God Hates, Curses, Crushes and Cuts Off Sinners (14 Times)
by DemianFarnworth. Average Reading Time: about 4 minutes.
This is a good century to be a sinner.
You get all the perks of grace and none of the brutality of God’s severity.
All of this rides on an overworked phrase that goes a little something like this: “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.”
Quaint. But is it biblical?
Sinners 3,000 Years Ago
Three thousand years ago–give or take a century or three–you didn’t want to be a sinner. If you were, consider yourself the nail beneath God’s hammer of judgment.
God hated your sin. And He hated you, too.
Want proof?
Just read the first fifty chapters of Psalms.
Fourteen times God says He hates the sinner, His wrath is on the liar, and so forth. Or at least that’s what D. A. Carson said in his book The Difficult Doctrine of God’s Love.
Carson on “God Hates Sinners”
Carson is a smart guy.
Got his B.S. in chemistry and mathematics. He followed that up with a Masters in Divinity and then a Ph.D. in the New Testament.
He taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for decades. He’s a founding member of the Gospel Coalition. He’s a successful author.
In other words, he’s an authority.
You can trust him.
There’s just one problem: he never locates the fourteen examples of “God hates sinners.” I can’t live with that.
Go to Google, and here’s what I find:
- Jared Wilson on “Hate the sin, love the sinner?
- Mark Driscoll says God Hates You
- Justin Taylor How Do God’s Love and God’s Wrath Relate?
Their text? You guessed it: all of them quote D. A. Carson.
14 Times God [Blanks] the Sinner in Psalms 1-50
Unfortunately nobody offered to pin point these fourteen texts. So I read the first fifty Psalms to try to find them.
Here’s my effort:
Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God!
For You [a]have smitten all my enemies on the [b]cheek;
You [c]have shattered the teeth of the wicked. Psalm 3:7The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes;
You hate all who do iniquity.
6 You destroy those who speak falsehood;
The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. Psalm 5:5-6If [a]a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword;
He has bent His bow and [b]made it ready. Psalm 7:12You have rebuked the nations, You have destroyed the wicked;
You have blotted out their name forever and ever. Psalm 9:5The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked,
And the one who loves violence His soul hates. Psalm 11:5You save an afflicted people,
But haughty eyes You abase. Psalm 18:27They cried for help, but there was none to save,
Even to the Lord, but He did not answer them. Psalm 18:41Your hand will find out all your enemies;
Your right hand will find out those who hate you.
9 You will make them as a fiery oven in the time [a]of your anger;
The Lord will swallow them up in His wrath,
And fire will devour them. Psalm 21:8-9For You will make them turn their back;
You will [a]aim with Your bowstrings at their faces. Psalm 21:12Because they do not regard the works of the Lord
Nor the deeds of His hands,
He will tear them down and not build them up. Psalm 28:5For the arms of the wicked will be broken,
But the Lord sustains the righteous. Psalm 37:17But the wicked will perish;
And the enemies of the Lord will be like the [a]glory of the pastures,
They vanish— like smoke they vanish away. Psalm 37:20For those blessed by Him will inherit the land,
But those cursed by Him will be cut off. Psalm 37:22Your arrows are sharp;
The peoples fall under You;
Your arrows are in the heart of the King’s enemies. Psalm 45:5Now consider this, you who forget God,
Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver. Psalm 50:22
That’s fifteen.
Perhaps I’m naive, but I expected to find “God hates sinners” fourteen times in the first 50 Psalms. You know, precise wording. Or at least some variation.
That is not the case at all.
I found examples of God cutting off sinners. Crushing sinners. Cursing sinners. Shooting arrows into faces. What counts and doesn’t?
Is God Hates Sinners Biblical?
Now, I use a New American Standard Bible. Perhaps if I used a NIV or ESV I might have different results. And I have to confess: some of these examples sound futuristic. Meaning God will cut off sinners at Judgment. Not now.
I left all of the links so you can explore in context. Tell me if I’m wrong.
But the bottom line is this: “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner” seems to be in serious trouble.
Of course this isn’t the end of the story. There is another half we need to explore. We’ll do that next week.
Stay tuned.
What Do You Think?
Is “God hates the sin, loves the sinner” biblically justified?
How do you reconcile the above verses with 1 John 4:8: “God is love”? With John 3:16?
Are there any New Testament texts that God hates sinners? John 3:36 comes to mind: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not [a]obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Share your thoughts. Brutal and all.
Thank you for this.
You’re speaking biblical truth, in my opinion.
Justin
Psalms 7:11, in addition to v.12, comes to mind.
You’re welcome, Justin. And nice additions:
God is a righteous judge,
and a God who feels indignation every day.
12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword;
he has bent and readied his bow;
Good choice. And good eye.
