God loves the sinner but hates the sin

I have written and spoken about this matter on a few occasions. I need to discuss the matter again. I want to for your consideration, present another angle to this subject. As most people know, sin is rebellion against God and man. The Bible says the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). Would the writer be out of line if he said, “God hates the sinner because of their sin?” I would say no because the Bible supports that phrase.

Psalm 11:5 reads, “the Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.”

David declared in Psalm 139:21-22, “do I not hate them O Lord that hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them my enemies.” David is showing his righteous zeal for the Lord. Anyone who opposes the Lord is not only God’s enemy, but his enemy as well. David’s hate in this sense is justified. You cannot be friends with those who hate God. As a believer if they are God’s enemies, they HAVE to be ours too!

It is important that a distinction is made. God hates all sin, but because God’s overarching virtue is His love, He shows compassion to sinners. But I also believe those who are overtly, bloodthirsty and impenitent in their wickedness God will show them no mercy. They arouse God’s righteous anger, and in due time, God will punish them to satisfy His justice.

Here is the new wrinkle I want to put into this discussion.

God is symmetrical I believe when it comes to rewards and punishment. What I mean is that when someone does well, the person is rewarded not the good that they do. You cannot reward the good without the person right? The good deed could never exist without the person performing it.

Also, negatively speaking, we cannot punish sin without punishing the one who committed the sin. Sin could never exist unless someone consciously commits an act of sin.

The title phrase can be misleading. What I mean is that we cannot divorce a person from their sin. We as believers have to lovingly confront it. Just like we do not sever a person from their good deeds, we cannot sever a person from their bad ones. My point, loving the sinner and hating the sin means we do not ignore the sin, we expose it to the sinner.  Because if we ignore it, we are actually doing the opposite, we are hating the sinner and loving the sin! That means we are in sin ourselves. We are  not doing the person a favor by claiming we love them by covering up their sin. It is not a popular idea, but the greatest thing you can do for a sinning brother or sister is to lovingly confront their sin so that they can confess it to God, forsake it and receive deliverance for therein lies true freedom.

The kindness of the Father clearly revealed in scripture is that God loves sinners and despises their sin at the same time.  It is also undeniably true that God hates evildoers – meaning He does not love them at all. They are his enemies.

For the record, the Bible never records the phrase, “God loves the sinner but hates the sin.” But it is indeed true. God loves sinners. If He didn’t, He never would have sent Jesus Christ to earth to save them from their sins (Matt 1:21; John 3:16).