Does God Hate?

In a recent Sunday School class, the question of whether or not God hates was raised.  Certainly, the hatred of God is not a core part of the usual curriculum in our churches, but does that mean that it does not exist?  The primary goal for our theology as Christians should be to be biblical, even when what we read in the Bible doesn’t fit nicely with our system of theology or our understanding of God.

So, does God hate?  The answer is yes if we believe what the Bible says in Romans 9:13, “As it is written, ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.’”  Now, some want to argue that in this context hate doesn’t really mean hate, but merely to “love less.”  The problem with that definition is that it does not fit the context.  Paul is quoting from Malachi who goes on to write of the results of God’s hatred toward Edom (Edom is Esau’s descendants just as Israel is Jacob’s descendants), “I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert…They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’ (Malachi 1:3, 4).”  Other evidence is found in the destruction of entire cities in the Old Testament and in Christ’s return in Revelation.

One could choose to believe that God is love only or to accept the biblical picture that God is love and hate and righteousness and judgment, etc…  Part of the difficulty for us in accepting that God hates is that we struggle to divorce hatred from revenge or vindictiveness.  The word hate literally means to passionately or intensely dislike.  God’s hatred is not one of cruelty or vengefulness, but is merely the natural result of God’s justice as it is visited on those who are his enemies.  His enemies are those who are not his children (Romans 5:10, James 4:4).  By this line of reasoning, those outside of God’s family stand condemned already (John 3:18, 3:36).  I believe this condemnation is consistent with a biblical understanding of God’s hatred.

What does this mean, then, for our children (as the question was so kindly raised in class)?  I believe that the answer for all those outside of Christ regardless of age remains the same (not withstanding those who have not yet reached an age of appropriate accountability).  Those outside of Christ are dead in their sins and transgressions (John 5:24, Ephesians 2:1, Colossians 2:13) and stand under the condemnation of God (John 3:19).  Perhaps one could then say that those outside of Christ are hated by God.  Nevertheless this “hatred” does not rule out God’s love and desire for sinners to come to him.  Jesus beckoned the children to come to him (Matthew 19:14) and the Bible says that we love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19).  In God’s nature, there is a demand for justice and a desire to show grace and mercy that coexist.  God’s hatred for sin was poured out on Christ (a person who absorbed his wrath) so that children of wrath (God’s enemies) could be brought into his family. After all, 2 Corinthians 5:21 does not say that Christ took on our sin and God punished our sins, rather it tells us that he became sin and God’s wrath was poured out upon him just as if he were us.  God’s wrath and hatred is directed at sinners who commit sins.  His grace and mercy is directed at some of these same sinners because he loves them and because he is glorified in the salvation of sinners.

What then does this mean?  It means that God hates where hate is appropriate and loves where love is appropriate and perhaps even does both at the same time.  God is God and we are not.  We wholeheartedly affirm God’s love, but even as we do, we must not quickly dismiss the aspects of God’s character and nature that do not fit well in our nice Americanized picture of what God looks like.  The amazing grace of God extends salvation to those whom he disdains because he chooses to love more than he hates.  Salvation is the breakthrough of God’s love!