This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).
It is one of the great dichotomies of the Bible, like other tensions that we seem unable to understand or explain well. Does God love everyone?
There is not a doubt in my mind that when most Christians read that question, their answer is loud and resounding, YES! Absolutely God loves everyone! They point to John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 and a multitude of other verses to prove their point.
The idea of God’s love is repeated over and over again in churches all around the globe. We hear, “God is love.” We see billboards that promise God’s love. Signs outside of churches. God loves you!
But let us take a moment to take this question very seriously. There are a great many non-believers who refuse to accept what we so readily acknowledge as a tenet of our faith. What we accept as doctrinal, they question.
God’s love is conditional, they claim. God only loves those who believe in him and worship him. They argue that if God truly loved everyone, he could not possibly send people to hell for not worshipping him.
Indeed, there are some Christian schools of thought that hold to the concept that God’s love is conditional — subject to our repentance.
So, which is it? Does God love everyone, or love only those who worship him — and hate the others? More importantly, perhaps — can the God who is love (1 John 4:8) also hate?
Can God Hate?
It may come as a bit of a surprise or certainly seem like a contradiction, but the Bible does, in fact, teach that the same God who is love can and does hate.
Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there. Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious (Hosea 9:15).
You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. (Deuteronomy 12:31)
There are other verses, as well: Leviticus 20:1-23; Psalms 4:6 and 11:5.
In the Book of Proverbs, Solomon even says there are seven things the Lord hates: pride, lying, murder, evil plots, those who love evil, false witnesses, and troublemakers. Please reread that. It is not simply a list of things but includes people. There are people God hates.
It should come as no surprise to learn that God can and does hate certain things. We are indeed made in his image, and we possess the capacity to both love and hate.
While hate feels like a four-letter word, we must recognize that hatred is at times justified — we hate what destroys what we love; we hate evil, such as genocide; we hate cancer; we hate war and its impact on families.
As imperfect humans, of course, there are times our hatred is entirely misplaced or unjustified — but simply because we may misapply our emotions does not negate the God-given ability to both love and hate.
It is critical to recognize that the object of God’s hatred is always wickedness and evil. Sin and sinful acts. Perhaps we should expect no less from a just God.
We have all heard the expression, “hate the sin but love the sinner,” but God cannot separate sin and sinner except by the forgiveness we are offered through Jesus Christ alone.
Where there is evil, there must be an evildoer who chooses evil — and God must judge the evil and the evildoer (Psalm 5:4-5).
Before a person comes to repentance in Christ, he is the enemy of God (Colossian 1:21).
God’s Love for Us
In the parable of the prodigal son, contained in the Gospel of Luke, after the prodigal had squandered all of the inheritance from his father, which he had asked to be given immediately, the boy knew where he would be safe and fed. Home.
We are left to only imagine the emotions the father had been feeling while the boy was gone. Missing him? Of course. Worry? Despair? Love. Anger. Frustration. Even hating the situation? Some combination of all of the above?
And yet, when the son returns home, the father rushes out to meet him with open arms and an open, welcoming heart. It was as if the father had been waiting, watching for the son to return. (Luke 15:11-32)
There is no doubt or question, the Bible quite clearly teaches that God does love the people of the world. All the people of the world.
Even in the Old Testament, before the salvation of Christ, God sent Jonah to spare wicked Nineveh, who came to repentance at Jonah’s message (Jonah 3). And through the prophet Ezekiel, God made clear he took no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:3-32).
Above all this, while we were still sinners — still enemies of God (Colossians 1:21) — God showed his love for us by sending his son to die for us. We had proven incapable of doing it on our own, so God sent his own son as a sacrifice to offer us — everyone — his righteousness.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
This is proof of God’s love — he knows what is best and wants that for us. The proof of God’s love is reflected in his mercy and his amazing grace. Mercy — not getting what we deserve. Grace — getting precisely the rewards we clearly do not deserve.
In his love for all of us, for everyone, God sent his Son to be our Savior.
God’s Love and God’s Hate
God’s love does not stop God from also hating in righteous anger. This is the wrath of a holy and just God against sinners. While loving and full of grace and mercy, our God is a God of justice and righteousness.
Thus, it stands to reason that he would indeed hate evil and those who commit evil. We should expect nothing less from a just and holy God (Romans 2:5)
God desires all to repent of their sin and find righteousness in Christ. But, without Christ, the wicked remain unforgiven, and God will hate them “for their many sins, for they have rebelled” (Psalm 5:10).
Yet, at that very moment of saving faith in Christ, the wicked are removed from the kingdom of darkness and move into the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13).
Indeed, God’s love reflects his mercy, and this mercy is found in his utmost patience with us. Rather than immediately punishing people for their sins, God wants that everyone should come to repentance (Matthew 5:45).
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2Peter 3:9)
We, humans, are incapable of perfect love or perfect hate. We are not God. His ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).
While we may be unable to understand it in this life, God is indeed capable of both perfect love and perfect hate.
He is God. God can hate a sinner and then, in love, forgive that sinner at the very moment of repentance and faith in Christ, regardless of what they have done.
God’s mercy does not mean that everyone will be saved. It does mean that everyone has the opportunity to be saved, a choice that is theirs to accept or reject. Sin, however, cannot and will not go unpunished forever. There will come a day of judgment and a day of God’s wrath.
For further reading:
How Does the Lord Love with an Everlasting Love?
What Is Hesed Love, and What Does it Tell Us about God's Love for Us?
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Kara Gebhardt
