The cliché, God hates the sin but love the sinner, is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty Psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, His wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Romans 1:18ff) and on the sinner (John 3:36). ~ D.A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
HT:Philip
I completely agree. I'm not sure why people are so quick to embrace this thought. While I completely agree that we too often fail to the other extreme (David Haywards point), we err if we do not grasp that we cannot separate sin from the person and God's response toward both.
3 comments:
I'd suggest that there's a huge gulf between "wrath" and "hate".
Geoff - say more, I'm interested in the difference. I can imagine a difference but not a "huge gulf" so I'm curious how you would define these.
With those definitions, please address the Scriptures that say God hates person X.
I ask because I can imagine a good set of definitions that I might buy into but I cannot imagine getting to the point as many today (some bloggers that you and I have both read) that define everything as "love". I cannot square their thinking with anything but universalism.
Perhaps I've over-reacted to that so help me find the right place here.
Rick, I'm not going to be able to reel off a scripture that says "God hates person X", but I'm very happy to have a go at a specific example or two if you have one.
And while you're at it, have a go at fitting: Romans 5:8 into this paradigm - "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Or even John 3:16.
"Wrath" is about anger and punishment. Wrath is what I'm feeling right now about any people who have deliberately lit fires in the Australian bush near homes that have killed over a hundred people (although not all of them are definitely deliberately lit). I am angry about them, and I want them to be punished severely, but I don't hate them. It makes me sad that someone would be broken to the point of wanting to do that. That's a huge gulf between wrath and hate.
I'm also intrigued as to how you reconcile a God who hates sinners with your Calvinist position on predestination. God hates people for doing what he pre-destined them to do? I can't comprehend that at all.
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