16 June 2006

Whom does God hate?

I’ve often heard that God loves everyone. He hates the sin, but loves the sinner. And that might be true about some gods. But the God of the Bible hates people, right along with the sin (and figs, rags, shrimp, cephalopods, and Christmas trees).

Consider these verses:

I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more ... yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. -- Hosea 9:15-16
And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. -- Leviticus 20:23
I will ... cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. -- Leviticus 26:30
And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them ... for they are ... children in whom is no faith. -- Deuteronomy 32:19-20
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. -- Psalm 5:5
The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. -- Psalm 11:5
These six things doth the LORD hate ... A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. -- Proverbs 6:16, 19
I hated Esau. -- Malachi 1:3, Romans 9:13

So the Bible-God hates some people (foreign nations, workers of iniquity, wicked people, and liars, to name a few). But there is only one person (that I know of) that God hates by name. What is the name of this God-hated person?

20 comments:

Steve Wells said...

"Wow, 4 verses, you really tried hard."

Do you know of others, Jason? [Besides the God-hates-Esau verses (Malachi 1:3 and Romans 9:13)]

Jana Swartwood said...

If you look at the context of the Malachi passage (particularly verses 4-5), you will see that God is not talking about Esau the man, but rather, Edom, his descendants. Though as a people they were a "brother" to Israel, they chose time and time again to serve other gods and not follow the one true God. Therefore, since their practices were destestable to God (the word for hate can also mean "detest"), He removed His favor from them.

The ancient Hebrew mindset saw forefather and people as one, which is why you often see Jacob mentioned in place of Israel, Esau mentioned in place of Edom, etc. It gave people a context of remembrance.

Also, in the Romans passage you mention above, I think you're missing something if you don't pay strict attention to context. Paul is quoting the saying about Jacob and Esau not because he is trying to make a point about God hating someone, but rather, because he is trying to make a point about God loving someone.

The whole point of Paul's dialogue in Romans 9 is to say that it's ok for Gentiles to be part of the church, that is, the line of God. Where once God's favor was only extended to the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (for Esau renounced his birthright), through Christ God opened the promise of His mercy to all others who would have Him. Even the descendants of Jacob screwed up miserably, Paul says, so they're no better than Esau (Edom) in the eyes of God.

The whole point is that in the Old Testament times, God granted His mercy only to the children of Israel, whereas through Christ, the opportunity was made available for all people (of any nation) to take part in His mercy.

rpavich said...

This is to the last poster about Romans 9 and the "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated" and that this passage is about extending salvation to Gentiles.
The whole of Romans 9:1 21 is the argument that God saves whom he chooses and that we, as the creation have nothing to say about how fair or unfair it is.
The "Jacob/Esau" verse kicks it off...saying that He dealt differently with Jacob and Esau according to His plan, not something they'd done at all. His choice, His plan, etc.
He says he hardened Pharoah's heart to show His mercy. For His purpose.

anyway...just to clarify....
PS: do a web search...there are plenty more verses about how God hates sinners.
'
bob

FaceValue said...

I think you should listen to yourself speak the words you write... God hates, God abhors, God casts carcasses...this is simply disgusting. A God that murders people for lashing out is not a Father at all, do you murder your children when your parenting just isnt enough? I should hope not. The fact is the Bible begins the commandments with have no other god, for I am a jealous God. So God is a hater, jealous, and a murderer. You can keep that version. Why is the Bible the only book you will allow to offer any insight. You scoff at the Quran or New Age Testaments, yet they were written the same way the Bible was, by oral tradition and by hand. You believe God inspired them yet why would he not inspire others? The New Testament was written in Egyptian Coptic so why would you insist it was divinely written in the same land God sent plagues to destroy. Be real, God is the Creator of the Universe which is incapable of hate and anger. Hell was never even mentioned until the Middle Ages when a one-time drunk, sexually offensive man reformed through his seeming insanity and wrote things about hell to the pope, so pleasing because it really unifies an empire through fear.

Unknown said...

