God Hates Sin But Not The Sinner?

And another thing... This is related to the issue of God's wrath. You’ve heard the cliche, "God loves the sinner, but hates the sin." And of course this is accompanied by the implications that so must we hate sin but love sinners. There is some truth to this, understood in a certain way. God does demonstrate His love toward us while we were sinners as Romans 5:8 says. On our part we should manifest love toward others as the fruit of the Spirit, and we are to do what we can to live in peace with all people (Galatians 5:22; Romans 12:18). Certainly by showing love to the unlovely (as God does) people are won to the kingdom. But, on the face of it, the cliche we are considering does not ring true. Consider Psalm 5:5, in which David says of God, "You hate all who do iniquity." Here it does not say that God hates sin, but that He hates the one who sins. D.A. Carson, in The Difficult Doctrine Of The Love Of God, a book I’ve recommended before, says, "Fourteen times in the first fifty psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, his wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on sin (Romans 1:18ff) and the sinner (John 3:36)" (69). I think this notion that God hates sin but not the sinner minmizes the seriousness of sin. People think that sin is no big deal because God is love and He will forgive. To realize that God hates sin and the one who sins should open our eyes a fresh to the deadly seriousness of sin and demand that we pursue holiness.

Does Wrath Come From Love Or Holiness?

I recently heard it suggested that the reason for God’s wrath is that He hates sin because it separates people from Him. Wait a minute. I thought God’s holiness was the reason for His wrath. The context in which I heard this statement was a message about God’s love, such as in John 3:16, "for God so loved the world." I think there are even more misunderstandings concerning this statement, but let’s stick to this one for now. The idea is that God loves the world so much that He hates sin and has wrath towards sin (and maybe even towards us when we sin) because that sin separates us from Him. I’m sure God hates sin, and that He hates the separation it causes, and even that His hatred for it arises in part out of loving concern for His creation. But I am even more sure that the primary reason why God hates sin is because He is holy. God is love, but He is holy, holy, holy (1 John 4:8; Isaiah 6:3). This other notion smacks of man-centeredness. It is God-centered theology that concludes that God's wrath abides on the sinner because in His holiness He cannot tolerate sin. D.A. Carson says of God’s wrath, in The Difficult Doctrine Of The Love Of God, "it is a function of God’s holiness against sin" (67). He does not say that it is a function of God’s love, but of His holiness, and he is right. Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology writes, "God’s holiness means that he is separated from sin and devoted to seeking his own honor" (201). Later in this section on God’s attributes he says of God’s wrath, "if God loves all that is right and good, and all that conforms to his moral character, then it should not be surprising that he would hate everything that is opposed to his moral character. God’s wrath directed against sin is therefore closely related to God’s holiness and justice" (205-206).