toldailytopic: Is it wrong to hate?
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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Ecumenicist
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I'm confused, where have I disagreed with your good biblical assertions?
Alot of people are asserting that hate is an OT concept and doesn't belong in NT thinking (dispensation?
). I disagree with them, but in my efforts to reconcile fulfillment of the OT through Christ's commandments to love God, self, neighbor, and enemy alike, I keep coming back to the same conclusions. If we must hate, and sometimes we must, do so with a sense of humility, recognize it as a sign of our own failings.
lucy
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I'm confused, where have I disagreed with your good biblical assertions?
Alot of people are asserting that hate is an OT concept and doesn't belong in NT thinking (dispensation?
I don't think you have to be a dispensationalist to come to the same conclusion...
God changed? I thought He was the same yesterday, today and forever. Same God, genius. He has always been a God of love. And because of that He hates all that is opposed to perfect love, with perfect hatred. OT & NT. He hasn't changed.
lucy
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High Calvinist, per chance?
Nope. Quite the opposite. I hold to the open view. God is capable of doing things that are new to Him. But His character will always remain the same.
I did not quote Pharisees. I quoted God and His word. I have no trouble hating. I hate the unrepentant homo Catholic priests who sodomize innocent young boys. I hate them with righteous indignation. And so does God. And so should you!
Paul wrote, "Let your love be without hypocracy; abhor what is evil. If you love everything and everybody, those that are wicked and those that are not wicked, then you love is meaningless and has no value. And God points out that you are hypocrite "if you love those who hate the Lord" (2 Chr. 19:2).
Again I say that many Chrtistians today think that God was a mean old God in the OT, but then He went to government sensitivity training and became political correct in the NT.
But Jesus said that He did not come to change one period or one comma of the law--not until heaven and earth pass away. I believe the earth is still here. He taught the Pharisees that they must "keep the weightier matters fo the law without leaving the lesser undone." Did Jesus have to repeat in the NT everything that He laid down in the OT? I think not.
Don't try to be nicer than God. Many Christians today have achieved a level of niceness that Jesus did not attain while He was here on earth.
God bless, Tom from Mabank, TX
lucy
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No one can be nicer than God. He took out his wrath on Jesus so we could have life. That was supremely "nice" . He gave his Son for a bunch of criminals (us).
He was telling the Pharisees they were hypocrites because they kept the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. Jesus did not do away with the law, he fulfilled it because we can't keep the law. The law Jesus tells us to keep is; to Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. He gave us no other because all the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled in keeping these two commandments. He does not tell us to hate. I don't care what a person has done, as heinous as their crime may be, their crime is against God himself and God will avenge himself - he does not need our help by acting like the rest of the world and spitting out hate and bile. He leaves judgment and punishment of persons who commit such vile acts against society (society = women, kids, murder victims, etc. ) to the State. The State has the authority from God to execute such offenders. That is enough for me. I deplore what men have done to innocent children, but I'm not going to waste my time ranting a raving about it. We don't have to feel ushy-gooshy about these criminals - that isn't the kind of love I am talking about. Love protects the innocent, of course, it should not protect the guilty. Love is active in it's protection. It does not let the criminal continue his/her crimes - That's why every Christian should participate in the voting process and put people in charge who will take these kind of criminals off the street and apply such justice as is appropriate for the level of their crimes. Love that "covers" crime is not love, it is hatred for the victim.
I'm sorry, but you can't quote one passage where Jesus said to "keep the spirit of the law or the letter of the law." Rather He said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, WITHOUT LEAVING THE OTHERS UNDONE" (Mat. 23:23).
Love is not an emotion. I submit that one can't truly love , with emotion, a filthy, unrepentant, child sodomizer. If you said you did, you would be dishonest and phoney. Rather love for him is when you try to get him to accept Jesus. The judge shows love for him when he refuses to show mercy and sentences him to death.
Today, liberal judges think they are showing love when they are merciful and let a 12-year-old hubcap thief off easy. But God did not grant authority for judges to be merciful. When they do this, the 12-year-old then graduates to stealing car radios. Then to the car, and in the process, he kills the driver. Now this kid's crimes have become so serious that they can't be fixed. The judge thinks he's showing God's love for this kid when he lets him go without punishment. Love can be expressed, but it also has to be SHOWN. Even a wife will get tired of "I love you so much," as she goes out the door to earn a living while he stays at home on the couch watching TV.