FaceValue, I'm concerned with your view. The Bible is a complete work. Nothing should be added to it/removed from it. To say that God is incapable of anger/hate, is absolutely wrong. God is just in His anger & because He's so Holy, God hates the workers of iniquity.

I'm sure that these questions have popped in everyone's thoughts at some point or another: "Does God love everyone?" or "Does God hate anyone?"


Folks may look at John 3:16, which is a very familiar verse; "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life." and cause them to say "SEE, GOD LOVES EVERYONE."

& I believe this to be true. After all, He's provided a means of mercy through His Son in hopes that ALL men should repent. He desires that NONE should perish. Even in Ezekiel , God states, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

There are so many times displayed in Scripture that God urges the wicked, non-repentant, non-submissive people to repent. God's mercy to ALL men is not in vain.


However, this isn't to pass God off as a softie. God does hate the workers of iniquity. Because He is a Holy and He is a just God. Hate will be expresssed toward those in a condition of opposition to God---that is to say, those who choose to remain defiant, ultimately rejecting the mercy and grace that was shown through His Son Jesus Christ.

Unknown said...

Believer: "He desires that NONE should perish."
Skeptic: And yet if God is omnipotent then he could have anything he desires.
Believer: Ah but he gave people free will and he can't stop everyone from perishing because he also wants them to have the choice to perish.
Skeptic: So you're saying that God can't both; stop all man from perishing and give all man the choice, but if God is omnipotent surely it is wrong to say God, "can't do" anything?
Believer: But stopping all men from perishing and giving all men the choice to perish isn't logically possible.
Skeptic: Ironic you should bring up the issue of logical possibilities (three words come to mind, Pot Kettle and Black) ...
But isn't the whole idea of an omnipotent God the point that he isn't confined by human limits of logic of possibility?

Unknown said...

God cannot do both because it's against his nature. God stated from the beginning that if Mankind chose to disobey, there would be consequences. Backing out of that statement and saving all of mankind would make him a liar.

Anonymous said...

But Romans 5:8 says God LOVES sinners. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." See? While we were sinners He was planning to save us. Remember, sin is punishable by death. God doesn't send people to Hell, they send themselves there by choosing to reject God. If you willfully walk away from Him when He has told you He is the source of all goodness and pleasure, where do you end up? You have walked in the opposite direction and reached the end of that road with no way back! So did God send you or did you go yourself? Remember, He keeps warning us? Why would a God who hates sinners allow them to live long enough to blaspheme Him and disobey Him? Why would He warn them? Heb 12:6 - "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Why would He risk it all to become one of us, allow Himself to be ridiculed, beaten, spat upon, slapped, stabbed in the side and killed on a cross? Because He hates us? Really? God has never hated anyone. Mat 9:13 - "But go ye and learn what that meaneth, 'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice': for I am not come to call the righteous, but SINNERS to repentance."

senuff said...

You ask the hard questions. Questions that do have answers. The Bible is the best book going. You can understand God's will by it. You do more to encourage people to study deeper into the Bible then most ministers i know. You're a great advocate for the Bible, and you don't even know it.
Who does God Love. He loves His children. His children were once sinners. He Knew Esau and Jacob's hearts, that's how he could say He loved one and hated the other. He's going to send some people straight to hell, it looks like you might be one of them unless you repent and follow after Jesus.

Bill Cribbs said...

The reason people misinterpret John 3:16 is because of the word "so". "For God SO loved the world...". This word SO is not an adjective describing how much God loves. SO means "in this manner" or "after this fashion" in the Greek. Look up at verse 14 where the SAME word SO is used and you will see that it means "after this fashion". God loved the world IN THIS MANNER, that He gave His only begotten Son... Jesus on the cross IS God's expression of love to a world that He hated. We were at enmity with God. His holiness was repulsed by our unholiness. When the user above used Romans 5, "God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, CHRIST DIED FOR US." "Commended" means "exhibited" or "displayed". "Toward" is a directional term. He exhibited His love in our direction because we didn't already have it. It wasn't affectionate love. It was an offering of love to us. Now, the ball is in our court. Will we accept His offering of love...or reject it?

princessofpraise said...

get over it people God do hate some why else would he seen some to hell..most of the time when he say my people he talking about people his chosen ones his children, would u seen someone you love to hell ..pain forever? that should be enough to know he dont love all

SkiFiend said...

