Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin / Love the Sinner, Hate the Sinner
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Is our theology sufficiently biblical to understand statements where God not only hates the sin, but also is said to hate the sinner (see, for example, Ps. 11:5-6)?
I think we can find some wise counsel in an article by John McKenzie written over 60 years ago. He writes:
I think we can find some wise counsel in an article by John McKenzie written over 60 years ago. He writes:
There is a lawful hatred of the sinner; and indeed there must be, since such a hatred is the obverse of the love of God. The love of God hates all that is opposed to God; and sinners--not merely sin--are opposed to God. And if such a sentiment is lawful, its expression is lawful; and one may desire that the evil in another receive its corresponding evil--provided that this hatred is restrained within the limits of that which is lawful. These limits are:John L. McKenzie, "The Imprecations of the Psalter." American Ecclesiastical Review 111 (1944): 91. Cited in John N. Day, Crying for Justice: What the Psalms Teach Us About Mercy and Vengeance in an Age of Terrorism.
1. Hatred must not be directed at the person of one's neighbor; he is hated for his evil quality.
2. One may desire that the divine justice be accomplished in the sinner; but it must be a desire for divine justice, not a desire for the personal evil of another out of personal revenge.
3. The infliction of evil may not be desired absolutely, but only under the condition that the sinner remains obdurate and unrepentant.
4. It must be accompanied by that true supernatural charity which efficaciously desires the supreme good--the eternal happiness--of all men in general, not excluding any individual who is capable of attaining it. In a word, the sinner may lawfully be hated only when he is loved.
posted by JT at Monday, September 17, 2007
7 Comments:
Justin, here is a great quote from Augustine related to your post.
"Any and every unrighteous man must be the object of our hatred in respect of his unrighteousness and the object of our love in respect of his humanity; that by reproving the fault in him which rightly earns our hatred, we may liberate that in him which rightly earns our love, that is to say the human nature itself, and set right every fault in it." (Contra Faustum XIX.24 / Quoted by Oliver Donovan in his chapter, “The Gospel and Christian Ethics,” in Resurrection and Moral Order).
Thanks for your post. I reflected on your post and this quote at www.aboveallthings.org
Hi Justin!
Just to throw in some quotations by two of my heroes:
John Calvin notes that “Before we were reconciled to God, he both hated and loved us. Why did he love us? Because we were his creatures […]. Yet at the same time, he hated us, because he is the source of all righteousness and had to hate the evil within us.” (John Calvin, Sermons on Galatians, 23-24.)
And John Piper writes: “But it wasn't always so for John Piper. There was a time when the mountain of granite was not under me but over me, ready to fall and crush me. It was the mountain of God's wrath against my sin. God hated me in my sin. Yes, I think we need to go the full Biblical length and say that God hates unrepentant sinners. If I were to soften it, as we so often do, and say that God hates sin, most of you would immediately translate that to mean: he hates sin but loves the sinner. But Psalm 5:5 says, "The boastful may not stand before thy eyes; thou hatest all evildoers." And Psalm 11:5 says, "The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and his soul hates him that loves violence."
Cheers,
Michael
Very simply but profoundly from Jerram Barrs: "We must not love the sinner in spite of his sin but because of it."
It's simplistic to say that hatred is the obverse of the love of God and erroneous to say that love hates. (While it is said that God is love, I would argue that love itself is not sentient.) If we buy the definition of agape implied in John 15:13, then if hatred were the obverse of God's love the greatest hatred would be to passively ignore the needs of someone else out of ones own self interest. Therefore, the obverse of love could be said to be apathy. Hatred, rather, is active. If we find ourselves on the receiving end of God's hatred from a temporal standpoint, then we could be made aware of our sin and ultimately find ourselves becoming faithful as a result of this conviction. I offer, therefore, that godly hatred is a blessing for the faithful and lends itself to an understanding of certain value to our redemption.
So, to hate the sin is a personal affront to the sinner. Loving the sinner involves hating that of the sinner that separates him from God and being willing to bear his burden before God if not redemptively (for only Christ can do that), then certainly as a member of the Body of Christ and priesthood of believers as a testimony to the truth.
Hi, Justin! Thanks so much for your blog, which is always interesting and often edifying.
A couple of thoughts on this question. First, I think taking the view of Christian (philosophical) anthropology - like that of J.P. Moreland in his Body & Soul - can help here. God created us in His image, with certain basic capacities in accordance with that Image. It is our life experiences, choices, and habits along the way that shape us and actualize those capacities in particular ways. And sin, of course, plays a part in that, so that what is realized is a twisted corruption of what might have been. So God's love/hate relationship with the human/sinner could be understood as applying to the underlying capacities and original intention for the individual (love), in contrast to what the person has become through sin (hate). In this way, love and hate can apply to the same person, but different aspects of that person.
Second, along the same lines, it is not hard to imagine a human scenario in which this simultaneous love/hate phenomenon obtains. Imagine a woman who is also the mother of a serial rapist. She lovingly raises him, but he eventually goes terribly astray, and perpetrates these heinous acts. She loves him as a mother, and he as her child, with all the wonder of the boy as a newborn, infant, and so on, and all the rich potential for a good life inside him at those stages; yet, she hates what he has done with that potential, how her boy has become corrupted, and how much damage he has done. She hates him, as he currently is, but loves him as her son. He is and will always be her boy, and her one hope is that she might reach him, in the blackness of his soul, and that he might find remorse, repentance, and redemption before he departs the world. Her hope is that she might see the day when he once again embraces what he once was, what he had the potential to be.
Similarly with God, I think, as our Creator. We are the children of His creation. He sees us in both lights, and loves us, wanting to see us come around to His way, but hates what we have done with the treasures and hopes He architected within our souls. And so His desire to redeem us blazed so brightly, motivated by love, that God took on flesh and died for our sakes. Like the mother, His desire is to see our remorse, repentance, and embracing of what was meant to be.
Blessings,
Steve
See Carson's little book, "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God" for what I think, is a wonderful treatment of love the sinner, hate the sin, etc...
You've got to be kidding me!? Thisis one of many reasons I have utterly rejected the evangelical/fundamentalist/conservative church. The hatred and intolerance, not to mention the bigotry of such statements make me sick. You people really need to get a life and quit bitching about the lifestyles of others, and get your own houses in order. How dare you tell me how to live my life when your life is rank with hypocrisy!
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