, and He sees all of our actions. (Ps. 139.) When someone says God’s ways are far above our ways, they sure mean it. When they say His judgements are unsearchable, they sure are right. Now, picture God’s eternality. Then, add His holiness. This is nothing like anything we have ever seen or can imagine. His beauty and purity are so radiant that we cannot approach Him. Angels cover their faces and feet from His glory. Everything about who He is and what He does is perfect in the purest sense of the word. He is good. He is right. All he is and does is right. He is righteous. He loves righteousness. (Ps. 11:7.) Can He make a wrong judgement? Of course not. And everything He creates obeys His word instantly.
“He beckons storm clouds, and they come. He tells the wind to blow, and the rain to fall, and they obey immediately. He speaks to the mountains, ‘You go there,’ and He says to the seas, ‘You stop here,’ and they do it. Everything in all creation responds in obedience to the Creator… until we get to you and me. We have the audacity to look God in the face and say, ‘No.”’
~ David Platt ~
We obey ourselves rather than Him, put our agendas before His, use the gifts He gave us to steward to bring glory to Him for our own glory instead, are unthankful, mock Him, misuse His Name, disobey His direct and clear commandments, and ignore and forget about Him in the pride and “geo-centricity” of our hearts. (Ps. 10:4.)
What is God’s reaction to this?
The “geo-centric” man would say that if God was loving, He would accept us, love us, and bless us anyway. But our “heliocentric” God thinks differently. He is holy and “of purer eyes than to behold evil.” (Habakkuk 1:13.) The carnal mind is not neutral toward God - it is at enmity with Him. (Romans 8:7.) God is their enemy. They actually hate Him. (Psalm 68:1, Psalm 81:15, Luke 19:14) If God did not deal with (punish) the evildoers, He would be unloving. Just like with a criminal it would be unloving to the victim(s), the future victims, and the criminal’s own conscience to let a criminal go free without payment, it is unloving for God to let sinners go free without payment. It is unloving to the sinner because it leaves him with his guilty conscience, no justice. Mostly it is unloving to the sinner because it leaves him living apart from God who is love, with no possibility of fellowship. It is unloving to the victims because they do not receive justice, unloving to the people whom the criminal might harm in the future, and most importantly, it is contrary to God’s very nature to ignore justice because He is holy, perfectly just, perfectly righteous, and He is love. Holiness and sin are as different as light and darkness. And so are a holy God and a sinner. Hebrews 12:14 says that “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.” Is this unjust? Unfair? No - if God did not punish it, He would not be holy. It is perfect justice coming from a perfectly just and holy God. To give man the wages of their sin - death - is perfect.
Up to this point I have said that it is not possible, good, or loving for God to bypass/overlook/allow sin without punishment. According to His perfect nature, He must obliterate it, like light obliterates darkness. The most natural and right way to do this is to punish the sinners in the place of punishment He has created - hell. Our sin is so infinitely offensive and treasonous that it must be punished in this way.
But wait! The sinners? Why not just the sin? Why can’t God just put the sin in hell and let the sinners go free?
Because we do not say, “It wasn’t me, it was my sin.”
Instead, Jesus said: “If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” He did not say, “If you have sin in your life, take it to the curb and my Calvary Sin Service will take it away for you.” This verse implies that sin is connected to sinners. It is an integral part of who a carnal man is. It is central to his very nature. In fact, it is impossible to sin without our body, because even thinking is using our brain. James 1:14-15 says, “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
Apart from this, Psalm 2:12, Psalm 5:5, Psalm 5:6, Psalm 7:11, Psalm 11:5-6, Proverbs 6:16-19, and John 3:36, are some verses that directly say that God hates the wicked. So we know this fact to be true.
Not realizing that God hates sin, and consequently sinners, steals three beautiful and powerful truths from the good news of the gospel.
1) Firstly, it brings down the value of Christ’s sacrifice.
Isaiah 64:5 says, “You are indeed angry, for we have sinned—In these ways we continue; and we need to be saved.”
