Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
Romans 12:9 NIVUK
I doubt anyone in this world would have any issues at all with Christians who love. We like people who love. And although some wrong headed people in universities are always stirring up a fuss about what defines a Christian and whether universities should fund and accept Christian Unions on campus when you can’t be a member without signing a confession of faith, most right thinking, reasonable people will have no issues with Christians forming a tight community.
But hating?
This where we get severely confused. Our picture of ‘Christian’ hate comes from American right wing whack jobs and halfwits who clothe their own cultural hatreds and biases in spiritual garb and parade them down the streets on placards. That is not what I’m talking about. That has nothing to do with Christianity at all. That is pure, unadulterated poison.
Neither am I talking about churches that actively limit freedom of speech and expression, threatening other groups with violence if they don’t leave their neighbourhood. I’ve been a victim of that on more than one occasion. That’s not Christian either.
No, we are to hate one thing and one thing only: evil.
Not evil people. Evil deeds. Evil tendencies. Evil character.
Yes, this is Biblical justification to do the one thing people outside Christian circles struggle to understand. We are to love the sinner, but hate the sin.
Allow me to explain how this works. I had an uncle who was a bit of a rascal. He was a lovely guy, always full of fun and the life and soul of the party. But he had a dark side. He had serious alcohol problems. Those alcohol problems dulled any shred of common sense. So he got into severe financial difficulty – more than once. He got sober and got a job driving buses. And then promptly got fired for smuggling drugs in the fuel tank of his car.
He was endlessly in trouble.
So what do you do with someone like that? He was my mother’s brother. Do you think she hated him for the constant phone calls from hospital or police cell at stupid times of night? No. He was her brother. She loved him.
But she hated to a fault the effects that alcohol were having on him.
Love the sinner. Hate the sin.
Any parent with an erring child will understand that.
You see, the Bible presents God as the creator (Genesis 1:1; John 1:1-3) and sustainer (Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:17) of the world. Let’s think about that for a second. Should an artist not care passionately about the work they have created? Don’t they have the right to hate anything that would destroy it?
That explains these verses from Proverbs:
There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
Proverbs 6:16-19 NIVUK
To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behaviour and perverse speech.
Proverbs 8:13 NIVUK
Or these from Isaiah:
‘For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them.
Isaiah 61:8 NIVUK
And we also see these calls to hate:
Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
Psalms 97:10 NIVUK
You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.
Psalms 45:7 NIVUK
Do you see this? Our lily-livered culture would love the idea of a God who is so full of love that He has no capacity to hate. Of course they would! Such a God would tolerate every sin imaginable.
But such a God does not exist. A God of love must also hate anything that seeks to harm the objects of His love. Otherwise, His love is impotent and useless. A God of love without any hate would be totally unjust, allowing evil to prosper without limit while He sat on a cloud, strumming a sonnet to be sung to us while we’re robbed and pillaged and persecuted without mercy.
We should be glad that our God is not like that. We should be glad that our God hates. We would be in a terrible, hopeless state if this were not true.
But we must also be well warned. His hatred is expressed in His wrath towards evil:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:18-20 NIVUK
And as Paul points out to the Roman Christians in a direct and uncompromising way, it’s impossible for us to stand in judgement on our hell-bound world if we do precisely the same things (Romans 2).
So what does this mean? Our pithy little saying ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ applies as much to us as it does unbelievers. We are supposed to hate the sin in us as much – if not more – as we hate it in others. Jesus Himself explains the utter ruthlessness we should have towards our own sinful tendencies:
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Matthew 5:27-30 NIVUK
So what can we say then?
It is the mission of every Christian to be a hater. Not in the sense of a spiky critic or an online troll. Christians have absolutely no place in either of those camps. If we participate in their errant, misguided nonsense then we do the Gospel a great disservice and cause the Name of Christ to be cursed. We must flee from that.
But we are all called to follow God and be an absolute hater of sin. Again, not in the sense of protesting against gay rights parades or bearing placards with unborn foetuses outside abortion clinics. These extreme actions are deeply unhelpful.
No, our hatred of sin begins in our own lives. It begins with rooting out thoughts and attitudes that are negative, destructive and just plain wrong.
I believe that, where we also have the opportunity, it also means becoming involved in advocacy against evil and destructive elements in our society, such as planning and zoning for bars, off licences, bookmakers, casinos and such like. It means to take a stand against the vile evils of people smuggling, modern slavery, paedophilia, pornography, poverty and exploitation.
For far too often Evangelical communities have hid themselves in extremes. They have pretended that God doesn’t hate, that He can't hate, that He can only love. They have permitted every kind of evil in their midst and done nothing about it.
That is clearly wrong.
But it’s also completely wrong to show our hatred for sin in compassionless campaigns against immorality in other people while harbouring secret sins ourselves.
God hates sin. That much is clear. And no wonder. Sin destroys what God had created.
But we have to admit that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). All. Including us.
So any moral crusade can’t begin on the picket lines or waving a placards. It has to begin in us. In our hearts. In our minds.
And only when the benefits of that crusade are clearly visible to others do we gain the right to talk to people with gentleness and respect about what it can do for them.
Questions
‘A God of love must also hate anything that seeks to harm the objects of His love’. Do you believe this – that a loving God must also hate?
What examples do you see in the Bible of God hating the sin but loving the sinner
How do you think we can correctly apply this as 21st century believers?
The woman caught in adultery. People wanted her stoned. Jesus had compassion. Didn’t condemn her but set her free. Zachheus is another example. Cheated people. Yet Jesus went to his house for a meal. Zachheus encounter with Jesus resulted in change and repaying those he had robbed.