Greetings, Terry. I apologize for the delay in
getting back to you. My AC adapter died on my Laptop and so I did not
have a computer for a few days.
Yes, I have come across this verse on occasion.
Psalm 5.4-6 is a another passage with equally strong language. I must tell you
that these passages are unsettling to me: I do not like to think that our God
hates anyone. Nevertheless I must be willing to take them under consideration
and seek God's heart in trying to understand them.
I think first I would like to tell you what I do
not think this is saying about God. God does not will to hate certain people,
while at the same time will to love others, and this in an
indiscriminate way that can only be described from our perspective in
terms that appear arbitrary at best, as if he created ABCs to love and
XYZs to hate. If you happen to be from the first group, great, God loves you and
will call you to himself; if you are from the latter group, too bad, God hates
you and you're toast, and this because he has created you for a different
end. This sort of theology forces a dichotomy within the Godhead, dueling wills,
if you will -- a split personality. A condition like this should not be
considered anything other than the deep psychosis it is. Why
would a sane God command us to love our enemies when he himself
does not? and more to the point, from where would the goodness and persuasion
come to love our enemies if not from him whose wondrous love compels us to love
even those who hate us?
Is it possible to love and hate the same object at
the same time? If we define hate as the antithesis of love, I think it would
be impossible to do this, because that kind of hate would exclude love.
Some hate is anti-love, that is sure, but I think there must also be hate that
is something other than this. Jesus tells us we must "hate" our father and
mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even our own life, or we cannot
be his disciples (Luk 14.26). Yet certainly we are to love them too. What kind
of hate is this? and how can we love our neighbor as ourselves and at
the same time be disciples of Christ if this hate is anti-love? We can go into
what I think this "hate" is in another post if you wish, but for the purpose of
this discussion, it is obvious that hate does not have to exclude love. It
must be possible to love one's father and mother, etc. and hate them at the
same time.
When we read passages that say God hates
certain people -- whether evil, or violent and wicked -- does this
mean that he does not love them? Is his hate for them anti-love, or is it some
other kind of hate that he holds for those people, maybe something similar
to the hate we are to have for ourselves, and mom and dad? This is a fair
question and we should try to answer it. We need to be honest, though, when
we do, and recognize that our answer will be shaped by our present view of God.
The way we "see" God determines the way we think about him. This is true
for me; it is true for you too.
Let me tell you what I do think. Love is the heart
of God. It speaks to that eternal relationship between the Father and the
Son in the Holy Spirit. When we talk about the "essence" of God, love is in
the center of it. "God is love." Everything else, whether it be his
holiness or justice or whatever, everything else that is essence must be
understood only as it relates to his love, as disclosed by the incarnate Word
himself.
There are other things that God does that are not
things which describe him in his essence. Forgiveness, for example, is something
that springs from his essence, but is not itself of his essence. I say this
because there was nothing to forgive when all there was was God -- Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. Wrath is not of the essence of God; there was nothing to be
wrathful about until there was sin.
Just as those things that are of the essence
of God must be defined in relationship to love, so also must those that are not.
God is patient, and kind, and merciful, and gracious, and forgiving, because he
is love. These things flow forth from his love. The same must be said about
wrath. Wrath is God's love in action against anything that sets itself to
destroy his creation or diminish his worth.
Hate is not of the essence of God. When all there
was was that triune relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there
was no hate (no matter how it is defined) in God. Yet we must say that within
the makeup of God (his essence) there is potential to hate, just like there is
potential to forgive. We find in Scripture in the verse you mentioned and
elsewhere that God does hate, and he hates not only sin but in some cases
(at least) the sinner too.
God is love; he wills to hate.
This gets back to my initial complaint. We dare not stand the love of God
side-by-side over against his hate, as if he could go one way as
willfully as the other. Whatever it means to say that God hates, we must
understand it as something that springs forth out of love. I think people can become so wicked and corrupt that all there
is, as far as their works, is evil. They have so sold themselves out to sin
that they have become totally depraved (cf. Rom 1. 28-32). These are those whom
God hates. That said, I do not believe that he ever stops loving them.
He is not indifferent. It is because he loves them that he hates them.
This we must return to over and over again:
whatever the sin that ensnares these people, Christ carried it with him to the
cross. For their sins he died. And when he died, they died. And when he rose
again, they too rose with him. They are included in him, just like you are and I
am; this because God so loves them.
"And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus," (Eph 2.1-6).
I will not stop thinking about your question, Terry. The truth is, it has haunted me for a long time. But I am not comfortable going any further right now. I hope I have given you enough to begin to apprehend where I am coming from.
Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terry Clifton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 7:20 AM
Subject: [TruthTalk] God Hates
> Was reading a little of Psalms this morning and came across this verse.
> Psalm 11:5 (NKJV) The LORD tests the righteous, but the wicked and the
> one who loves violence, his soul hates.
>
> Would either of you care to comment on this verse?
> Terry
>
>
> ----------
> "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
>
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