But what was He angry at? The sin? Oh, yes!! Most certainly! But He was also angry at the sinners. If not, Jesus would not have died… only our sin would have. The fact that Jesus Himself physically bore the Father’s wrath shows us that, since Jesus was taking our place, sinners would have had to physically bear His wrath in order for justice to be satisfied. Saving us cost Him everything. The idea that sin and sinners are separate undermines the extreme cost of His sacrifice. Jesus stepped into our tiny world of rebellious sinners and willingly bore the depths of the Father’s wrath for us on Himself. It doesn’t acknowledge all that He did for us to say that God only hates the sin, never the actual sinners. This comic explains it really well!
(Thanks adam4d.com)
It always seems like the hymns/songs that we sing that are bursting with gratitude and awe were written by people who understood this - Charles Wesley in And Can It Be? puts it well:
“Died He for me who caused His pain? For me, who Him to death pursued?”
Jordan Kauflin in the more modern one, All I Have Is Christ says it this way,
You suffered in my place, You bore the wrath reserved for me, now all I know is grace.”
Philip Bliss in Hallelujah! What a Savior!
“Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned He stood. Sealed my pardon with His blood - Hallelujah! What a Savior!”
It was not just our sin that nailed Him there. We had a part in it too, because sin does not exist without sinners. If we had not been condemned, Jesus would not have been condemned. But we were condemned, and Jesus mercifully bore every bit of our punishment. Only when we understand that God’s wrath was on us (because of our sin) can we realize the depths of His grace and love, and understand it in a very personal way.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me? ~ Matthew 27:46
As long as you and your sins are one, God will always be at war with you. ~ Charles Spurgeon ~
2) The second way that denying that God hates sinners diminishes the glory of the gospel is that it does not allow God’s love to shine in full color. When we read the phrase, “the wicked,” what comes to mind? For me, it was a group of unregenerate people - the type that would ‘lurk secretly for the innocent without cause,’ …until I was criticized and corrected by Scripture, specifically the ‘all’ passages. You know, “All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” “There is none who does good, no not one.” “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, every one, to his own way,” etc. The wicked? That was everyone. It was me. When Jesus came, He came to save wicked people who hated Him… that’s the only type of people there were to save. (John 15:18-25, Romans 8:7, Psalm 14:3, Romans 5:10.)
I have something more to say about that, but real quick I wanted to add something that I’ve observed recently. I used to think that everybody pretty much liked God. I mean, why not?!! Seriously! I have never really observed or noticed anyone showing evidence of hatred toward God. With this topic still in the back of my mind, though, I accompanied mama to the grocery store. We pulled up to the register, and a happy young lady who was doing her best to be a helpful and enjoyable employee began checking out our purchases. While she started checking us out, I went over and wrote a Scripture verse on the chalkboard next to the register. I wrote:
“In this is love - not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
1 John 4:10.
When I turned around, we were almost ready to head out. Mama was chatting to the lady when my sister leaned over and whispered in mama’s ear, “Can I have a lollipop?” While she was doing that, the lady looked over at my verse. Mama looked up and asked, “Oh, could she have a lollipop?” But the lady she asked it to had transformed. Instead of the cheerful and helpful checkout lady, she was now angry and obviously offended. Thankfully, instead of yelling at us, her voice dropped to one third of its previous strength, and she was not helpful anymore, but rude, not finishing her sentences, not making eye contact, and glaring at the bags on the counter. She didn’t say goodbye. Mama didn’t understand what caused the big change, so back in the car, she asked “What happened to the check-out lady?” My sister said, “She looked at the Scripture verse.” Then mama and I both began to wonder out loud, “But why would that make her angry? That is one of the most amazing and wonderful Scripture verses in the Bible!” I said, “It’s a verse about God’s love! It says, ‘He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins! How wonderful is that! The only reason I can see why that would not make her just full of joy and instead make her angry, is that she is at enmity with God - she doesn’t want to hear about God’s victory because He is her enemy. She knows that sins separate her from Him, and she doesn’t want that taken away… she loves Her sins more than she loves God. Her father cannot be God, or else she would rejoice at that verse!’” (John 8:44.)
