Question:
Does God “hate”?
Answer:
Yes, Scripture shows that God “hates”… it’s not the kind of hate that we think of generally because whatever God does is pure, good and right. So His hatred of something is of pure motivation while typically our hatred originates in self interest MOST of the time.
- God hates the way pagans worship their false gods – Deut 12:31
- God hates religious idols and edifices that become the object of worship – Deut 16:22
- God hates evil – Amos 5:15
- God hates human pride – Amos 6:8
- God hates divorce Malachi 2:16
I think it can be generally stated with certainty that God hates anything that is counter to Him: anything that is not good, pure, loving and holy. Why? Because how can God have ANY OTHER feeling towards something that is less than His holy nature?
Granted, all creation is now less than perfect and God hates that so much that He gave His only Son to restore it all back to perfection. It’s not done PHYSICALLY yet from our perspective but from an eternal perspective, it’s already done.
While it is a very worn out and abused cliche, it is true that God hates sin but never hates the sinner. It grieves God that anyone would reject His free gift of eternal life. God takes no pleasure in the fact that one single person will spend an eternity in hell.
So yes, God does hate… but His hate is perfect and just unlike ours, which is typically self indulgent.