It's okay to hate the wicked. Phoney love will only damned them to hell.
God bless, Tom from Mabank, TX
Peripatetic
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It is altogether correct to hate evil acts: injustices, abuse, negligence, cruelty, and the like. To hate these things is good; to not hate these things means that there is something very wrong with you. But this is the 'moral limit' of hatred. When the hatred of evil acts extends to the hatred of persons responsible for causing/contributing to these evil acts, one is crossing the line into immorality, indeed, evil. The reason is not (as is often given) so much that even evildoers are human beings, created in the image of God; the reason, rather, is that none of us is innocent of evil acts. One thereby becomes a hypocrite.
As the Lord said, "For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite..."
As the Lord said, "For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite..."
You could not be more wrong if you were a Mormon. Jesus said, "Bring those enemies of Mine before Me who would not serve Me, and slay them with the sword." A sword is not for flogging; it's for beheading. Here Jesus is not lopping off sin; He's lopping of heads.
On Judgment Day, Jesus will not send the sin to hell. He will send the SINNER to hell. "Love he sinner but hate the sin" is a cliche that is not in the Bible. It's a cute cliche first uttered by Gandhi who is a Hindu. While it sounds good, it is 180 degrees opposite of God's word.
You argument about judging is also wrong. Jesus was talking to hypocritical Pharisees who were judging a widow for not tithing while they had mistresses on the side. Jesus said that they should get the log out of their own eyes and then they could judge the widow. Jesus did not tell them NOT TO JUDGE, for He admonished that after they got their act cleaned up, they were not to leave the speck in their brother's eye.
If you don't judge, you can't rebuke, witness, or forgive.
God bless, Tom from Mabank, TX
God bless, Tom from Mabank, TX
lucy
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I agree with all you said - my earlier post says the same thing in that Love is not an emotion, it is action. When you protect the innocent by putting a rapist (etc) in jail or someone is executed for murder, it is not based on hatred of the person, it is based on protection of society. I totally agree that part of the problem with society today is people have the idea that all men are basically good instead of the truth that all men are basically depraved. When I was a teacher, I was told I should not use a red pen to grade or tell the kids that an answer was "wrong" as that might hurt the kids self-esteem. Baloney! If you never tell someone what they are doing is wrong, they will not learn. We have a whole generation of adults who think of themselves as "good" and who blame others for anything that goes wrong in their lives and who are incredibly narcissistic because of this philosophy.
My contention with the word "hate" does not mean I do not believe in capital punishment for murderers and life imprisonment for pedophiles who hurt children. It does not mean I do not abhor these crimes or the individuals that commit them. It does mean I don't think Christians should let hate seethe in their hearts towards others or when talking to people about Christ who are lost and involved in open sin that our emphasis is on hatred of the person himself and our contempt for what he/she is doing. I think we actually agree with each other! I just do not like the word "hate" in connection with Christian speech - it is too close to the rhetoric of "skin heads" and bigots.
hate is wrong
but
you can make it look like you are just rebuking
but
you can make it look like you are just rebuking
lucy
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Let me regress to an event in my life as a teen for a moment. There was a preacher in town (well known today) who through our church was leading a revival. One evening, he was preaching vehemently on the evils of various sins, including homosexuality. He was literally screaming and yelling at the audience and shaking his fist. I remember wondering as a kid, "Why is he so angry at us?". I felt afraid of him and God- to me, he represented God and his anger was all I could see.
Then, during the sermon where he was raging about homosexuals, a couple of my friends got up and walked out - they had another event they were supposed to go to. Their parents sent them to this other event as it had been planned in advance. When this pastor saw them leave, he immediately pointed them out and called them homosexuals and said they were leaving because they were evil and would not listen to the truth. The audience was horrified! We all knew these girls! Nothing could be further from the truth! The pastor went too far because he allowed his own feelings get in the way of his preaching. By his angry speech and actions he painted a picture of God as a big cosmic angry, fire-breathing, unforgiving God.
Later in his life, this pastor changed. He had some deeper experience with God and his preaching and focus changed. He was not angry anymore. He is gentle and loving and has a wonderful ministry feeding hungry children in Africa. He did not change his mind about the evils of sin and homosexuality. He just finally realized that anger in the heart, even towards sinners, will eat you up.