To be fair God is a perfectionist.
Have you ever tried to do anything for a perfectionist. You'll never get it right.

However, this is where people don't understand the bible. There is the New Testament. This is an antidote to the problems of the Old Testament and God admits that the plan didn't work out, which is why he had to send Jesus. In fact it is prophesied many times in the Old Testament about Jesus having to come.

The Bible does use the word hate, but then when you talk to a perfectionist, they will tell you they hate anything that isn't right. God is the same. He cannot look on anything that is not right (use the word Righteous/Holy but not many people understand the meaning of those words).

If we were to stand in God's presence with any wrong we would die immediately, because it can't stand the presence of God. Moses is the closest person to have seen part of the presence of God but never his face. People couldn't look at Moses face after that incident so they made him wear a veil.

However this is where Jesus becomes like the mediator between God and man or substitute (although not everyone understands that use as much). Jesus knows what it is like to be human but reaches perfection that no one else can.

But he dies so that all our wrong doing is cancelled out by his death if we do in fact acknowledge that his death did in fact give us that right to be right with God (perfect again).

Don't worry if this doesn't make sense. It it simple stuff but not always easy to unravel.

John "Daddy" Leece said...

Jason, I will admit there are some passages in the Bible that I don't understand, some that do talk about God hating...but I know God to be a God of love. The Bible even says that God IS Love.

God loves you Jason...just as much as he loves me. I'm a Christian. I love you Jason...obviously not personally, but because you are one for whom Christ died and my Lord calls me to love you. You're no different than me. We both are totally lost and dependent apart from God's mercy. Below are a couple of passages of scripture. I know I can win a debate with you, not going to try.

I just ask that you read the passages below and maybe we can have a conversation?

Thanks...have a good day.

Romans 5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus said this in Matthew 5:
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Since we can't be perfect, we're left to rely on God and God's mercy. Praying for you as I pray for myself that our hearts would be open to the truth.

Unknown said...

God is a hypocritical sadist who can't even live up to his own standards. For starters, he creates people without free will. We aren't given a choice to be created or not beforehand, so the so-called free will he gives us after he creates us is moot. Then as if that wasn't bad enough, he subjects us to sadistic tests of our so-called free will, purely for his own pleasure of tormenting us just because he can. He knows ahead of time how we'll react, and yet he expects us to react differently. This is the definition of insanity, repeating the same mistakes while expecting different results. God hates most of us, and loves to rub our noses in it, and the fact that there's nothing we can do about it. Our fates to be loved or hated by him are chosen by him before he creates us, so it's pointless to worry about what will or won't please him, he's already decided that for us the same way he creates us without a free will. He tormented Jesus the same way, so if he'll do that to his own son, he'll do it to anyone. He's a hateful god, and a loving god, he's unjust and unmerciful, and he's certainly not repentant. He admits to the sin of jealously, yet he makes no apologies for it. Sending Jesus to die for our sins was just another example of his bloodlust for torture, just for kicks. Yet another sin he committed against us, while he expects us to not commit the exact same sin. A feat we can never accomplish, because he created us in his image, so it's just another example of his hatred. Jesus is the only one who loves us, for he knows our suffering at the hands of God as well as he knows his own. His life was predestined the same as ours is, and he was as powerless against it as we are. Therefore, there's nothing to worship or turn away from, we exist solely to be either loved or hated by God, and the fact that which is our fate is chosen by him alone is proof that he isn't a just god at all. You can't have it both ways and excuse God's own sins against us by saying we deserve to be punished for them, when he's the one who created us in his sinful image before we were given a free will. We'd have to be given a free will before we were created to be justly held responsible for our own choices, so whether we're saved or not is entirely up to him. We can appeal to Jesus to ask God to save us on our behalf, but if Jesus or God decide not to do it, we have as little control over that as we do over being born or what our fates will or won't be afterwards. If I'm wrong about any of this, then God forgive me in the name of Jesus, because there isn't another excuse for it. His hands move me as they move you, for we are all merely pawns in his game of chance.

poopy said...

