“You hate all workers of iniquity.”

One of the many benefits of having a large family (7 kids) is that I get to stay up on the realities of the younger generation.  Currently, I have 3 teenage daughters, five of them 23 and under.  This gives me a window for a prolonged view of life decades removed from me.  If that makes me sound old, oh well.  This week our third grandchild had his first birthday.  I told my wife, “Time flies when you’re getting old!”

In routine discussions about things with my girls, occasionally we’ll disagree over something.  I may make a crack about something they enjoy, and one or more of them will say, “Don’t hate!”  “Hate”?  Hate?!  Who said anything about hating?  “Don’t hate, dad!”  Gone are the days when I did similarly — use vernacular that gained currency in modern slang from contemporary issues that lost its original meaning.  Sort of like in my day: “Give peace a chance”.

So where does this current “hate” thing come from?  Hate is such an incendiary word and has been manipulated down through the ages.  Who really hates people today?  Or to put it more bluntly, who is doing something that people would be tempted to hate them for it?  Ah, that’s the question.  Most people strongly dislike things that to them appear gross, terribly distorted, despicable, repugnant, etc.  Now without thinking of specific acts, what kinds of things do you hate?  Where does your mind go?  You see, there are people out there that tell others they shouldn’t get angry with them, because they are doing things that can easily unleash negative passions from their peers.  So they make statements like, “Don’t hate”!  This is an intriguing argument that requires further consideration.

Psalm 5:4-6 have what some consider to be rather shocking statements about God: “For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you.  The boastful shall not stand in your sight; you hate all workers of iniquity.  You shall destroy those who speak falsehood; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man”.  In today’s common-denominator world, God is and should be only love: “For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16).  So they say.  Thus their retort, “Don’t hate, God!”

What would we substitute for “hate” in “God hates sin”?  Let’s see; how about: God tolerates sin.  God allows sin.  God embraces sin.  God blesses sin.  Is that the kind of God we want?  Really?  If he does any of those, we’re essentially erasing sin from the equation.  Sin’s not an issue.  What kind of God is that?  And if sin is not bad enough for God to hate, then you may as well erase God from the equation, too.  You can always tell the truth about any religion by simply looking at how it deals with/responds to sin.

Actually, verse five goes beyond that: “You hate all workers of iniquity”.  So how can God love and hate at the same time?  Because while God’s nature is love, he is also righteous.  And when people do unrighteous things — things that go against his very nature — he will not stand for it.  Before providing a deeper reason for his hate, let’s consider Ezekiel 18:21-23, 29, which is about as clear as it gets: “‘But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all my statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.  None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live.  Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?’ says the Lord God, ‘and not that he should turn from his ways and live?  (Implied answer: no.)  But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live?  All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.  Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ … Is it not my ways are fair, and your ways which are not fair?”

In Luke 17:7-10, Jesus told the parable of a servant who merely obeyed orders, calling him “unprofitable,” i.e., the servant can never measure up to the master because the latter is superior.  Similarly, only the master can demonstrate grace and kindness to the servant because of his position as master.  If our superior Master doesn’t hate sin, he can’t show his grace.  Telling God, “Don’t hate”, only asks for judgment and rejects his grace.  Do you hate what God hates?  Do you show others his grace like he does?