Many times you have either heard someone say, or perhaps you have said it yourself – “love the sinner but hate the sin.” I think this is a phrase we should throw in the trash can and be done with. Let me tell you why.
This phrase is used to excuse sin. Only the first part of it is ever actually enforced. The “hate the sin” part just conveniently gets forgotten. And if you do hate the sin, well, you are generally marked up as a hateful person, right?
Think about how this phrase applies to God. Does God love the sinner but hate the sin? Well, He certainly does hate sin, but guess what? He also hates the sinner! Yep. Check it out:
Psalms 5:5 ESV The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.
Psalms 11:5 ESV The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
Yes, God in His mercy in Christ chooses to set His love upon those He elects to save. He loved us before we loved Him. But the fact is that He hates evildoers. He hates the wicked. For God, this phrase more accurately reads, “Hate the sinner and hate the sin.” Which makes His saving mercy in Christ even more incredible.
So let’s stop getting sucked in by these kinds of phrases coined by the ignorant. All this particular phrase does is strive to let the wicked off the hook. God isn’t going to do that.
Joan
Love this! Thanks!
Innoscent
Like many similar sayings, this one has been compacted in a one punchy formula, easy to remember and thrown out there as convenient and true. Yet, the devil is the author of these.
It sounds pious and convincing. If that saying was true, then God would love Satan himself, a sinner (the first sinner and author of sin). Then God would love everybody, and He wouldn’t have any other option but to love. He would be dispossessed of His freedom of choice and power to judge.
The tactics used by Satan here –the same with Christ when he tempted Him in the wilderness–, is to remove a few words, put a subtle spin on it without making it sound false. Yet under the veneer of truth it is rank falsehood. The entire wording should be:
“God hates sin, but loves the genuinely repentant believing sinner.”
To Israel, God pleaded through Hosea (14:1, 4): O Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity; I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for my anger has turned away from him.
I understand the hate of God as an act of rejection from sinners who persist in their choice to sin, thus separating themselves voluntarily from Him. His holy character won’t permit.
The majority of people in the churches do not study their Bible to watch and gain discernement, therefore they become gullible and naively swallow these commandments of men. Satan knows that and throws such darts.
Jeff Crippen
Truth!!!
walkinginlight
Innoscent,
Thank you. I will remember “God hates sin, but loves the genuinely repentant believing sinner” The church folks I knew would tell everyone to love on and coddle the sinner. All the while the sinner strings them along reveling in his sin with no real repentance in his thoughts. He thinks “Gee this great, they love and feel sorry for me and I get to keep on sinning”! It makes one wonder what they think with all of the scriptures to put the “sinner” out of the fellowship? Gasp!!!
1Corinthians 5:11 – But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is a immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler – not even to eat with such a one.
MARANATHA!!!