The next day, we visited a friend of ours who just had arm surgery to kind of just help her out, move some stuff, fix some stuff, and encourage her while she is ‘out’ for a month and can’t use her arm. Now, this lady is old, born with several physical defects, is extremely poor, and lives by herself in a tiny apartment that she does not keep clean. Just walking inside is extremely depressing, let alone staying there for any length of time. Her theology is shocking and her lifestyle choices are worlds different than ours. God’s presence is not readily felt there. Nevertheless, we were happy to be there because we knew it was God’s will. She didn’t really welcome us, but warmed up to us and showered us with thanks when we were leaving. She is really generous and tries to be a good citizen and person in general. I prayed several times while I was there, “Lord, help us to love You through this lady, and share Your love with her.” As we were fixing things and moving things, we got into a genial conversation about stuff in general. We were laughing and remembering old times, and I started to think, “This lady is just a nice lady. There’s not much different about her except her physical conditions. If she took care of herself better and did things more God’s way, there would be nothing different about her than other nice ladies I know.” And then, to my horror, when mama asked how she liked her apartment and neighbors, stuff started spilling out of her mouth that I didn’t even know could come from a person’s mouth! She wanted to kill her neighbors! (And she knew how she wanted to do it!) Mama told her that wouldn’t be right, and she said she didn’t care. So mama reminded her about God’s judgment and shared the gospel with her - none of her good deeds will matter on Judgement Day… her only hope is found in Jesus. She immediately changed the subject and talked about anything and nothing for about 45 minutes straight. It was obvious she was trying to keep us from saying anything more about sin, judgment, or hope. Whereas before our conversation had been back and forth, now it was unilateral. She did not rejoice in or accept God’s sacrifice for her, but rejected it with disdain! Again, we left thinking, “How could this be?! We shared the hope with her, and it turned her off!” (Just so you know, we know her well enough to not be worried that she literally *will* kill her neighbors, or else we would have done something about it. We checked into it just to be sure, but it’s not an issue. It’s just hurt and anger at God coming out in her words.) God was being merciful to her through us to offer her hope, just as He has in the past in so many ways in her life, but she bristles up each time and trusts in her own filthy rags instead. She rejects God. We are praying that He will change her heart to embrace Him, but if not, she is currently at enmity with Him. And He with her. Jesus died to put to death the enmity (Ephesians 2:16) and how I wish she and all the world were at peace with Him! But, as I am finding out, she and most of the world are not. I could tell you about Steve, a guy I got to share the gospel with on the street once who called the wonderful news of God’s robes of righteousness that cost Him so much to be able to give, “ridiculous” and “silly” over and over again and verbally attacked the messenger of good news and hope who was trying to do her best and praying the entire time, to defend it clearly and efficiently with meekness and fear. (1 Peter 3:15.) And, by God's grace as I continue to shower seeds of the gospel everywhere I go, I am only sure that I will have more stories to tell you of people vehemently kicking against the goads… because to them He is not their protagonist, but rather the antagonist. Why? Because He is not for their way of living. But oh, hopefully also there will be more stories of people repenting and embracing Him!
Now, all of that said, I do believe that, having created us in His image, God does also have a simultaneous compassionate common grace and love for us, as a father does for his children.
People assume that God cannot have a love-hate relationship with us… but is that true?
Though He does love us as His children by creation, our natures have become something so different from His nature - something that is disgusting and abhorrent to Him. Even so, people think that they can abide in God’s love! Well that’s like darkness saying to light, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll just be over here next to you. You can just keep doing your thing.” As we know, light eradicates darkness. There is no possibility of darkness abiding with light.
Neither is there a possibility of sin dwelling with God.