I think I quote Paul Washer when I say, "if I rightly understand the Love of God, it is so amazing that he even, often times, loves the objects of his own hate."
So, yes, it's true God loves everyone, but it's equally true that he hates those who do iniquity.

So, how amazing is this love of God!

Stephen said...

"If they hate you, just remember, they hated Me first"
"I and the Father are One".
I think 'Hate' is not the same kind of 'hate' in human terms. It's desirings of the heart to dwell in separation from The Truth. "Darkness". Hate is the Essence of the Spiritual Darkness of Ignorance or having no Knowledge of The Truth. It is the nature of Sin. for, he came to take away The Sin of the world.

Unknown said...

Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. John 17:12

8 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,[a] who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8

Unknown said...

God hates the murderer, whose mind was filled with lust and this murderer walked in the flesh, and followed the leading of an evil spirit. Yet God loved this man before hand, that God sent his Only begotten Son the Lord Jesus Christ, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have ever lasting life. This murderer deserves the death penalty, yet before he would die, this murderer could repent of his sin, and truly become a Born - again Christian. God hates, and I hate what God hates, and God loves, and I will love like God (or try my best to be like Jesus). David +

Unknown said...

God wants this. White supremacy asain slavery and african poverty. since ive been born thats been the flow of Gods will.

In the old testament which is a more fitting exmaple, God loves us by which life he gives us, which vessel he puts our soul in.

God cannot love Moses and also love the first born children of the egyptians...

God cannot love American slave owners and also the slave.

"the child of the slave women will not inherit what same as the child of the free woman"


Gods love is an action. not just a feeling. the proof is in the pudding.

thats why people can appreciate and love God more in the first world countries.

another example is that huamn beings are statistically more apt to obey their parents if they loved me and not neglected them.


This applies to Gods creation.

examine your lives and appreciate the double standards you can afflict on the world to sustain the first world because its exclusive. no ones pleading to make nigeria great again lol..


God created what he loves and created what he hated, and even so in human form. the baby born into ISIS was placed there strategically by God to be destroyed.. or will you go sis and preach LMAO.. whos gonna go preach to ISIS? no one in America, because their lives mean more to them then potentially dying for God. They would rather die protecting their freedoms than die for christ..

Unknown said...

God love or hate for us is dtermined by our vessels from the beginning. only the first world christians pretend not to look at the worlds conditions and try to fit Gods love into it for all christians at all ends of the earth. It caused me to lose faith because they were using their physical experience and privliedge to describe Gods love and faithfulness. Ive been sitting here in my bsement waitinG FOR God to bless me out of thin air just like Israel. Not through them working in the world among the world. But a special place for them and blessings. Since i believe jesus died for my sins and im grafetd in. and Went through bullshit and pain simply for being in a cursed vessel among men, I have high expectations from God and im nto moving a muscle until God has loved me. than I can preach without lying to people... I ask God "who do i have to trick for blessings" my brother?

I like to imagien the acerage christian americans view on the first american settlers ( some of them were self prolcaimed christians)

why cant I have their justofication? they sinned against God and it turned into America..

and those who benefit from it dont complain because it uplifts them.

Should I seek a a primitve indigeonous people and commit genocide against them for my childrens future and enslave other races of men to help me build an empire..

I dont know whats Good or evil anymore as some promote double standards. Is killing wrong Yes ( unless its israel claiming land or the british colonizing?)

Is stealing wrong unless (see above)


Im praying for a exception to SIN so that my family can be happy and believe God loves them..

Not because i hate anyone but because faith is suject to the powers that be not the other way around. and thats the ONLY way there can be wealth distribution and change.. By sin unfortunately..

For those who respind, consider yourself in a lessor situaion and how you wouldnt just sit pretty and faith it up..