DOES GOD HATE?

Personally I am not a big fan of the word, HATE. To me it’s a harsh, hard word. I hear it injected into way too many conversations, in my humble opinion. Of course, when a word is overly used, it begins to lose its impact. I think that has happened with hate. There are times when hate means hate, and then there are other times when hate means something closer to “I don’t really like that.” 

In today’s post I want to look at the biblical definition of HATE and, at least, begin to explore the question: Does God hate? 

In the Hebrew (the original language of the Old Testament) the word for HATE is: Sane’ (saw-nay’). Sane’ is used 139 times and it means, “to hate, be hateful.” I don’t know about you but I was mildly surprised hate was used so frequently. Reflecting on my previous post (May 31 ~ GOD IS NOT WHATEVER YOU WANT), I wrote about how there a tendency to reduce God to a single, “God is…”, statement. One of the most common statements is: “God is love.” This statement is repeated so frequently it's shocking to be confronted with the possibility that God may be hateful. It’s not only possible, it’s the truth. And I think we would all do well to be fully aware of what it is God hates.

In Proverbs 6 the wisdom writer details “six things the LORD hates (sane’), seven that are detestable to him.” (V16 NIV). The Hebrew word for, DESTESTABLE, is Tow’ebah (to-ay-baw’) and it means: “a disgusting thing, abomination, abominable.” The things the Lord hates are seven sins. Even suggesting God hates sin is hard for some people. In the 21^st century “sin” is looked at like it’s a common cold, rather than a deadly disease. We think of sin as a less than ideal choice, but not necessarily wrong. We think of sin as being selfish, and sometimes it’s okay to be selfish, right? We’ve diluted the definition of sin, much like we’ve watered down the meaning of hate. 

The question I said I want to explore today is: DOES GOD HATE? The answer is absolutely! God hates sin to the point it is disgusting to him. It’s hard to process the idea that a God who is so loving and patient with me, is at times disgusted with my sin. It’s like it’s okay for me to be disgusted with my sin, but to think God is disgusted and disappointed in my sin is a different issue. I talked to my dad a couple of times this week, including this morning. There’ve been times when I’ve disappointed my dad and the realization of that was harder on me than the discipline I received for what I did. Like any son I want my dad to be proud of me, and, thankfully, most of the time he has been. This next point is important in understand who God is…even though there have been times when I have disappointed my dad he has never wavered in his love for me. The fact that he “hates” my choices does not change his love for me. In fact, hate is not possible without love. That’s not to suggest everyone who is hateful is loving. It’s to say when someone is truly loving there will be things which are hateful to them, otherwise love has no meaning. I didn’t mean to venture into what is more of a philosophical discussion, but this is important. Love has no meaning, no value, if everything is equal. If we love everything, than we really love nothing, because it would take an insane person to suggest that everything is equal. 

It would be wrong to say: “God is hate” because I think that crosses over into describing his character, who he is. But to say “God is hateful” is accurate because it’s describing his actions and attitude towards sin. In my next blog I want to look more closely at Proverbs 6 and the things God hates.

Proverbs 6:16-19 (NIV)

16 There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, 19 a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.