Everyone hates God, so God being just, gives them what they deserve. If He didn’t, He wouldn’t be just, holy, good, or loving. Their rebellious and blasphemous deeds against Him have chained them to the kingdom of darkness. Transgressing sinners and a holy God are at enmity. He is their enemy, and they are His enemies. It cannot be denied, however, that He also shows His goodness to them in a common grace that He extends to those who believe in Him and those who don’t. I can think of three specific ones:
a) Forbearance. God could strike everyone dead at the very instant that they sin against Him. This would not be unjust! If He did that, I know for sure that I would be dead right now. Instead, He holds back, giving us time to repent and turn to Him - and praise the Lord for that!!!!!
b) Longsuffering. He waits for long periods of time for us, even as we sink deeper into irreverence and rebellion against him.
c) Goodness. (Matthew 5:45, Acts 14:17.) “He sends rain on the just and the unjust, filling their hearts with food and gladness.” God does not make this earth a literal hell, but a place where He gives us witnesses to Himself, (beauty, pleasure, and purpose) that we might feel after Him and find Him.
We are so prone to thinking that because we are sinners, we deserve to be saved. This doesn’t even make sense! Try that in court… “I’m your enemy, so you need to make some way for me to be saved from my punishment.” We think this way toward God though. No, we don’t deserve to be saved. We need to be saved, yes, but we are totally undeserving of salvation. This is why the gospel is so beautiful - it is not owed to us by any stretch of the imagination.
Someone once said, “I used to think it was just of God to save me.” Because they didn’t understand their standing before God, they thought it was nice of Jesus to die on the cross but didn’t really think He needed to go through all of that trouble. Justice for sinners is not for God to save them - although I will look in a minute at how God justified that, too. Justice for sinners is that they be punished! Justice must be upheld no matter what one thinks is fair, what they have been taught, what they call what they did, or how little the crime was.
By the way, this is probably the most impactful video I have ever watched:
It really changed my view of justice. Created Equal, an Ohio-based operation that is working on closing down abortion clinics all across America captured this video while they were out trying to engage college students in conversation. A girl came up and took one of their signs because she didn’t like the message. What happened next and the things the officer said changed my perspective on right and wrong. Before watching this video, my views of justice ran parallel with this girl's. Warning - the girl quietly says two dirty words, (not blasphemy) but I think that it is definitely worth the watch.
I used to think that it was just of God to save me, too. I thought He could/should, with a wave of His hand, just excuse my faults, and that His dying on the cross was just a symbol of His love. Now I understand that for Him to just wave His hand and erase my guilt would be a sort of impossibility for Him, for He cannot violate His nature. And not punishing sin is a violation of His nature - He is a just judge. (Psalm 7:11, Isaiah 30:18.)
One of my very favorite phrases of all is found in Isaiah 45:21b in which it says, “There is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior…” It is amazing that He can be both. How can God be just and still let people go to heaven? He absolutely cannot (It took me so long to realize that!) … unless He is the Savior. There must be punishment, and the punishment was naturally going on the sinners (John 3:18), for why would it go on the Innocent? However, to glorify His Father's Name and His own, Jesus came and stood under the fountain of the Father’s wrath and justified us in His sight. He was innocent, but He willingly took on the punishment of the guilty because of incredible, incredible divine love that He had for us… even when we were sinners and His wrath was rightly targeted on us. In this way, all glory belongs rightly to Him, and no glory rightly to us. If He had ignored the sin, He would have been unjust. His plan is amazing, because it does not ignore sin, it punishes it, and He is still just even though sinners go free. Why? Because He stepped in the place of the sinner. As David Platt says,
“The essence of sin is that man substitutes himself for God. But the essence of salvation is that God substitutes Himself for man.”
Note: It is important to remember that the sinners are not just ‘set free’ (justified) but are also set free sanctified, with their desires changed. Isn’t that beautiful?!?!! So undeserved though! This is why some Christians can never outgrow their joy and gratitude - because they understand the unilaterality of God’s gift. Albert Midlane in the hymn, The Perfect Righteousness of God says,
“God could not pass the sinner by; justice demands that he should die; but in the cross of Christ we see how God can save, yet righteous be. The judgment fell on Jesus’ head; twas in His blood sin’s debt was paid; stern Justice can demand no more, and Mercy can dispense her store. The sinner who believes is free, can say, ‘the Savior died for me’; can point to the atoning blood and say, ‘this made my peace with God.”’
The hymn God Be Merciful To Me by Christopher Charles says,
“My transgressions I confess; grief and guilt my soul oppress; I have sinned against Thy grace and provoked Thee to Thy face. I confess Thy judgment just. Speechless, I thy mercy trust.”
