Remedial Work: What God Loves and Hates
Photo cottonbro-studio
From the first time I saw the banner headline of the late Fred Phelps, “GOD HATES FAGS,” I have felt compelled to dissent from this piece of virulent theology. I think there are Christians confused about what God hates and loves.
I have listened for years as various groups of Christians have opposed gay marriage while attempting to maintain some relationship to the love of God. The defense, “I love the sinner, but hate the sin” landed in my mind with a thud, like clods of dirt falling on a coffin lid. The assumption that being gay is somehow sinful is disturbing enough, but the insistence that you love someone you are persecuting, degrading, hurting, and humiliating is beyond the pale.
Hate and love are two of the most basic ideas of human relations. The word “hate” appears 195 times in the Bible; the word “love” 730 times.
Hate explodes from the mouth with jarring disruption. The word ought to be foreign to humanity, but we know our history and hate has been with us from the beginning. Yet we have been called to love.
This confusion about what God loves or hates needs adjudication. As a football referee goes to the “instant replay” to determine what really happened, let’s go to the Good Book and explore what God loves and hates as an elementary review.
Photo by Johnmark Smith
I John 4
I refuse to believe that God hates any created entity – animate or inanimate. There is one chapter in the Bible that has sealed my commitment to the love of God for all: I John 4.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.
We love because he first loved us.
Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
Work through I John 4 and the idea that God hates a human being becomes not only remote but impossible.
What God Does Hate
Now, it is true that the Bible does use “God” and “hate” in tandem at times. To balance this account, we should consider those passages. For instance, consider Proverbs 6:12 – 19:
A scoundrel and a villain
goes around with crooked speech,
winking the eyes, shuffling the feet,
pointing the fingers,
with perverted mind devising evil,
continually sowing discord;
on such a one calamity will descend suddenly,
in a moment, damage beyond repair.
There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that hurry to run to evil,
a lying witness who testifies falsely,
and one who sows discord in a family.
According to Isaiah and Amos God hates sloppy worship.
Isaiah 1:11 – 15
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats.
When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
Amos 5:21– 24
I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.”
Does this anger some people? Perhaps, but I can work with that.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In