One of the arguments to support the truth of eternal damnation of the lost(against annihilationism), is that since a human being is an image bearer of God, it would be as impossible for God to annihilate Himself as to annihilate a lost creature made in His image.
When that idea is applied to the topic at hand the argument is normally that, God cannot hate a creature that bears His image (human) anymore than He can hate Himself. As a result His righteous hate is levied upon the sin instead of the sinner. I would be curious to get your take on this position.
In Christ,
DirtyModified
Interesting question.
Not familiar with that argument at all. If it is an argument to support the truth of eternal damnation–it’s a bad one.
Just because we bear His image doesn’t mean we are part of him. He is a wholly other Being. There is Creator. Then there is everything else. This is the truth behind His transcendence. And to think He’s part of us is to buy into pantheism–which is unbiblical.
There are much better arguments to support eternal damnation.
By the way, what’s the story behind the name “Dirty Modified”?
Thanks again for the thoughtful comment.
I can understand your reservations to the argument. I do want to point out that the argument itself does not imply pantheism when understood properly. Just like the Bible doesnt imply finite godism when it refers to God’s “eyes”, “ears”, or being a “vine”. Let me briefly explain the point of the argument a bit: By image of God, the argument doesnt imply a piece of God (either physically or metaphysically) but rather 1.the capacity to embrace and reflect God’s moral attributes. 2. Being a creature that, by design, were made to have personal relationship with Him.
This is often the line of demarcation used to differentiate why it is okay to smoke a deer with a 12 guage but not grandma Jones (even though she makes family get togethers so miserable). A person would not argue that by murdering a human, you snuff out a part of God (although I would be open to that argument if made in a symbolic sense maybe), but historically humans being an “image bearer” of God has been key to a Christian understanding of why we are different from the rest of creation as well as why the consequences of treating a human the same as an animal are so severe.
Anyhow, I appreciate your thoughts on it (I enjoy thinking about these things) and would like to let you have the last word on that issue.
I am also curious to see how one reconciles Jesus commanding us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to love our enemies with the idea that God doesnt. I often want to hate my enemies, and truth be known I let it get the best of me sometimes. But I cannot reconcile hating my enemies with the Lord’s command to love them.
Along that same line of thinking; I often argue that God will not (and cannot) hold us to a moral standard that is different from His own. Since He is the moral standard for us, He cannot ask us to abide by a standard other than His own anymore than He can make a 4 sided triangle, or anymore than He can tell a lie.
that being said, how would the idea that God would condone us hating our enemies be reconciled with His direct command to love them?
Dirty Modified is a name I selected because I love dirt track racing. Modifieds are a really fun division in the dirt track realm, and I plan on running one once the finances agree. Of course when one races a modified on a dirt track, one ends up with a “dirty modified”.
In Christ,
Dirty Modified
Sorry. Your original comment reads as if you were suggesting pantheism. Or at least that is how I understood it.
And I get the distinction between humans and mankind. But I still don’t think that is a very persuasive argument for eternal damnation. In a nutshell: sin against an infinite being demands an infinite punishment. Annihilationism falls far short.
Great question about God hating sinners and commanding us to love them. I guess my short answer would be that in the end sin is not against us. It is against God. This is what David cried out when he confronted with his sin of adultery and murder.
Besides, no where in the Bible are we commanded to hate our enemies. The command is to love our enemies.
The command, as you suggested, is very difficult to obey–if not outright impossible. This is why we die in Christ, to be raised in Christ. This is why we are blessed with the Holy Spirit. We are a new creature commanded to work out our salvation with fear and trembling…but this work is backed by God: “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”
His good purpose is to love our enemies. Why? I don’t know for sure, but it’s obviously part of His redemptive plan. Keep in mind, though, that God wishes none would perish. He grieves when they do not repent. And he did send his only son for the sake of sinners.
Love the name. I went to a dirt track car race about ten years ago. Absolutely loved the late models. Unbelievable power (and noise) on such a small dirt track.
Take care,
Demian
I haven’t thought this through all the way but that’s never stopped me from opening my mouth before.
The second and fifth examples speak of God hating but the rest to my ear speak of God cutting off sin from his blessing and protection. While it initially seems harsh to aim His bowstring at their faces, I’m putting pre-Christ me in these verses and thanking God for the times He has ruined me in some way. Whether that was intially to bring me to salvation or since then to strip away my false idols and security found outside of Him. The harshness is actually loving and redeeming. That might be reading to much in to these passages though.
I don’t think that is too much reading into the passages. It is meant as a wake up call. A shot over the bow, so to speak. Motivated by love. And yes, we all belong/deserve to be at the receiving end of that arrow pre-Christ. Hallelujah he provided the way to get out from behind it.
“God hates the sin but loves the sinner” is actually a quote from Ghandi, not Jesus.
This is true. Well played.