I can remember growing up and using the word hate for things I disliked. I hated turnip greens and made it a practice to vocalize it when my Mom would go to the garden to pick them up. I really didn’t hate the greens, I hated the fact that I would have to eat them if they were on the table at dinner time. My Mom quickly told me I should not hate, that was a bad word, especially if it is used toward people. All throughout the Bible, we are told to love others, and to hate someone is an indication that the love of God is not in us. I John 4:8 teaches us that if we don’t love we don’t really know God. So why ask the question “Does God Hate?”
I John 4:8 “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
While God is the true definition of real love, He is also the true definition of holiness and truth. There are things that God hates, and we will look at scripture to find those. It is not odd that love and hate can coexist, it is essential. The purest love must hate the things that God hates. Let me make it clear from the beginning, that there are no people that God hates. He demonstrated that on the cross by giving the life of His Son to make a way to restore those He created back to Himself.
God hates evil. In Psalm 97:10, we are to show our love for God by hating all that is evil in God’s eyes. We cannot love the evil of this world, or embrace it in any way if we truly love God. We are to seek with our whole hearts to please Him and seek to be like Him. He hates all sin, and evil is sin. He loves the sinner, but He hates the sin. Sin separates us from God, and loving evil shows we don’t love Him.
Psalm 97:10 “Ye that love the LORD, hate evil”
Romans 12:9 uses words that teach us how far our love for righteousness should be from sin. We are to love without hypocrisy. Our love toward God and others should be pure. This love is not just an emotional feeling, but real love manifests itself in actions. The word used for love in I Corinthians is charity. Charity involves love in action. It’s easy to say you love someone, but real love is demonstrated. That is what God did for us by giving His Son. (Romans 5:8) He hates our sin, but He loves us. While our love should be pure, and it should be very easy for others to see our love, the hate we are to have for evil should also be easily distinguishable. We are to abhor it! The word abhor means to hate, to turn away from, to avoid at all costs. The evil specified in this verse is having malice toward someone or being unkind. In our culture, we don’t think of that as evil, but God does.
Romans 12:9 “Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.”
Romans 5:8 ‘But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
While we could make a list a mile long of the evil deeds that happen in our world, we need to understand that treating others unkindly or with malice towards them is viewed by God as evil. We can believe we are not evil, and that this word only applies to those who are hateful, wicked or those who seek to specifically harm others, but God’s view is different. Our treatment of others falls under this same word when we are being unkind or hateful in our attitudes or actions. We are to love the way God loves and show it to others. We are to love those who are unlovely or those who allowed their soul to be used by the devil to do his deeds. We must learn to separate the sinner from the sin. God wishes that no one would perish in Hell, but that all would come to repentance.
II Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”.
There is a love for this world that God hates. In I John 2:15, John tells us to not love this world. This is not talking about the physical world. He placed man over the earth He created, and we are to take care of it. This is talking about the invisible spiritual system that is opposed to God and to Jesus Christ. The world is Satan’s system for opposing God’s work on this earth. Just like the Holy Spirit uses Christians to accomplish God’s work on earth, Satan uses people to accomplish his evil purposes on earth.
I John 2:15 “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
If we are not careful the attitude of loving this world can permeate our thinking. When we see others having fun doing things that we know are not godly, and yet they seem to never suffer the consequences, or we see them prosper while we struggle, it can cause us to have a desire to be like them. When you desire the things of this world more than you love to please God you too have a love for the world.
You cannot serve two masters if we have the desires and a longing to experience the values of this world, we are not loving God. Worldliness will affect our response to the love of God and our response to the will of God for our lives. We must be on guard all the time. We can love God more by getting to know Him better by reading His word and praying. Knowing Him will cause us to love what He loves and hate what He hates.
Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
Matthew 22:37-38 “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