This is something most Christians do not seem to do. They skip right to His mercy, first. It sort of waters mercy down though, for what is mercy without the existence of justice? Undeserved love does not mean much until one understands deserved wrath.
My favorite word is ‘but,’ because it is the transition word that connects the bad and good news of the gospel. The bad news is that we have condemned ourselves (John 3:18) and there is no way for us to get out. But!!!!!!!!!!! There is good news! Jesus was punished on our behalf, so if we trust in His sacrifice - and nothing and nobody else (Acts 4:12) - for our salvation, we can be free from our self-condemnation! (Romans 8:1.) What is man that You are mindful of Him, and the son of man, that you visit him?! Even just considering His size, this is such a wonder, but then considering His holiness makes it even more amazing. Then, to think that He did not come just to take a visit and check up on us, but that He came to drink the wine of the wrath of God which was poured full strength into the cup of His indignation (wording taken from Revelation 14:10) so that we can be saved from it through Him, (Matthew 20:28.) puts us in such a debt that we are obliged to immediately hand over our lives in stunned gratitude. Even for those with whom He was at enmity with, in divine love, He laid aside His crown, honor, glory, comfort, to come rescue them, thereby putting to death the enmity (Romans 5:12) and now those who trust in Him for salvation will inherit the riches of His glory.
He offers, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (Isaiah 55:1.)
If He had said that to sinners without offering His life as the ransom, saying this would have been unjust and a violation of His nature. Free salvation? He can’t offer that to anyone and be a just God. Unless He paid for it Himself. Which is exactly what He did. Furthermore, in the transaction that occurs when one trusts in Christ for salvation, God covers them with His righteousness, so that they can come boldly before His presence. They no longer walk in darkness, they walk in light, and can come into the presence of the Light of the World boldly, because they shine with His own radiance.
They can come before Him without being burned up by the radiance of His purity because they are no longer filthiness. However, Jesus’ blood does not cover those who do not believe on Him, and on the Day of Judgement, they will be ashamed before Him at His coming. (Psalm 1:6, 1 John 2:28.) The wicked will be turned into hell (Psalm 9:8) and that is just, for they have condemned themselves and have not believed in the name of the Only begotten son of God. (John 3:18) Unbelief is a sin. (Hebrews 3:19.) He gave up everything for His enemies, and yet they continue to refuse Him, even after beholding His act of indescribable love! Then why do we think that God is obligated to love sinners who reject Him, especially after He gave us His Son? God is not obligated to love sinners. God is actually obligated to hate sinners, for their rebellion. Because God is holy, God does hate sinners.
Now, when I say that “God hates sinners,” there is a distinction that needs to be made. God’s hatred is not the type of hatred that we have (bitterness, revenge, hostility) but a perfect, pure, and holy hatred according to His nature. The best way I can think of it currently is by thinking on magnetic fields. You know how when you turn magnets a certain way they repel each other? It’s not a perfect analogy because south repels south and north repels north in that case and that is not the case with God and us! Our natures are the polar opposites. If north repelled south it would be perfect. It reminds me of Isaiah 59:2, “Your iniquities have separated you from your God…’ If we are separate from God, then we are separate from everything that He is… including His love.
God’s hatred of sinners does not make Him less good. It means He is perfect. And God hates every sinful person, which happens to be everyone. But He stepped in between us and His wrath for us and bore all of it. His love covers all the sins of those who will accept His gift. This love is incredible because it is not deserved… in fact, it is anti-deserved. It is 100% unilateral and divine. Nothing we did motivated Him to do this for us, only who He was. So why did He do it?
For His glory.
And because He is love.