My point is, I think we have to be very careful with hatred. It can be a feeling and an action. It can lead to us acting in ways that are contrary to scripture.
Then, during the sermon where he was raging about homosexuals, a couple of my friends got up and walked out - they had another event they were supposed to go to. Their parents sent them to this other event as it had been planned in advance. When this pastor saw them leave, he immediately pointed them out and called them homosexuals and said they were leaving because they were evil and would not listen to the truth. The audience was horrified! We all knew these girls! Nothing could be further from the truth! The pastor went too far because he allowed his own feelings get in the way of his preaching. By his angry speech and actions he painted a picture of God as a big cosmic angry, fire-breathing, unforgiving God.
Later in his life, this pastor changed. He had some deeper experience with God and his preaching and focus changed. He was not angry anymore. He is gentle and loving and has a wonderful ministry feeding hungry children in Africa. He did not change his mind about the evils of sin and homosexuality. He just finally realized that anger in the heart, even towards sinners, will eat you up.
My point is, I think we have to be very careful with hatred. It can be a feeling and an action. It can lead to us acting in ways that are contrary to scripture.
Peripatetic
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So we should hate who Jesus 'hates'?
God 'hates' no man, and He 'sends' no man to Hell. He allows many to lay in the beds that they made for themselves, however. Reprobation, or damnation, is passive, not active. Every man on earth -- past, present, and future -- by way of Adam's sin, freely chose spiritual death and deserves eternal hellfire; Christ, by "slay[ing] them with the sword," is just carrying out what each of us has freely chosen for ourselves. Thankfully, God, by way of Christ, has saved some of us from our badly chosen, deserved end, according to His Sovereign Will.
The Gospel is not about 'believe, or else'. Again, Adam and his children (all of us) already chose the or else back in the Garden. The or else is who we already are. The message of 'believe, or else' is like telling a dead man that you're going to kill him. He's already dead! But Christ graciously saves some of the already dead -- brings them back to life, as it were, by grace, through faith -- and this is nothing but happy news.
Knight, Your post states correctly what I have been trying to relate: God will not send IDEAS to hell. He will not send SIN to hell. He will not send ACTIONS to hell. He will not send ATTITUDES to hell. He willl not send THOUGHTS to hell. God will send the unrepentent persons who possess these atributes to hell.
"Love the sinner and hate the sin" is a cliche' that was first uttered by Gandhi who is a Hindu, and barring a death bed confession, is in hell awaiting judgment where he will have to answer for that stupid cliche'.
"I love everyone" will get you a standing O on Oprah. This alone should give a Christian pause that something is amiss with this cute little cliche'. Paul said to "let your love be without hypocracy; abhor what is evil."
If you bestow your love on everybody and everything, then your love has no value and is meaningless. We see this with liberals today who give a medal or a ribbon to every child so that none will feel bad. But the child who studied or practiced to come in first does not esteem his achievement, for all the other kids got a medal too. His medal means little. If we gave the Medal of Honon to everyone, it would not merit a salute.
Phoney love or phoney forgiveness is not for the sinner; it's to make the self-righteous Christian feel good: "Look how righteous I am. I love everyone. I forgive everyone." A good modern day example is when Billy Graham said to Bill Clinton that he was a good president, a good man, and would make a good preacher. He said this on national TV. Now this is a form of self-righteousness on Billy Graham's part. And most Christians deemed Billy Graham so Christ-like. But while it probably puffed up Billy Graham, it sent the Clintons off to hell with a loving embrace. When the Clintons wake up in hell they will be totally surprised: "What am I doing here? Billy Graham, the number one Christian leaders in America, said that I was good?
If Billy Graham really loved the Clintons, he would have rebuked them, publically and to their face. Jesus slammed the Pharisees in the "Woe to you" oration. But in the Book of Acts, we see that there are "believing Pharisees." If Jesus had used Billy Graham" example, none would have repented.
My ministry is to rid the Bod of Christ of the cliches that hinder the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
God bless, Tom from Mabank, TX
BrettLongford
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Isn't it natural to hate?
and shouldn't it be the way that someone expresses it, that should be judged
and shouldn't it be the way that someone expresses it, that should be judged
Are you saying that it is a sin to hate?
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