“God is love, so he MUST hate”
By Elizabeth Prata
Link to Podcast-
https://anchor.fm/elizabeth-prata/episodes/Episode-361-God-is-love–so-he-MUST-hate-e1ut0pb
So many people have followed soft teaching women’s ministries for so long, with their constant focus on “God is love”, combined with an absence of teaching on sin, holiness, and wrath, that now we have slews of women who disbelieve God hates anything.
I had a Twitter interaction with a woman, who began her interaction with me by calling me a liar. I am very sad that civil discourse seems to have gone by the wayside, and people feel so free to resort to name calling to make their point, and worse, at the outset. She was commenting on my tweet thread on things God hates, which was accompanied by the verse from Proverbs 6. Ignoring the verse, she said that God doesn’t hate those He created.
I agree it would seem to be a contradiction, for God to make people and then hate them. But we must remember the beginning. It didn’t start out that way. He created Adam and then Eve. He created them in love, to have fellowship with them and for them to know Him and have fellowship. Then they sinned, bringing upon the world a curse, and upon themselves a sin nature which reverberates down to this generation and every human ever born (except for Jesus). God didn’t start out hating his created beings.
Remember also, He created the angels and He did not hate them either, until ‘Lucifer’ AKA satan the adversary sinned and brought a third of the angels with him in rebellion. Sin entered the world when he enticed Eve and she disobeyed. God hates sin. Always remember that.
And the phrase, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner”? It isn’t biblical. God does not cast only ‘sin’ into the Lake of Fire. He casts sinners into the Lake of Fire.
While I agree it isn’t profitable to focus only on His hate of sin, His wrath, and His punishment, it is also not good to focus only on His love, His care, and His tenderness in saving us. As my pastor says, there are two wings to the airplane. Love-hate, law-gospel, salvation-wrath, sin-repentance and so on. The plane is lopsided with only one wing, and it won’t fly right.
Our believing lives are two sides of one coin. While the redeemed are loved and no wrath is due us (because of our risen Jesus from the cross), even after salvation we should remember the position of the unredeemed. They dwell on an earth that’s cursed and they personally are dangling on an ephemeral spider’s web strand over the Lake of Fire to be dropped into it for all eternity if they fail to respond to the Gospel.
But that is where we are with so many women’s ministries. A decades-long hyper focus on love has given younger women the notion that no matter what, God is love only.
But God … is holy holy holy.
“Can God be good, and not move against wickedness? No. Can God be good and be apathetic towards evil? Absolutely not.” ~Paul Washer
God does hate.
God hates divorce. Malachi 2:16
God hated Esau. Malachi 1:3, Romans 9:13
God hates six things, no, seven…Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked thoughts, Feet that hasten to run to evil, A false witness who breathes out lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers. Proverbs 6
God hates the deeds of the Nicolaitans. Revelation 2:6
God hates false oaths. Zechariah 8:17
God hates all workers of iniquity. Psalm 5:5, Psalm 11:5
And it isn’t even a comprehensive list of what God hates. Do you notice the last one? It isn’t just the sin God hates, but people who sin.
The title of this blog essay is a quote from Paul Washer. Below is an excerpt of a sermon he delivered years ago, called “The Hatred of God”. To paraphrase something he said in the excerpt of this sermon, ‘if you love babies…you must hate abortion. If you love African Americans…you must hate slavery. If you love the Jewish people…you must hate the Holocaust’. What he was describing there is the two sides of the same coin. One cannot have a holy hate unless you have love. You cannot have a Christian love unless you also hate. We MUST hate what God hates. Washer said:
You know that wonderful statement that goes something like this “God loves the sinner and hates the sin.” Just look at this text. [Psalm 5:5]. Is that what it teaches? It’s not what it teaches. I’m sorry, I know it’s a pretty thing to say and it looks good on the back of a contemporary Christian t-shirt, but it’s not what the scriptures teach.
[Ps 5:5] does not say here that God’s hatred is manifested towards the wicked deed. It says God’s hatred is manifested towards the one who commits it. ~Paul Washer
Don’t be fooled by ministries that omit half the Gospel. God does hate. How could He not? He’s perfectly holy. Therefore sin offends Him. Sinners offend Him!
BUT GOD: We are amazed and grateful that even though He is thoroughly offended by sin AND sinners, hates it, He sent Jesus to die for us!
Now- my disclaimer. This is not to say that we go around hating unbelievers who sin. They can’t help it. And, we redeemed are not perfected yet so we falter when we attempt to have a righteous indignation or a holy hate. Our motivations are born out of love for God so we try our best, but our sin nature can still corrupt the end result.
God is love. God does hate. Never forget that He is perfect, so His hate is perfect, always just the right amount and in the right degree and toward the right things. Dear ladies, please try to have a right view of God, a comprehensive view containing all of His attributes. Look at Him as He is revealed, through scripture, not through ourselves and our own notions of what love and hate is.
,Ladies please take a listen to this 19 minute clip. Washer at his best.
