Have you ever heard the well-worn expression “God hates the sin but loves the sinner”? It is claimed by many to be how God relates to His fallen world – He hates the sin but loves the sinner.
And it certainly sounds good, it appears to hold a tension between an abhorrence of sin and a compassionate concern for the lost. Indeed the only thing that I can see wrong with it is that goes completely against what God’s own Word clearly says.
Over and again in scripture God speaks of his not only hating sin, but of hating those who are unrepentant sinners. And our focus this morning is in Psalm 5:5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.
Indeed if we open it out for one minute to v4-6 we get an even clearer picture –
Psa 5:4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.
Psa 5:5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.
Psa 5:6 You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
As v4 makes clear God does indeed hate the sin. He cannot abide sin, it is the very opposite of all He is and of all He loves, but v5 & 6 are not focused on the sin, but on the one who commits the sin and the message is equally clear – God love is not on them, they are under His (v5) hatred, He (v6) abhors them, He (v6) will destroy them, they (v5) will not stand before Him! And it is not some, but all (v5) “You hate all evildoers” and as Paul reminds us “there are none righteous no not one” – this is God’s heart towards every human being. Outside of Christ, because of our sin, God heart is totally against us, His wrath is on us.
Friend, this is the dire position of all who are outside of Christ and most are totally unaware of it. As far as they are concerned, if there is a God, then that God is a God of love and so, in the end, they will be all right. And some within the church affirm them in that false belief. But nothing could be further from the truth. They already stand condemned by their own sinfulness as did you and I, and as unrepentant sinners God stands against them.
And it is this truth that really shows off God’s grace and Christ’s work as it should be seen. God didn’t send Christ to save us because there was something attractive in us, or because He found (against His better judgement as it were) that He had love for us and so needed to rescue us. It was despite all that we are, that He chose to set His love upon the elect (those He would save) and sent Christ to die for them. When we were His enemies (Romans 5:10) He sent Christ to die for us.
Friend, if you are saved, do you marvel that God should have acted as He did to save you given that He not only hated your sin but that you stood as His enemy, as ungodly, under His wrath? And yet He chose to love you, to make you His child, to redeem you at such great cost?
Then what of those who you know who are unsaved? Friend, you will not help them by hiding the truth from them, by making their standing sound better than it is. It is the truth that saves, and the truth is that they are in a terrifying position before a holy God and nothing short of full repentance and faith in Christ will do anything to change it.
BUT if they will but seek His grace in Christ, then they will pass from death to life, from being His enemy to being His child!