And because He is good.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. ~ John 3:36
3) The third way that believing God does not hate sinners steals from the gospel is its part in resisting sin. God abhors sin, and He hates it when a person gives into sin and becomes a sinner. He showed that clearly when He died for sinners so that they could have His righteousness as a result of Him taking God’s wrath away. If He didn’t hate it, He wouldn’t have died. He would have found a less dramatic punishment… like a fine… a debt of good deeds that needed to be paid… or perhaps He would have winked at it. Yet God is at war against sin, and against those who sin. If those who have received His sacrifice do not realize how much He hates sin in His flock, they will not fight as vigorously against it. The person who realizes that God rescued them from their sin by enduring all of the Father’s wrath because He hated it so much, will not only be so much more grateful than the person who thinks God didn’t really have to go to all that trouble to save them - because they were pretty good already - but that person, in gratitude, will also turn around and fight their own sin, with His grace. They will not be able to endure keeping anything around in their life that nailed their Deliverer to the cross. Being a ‘sinner’ will be a hateful thought to them, and they will want to walk in complete holiness as a new man, as much as is possible.
In turn, they will also not be as quick to look down on others (i.e. ‘wicked people’) because they were a wicked person too when Jesus saved them. Additionally, they will be more quick to share the good news of the gospel with others because they know that His offer is complete, and for anyone… even His enemies. They see that the bad news of the gospel is really serious, and that everyone is in imminent danger, and will be eager to share the good news of the gospel.
I think that this misunderstanding of the gospel has fueled, at least in part, the misuse of the word, ‘love.’ When people hear, “God loves you,” they don’t think of Him as loving them despite who they are. Their “geocentric” mind thinks, “Oh, God loves me for who I am. He has a warm feeling for me, and wants to bless me with all the things that I want.” To them, Jesus is more like a cosmic boyfriend to snuggle up to than the good Judge of the Universe. Thus, they say, “I love you” to people even when their actions don’t match, because “I love you” doesn’t mean more to them than a warm fuzzy feeling. Just like the word courage means “action despite fear,” and success means “achievement despite obstacles,” and temperance is “calm despite chaos,” love is “sacrifice despite feelings.” Even though we were His enemies, He sacrificed Himself for us.
“Those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
bound in affliction and irons
- because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the most High -
therefore He brought down their heart with labor;
they fell down, and there was none to help.
They cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and He saved them out of their distresses.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and broke their chains in pieces.
Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness,
and for His wonderful works to the children of men!
For He has broken the gates of bronze
and cut the bars of iron in two.”
~ Psalm 107:1-16.
Let this fact that God loved us despite who we were give us reason to never cease to praise the Lord for His goodness. His works toward the children of men are wonderful.
The last and possibly most important reason why I believe God hates sinners is because that is directly and clearly what the Bible teaches. If all my other points were refuted, it cannot be repudiated that the Bible says that He hates sinners, and no Scripture verse contradicts this. Instead, the Bible is seamlessly harmonious on this topic. There are verses that say that God hates sin, and they are true. But just because in that verse it doesn’t say that He also hates sinners doesn’t mean that that fact is also not true. Saying that it does is the either-or fallacy. And the Bible does say that He hates sinners. So even if we can’t understand it, or have a hard time wrapping our mind around it, or can’t see Him that way, I believe it is our duty to believe what it says in faith.
God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day. ~ Psalm 7:11.
The wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates. ~ Psalm 11:5
The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity. ~ Psalm 5:5.
Why does He hate sin SO MUCH? The answer lies in this one glorious belief - that God is zealous for His glory. Sin is blatant treason against the King of Kings and He is right to defend His glorious honor.
CONCLUSION: In the book “Keeping Faith In An Age Of Reason,” in answer to the question, “Does God love everybody?” Dr. Jason Lisle says, “This is a sweeping generalization fallacy (the failure to recognize that some principles are stated as generalizations - things that are generally true, but have some exceptions, such as a lot of the Proverbs) and the failure-to-read-the-text-carefully fallacy. Contrary to what most people think, God does not love everyone. In fact, He hates all who work iniquity, which means He hates everyone (Psalm 5:5, Psalm 11:5, Proverbs 6:16-19, Hosea 9:15, Malachi 1:3, Romans 9:13.)”
THIS IS PRECISELY WHAT MAKES HIS SACRIFICE
so profound.
~ To The Utmost Glory Of God ~
P.S. I'll be over on the forum if you have any questions, comments, objections, concerns, thoughts, or Scriptures to share! See you over there!