When Christians Are Called To Hate
To love God is to hate sin. To willfully chase after sin shows you do not love the Lord.
Psalm 97:10
Hate evil, you who love the Lord,
Who watches over the souls of His godly ones;
He saves them from the hand of the wicked.
How often do we see people who call themselves Christians indulging in sin? If Christ’s death on the cross freed us from sin, does that mean we can sin without consequences?
TAKING GRACE FOR GRANTED
It is absolutely tragic when I see people claiming that because Jesus paid it all on the cross, they can live in sin. Jesus did pay it all, and it is exactly why you don’t keep living for sin! You don’t sin so that grace may abound all the more, and the apostle Paul was very clear about this in Romans 6:1-2 when he wrote: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” To “have been crucified with Christ” is to have “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (cf. Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:24).
How can you say you have honored the “[cancellation of] the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us” if you are living for sin (cf. Colossians 2:14)? To “go on sinning willfully” is to live in a way that “no longer remains a sacrifice for sins” and, therefore, there is only “a terrifying expectation of judgment.” (cf. Hebrews 10:26-27).
GOD’S HATRED OF SIN
There’s no such thing as a Christian who willfully chases after sin. A Christian will always mortify their sins; sin will be an aberration to a Christian, just as it is to God. God hates sin and will punish the sinner who embraces sin—eternally—and we would be wise to hate sin as much as God does. Considering how often the Bible talks about how God hates, abhors, and sees sin as an abomination, how can we embrace that which He hates (cf. Leviticus 20:13; Psalm 5:5; Proverbs 6:16-19; Proverbs 8:13; Jeremiah 44:4)?
Christians should live in such a way that they too can say they hate evil and hate what God hates (cf. Romans 12:9; Proverbs 8:13; Proverbs 6:16-19; Psalm 139:21-22; Psalm 97:10). J.C. Ryle said it best when it comes to sin: “There would have been neither tears, nor tares, nor illness, nor deaths, nor funerals in the earth if there had been no sin... Instead of loving [sin], cleaving to it, dallying with it, excusing it, or playing with it, we ought to hate it with a deadly hatred!”1
LOVING SINNERS, HATING SIN
It’s worth noting that hating sin doesn’t mean you must hate those in sin. You love them enough to tell them to repent of their sins. As John MacArthur said, “Zeal for the truth must be balanced by love for people. Truth without love has no decency; it’s just brutality. On the other hand, love without truth has no character; it’s just hypocrisy.”2
We are to have compassion for those who are lost. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “Our anger must only be against sin; we must never feel angry with the sinner, but only full of sorrow and compassion for him.”3
As Christians, we are called to hate sin, but remember Jude 22, which tells us: “save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.” Although we “hate the garment polluted by the flesh” of those headed to hell, we are to have “mercy with fear,” that is, be gentle and not allow their sin to influence us.
When dealing with those in sin, remember 2 Timothy 2:25-26: “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” We correct those who oppose God in gentleness.
CONCLUSION
There is no greater way to show mercy to the lost than to tell them they must repent of their sins and believe in the gospel. Pray that God may grant them repentance that will lead to the One who can indeed save them.
To the “hate the sin, not the sinner” crowd, I’ll leave you with what R.C. Sproul said: “It has been said that God hates the sin and loves the sinner. But it’s the sinner God sends to hell not just the sin.”4
J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Luke, (Aneko Press, 2020), p. 136
John MacArthur, Moments of Truth: Unleashing God's Word One Day at a Time, (2012, Thomas Nelson), p. 49
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, (Martino Fine Books, 2011), p. 226
R.C. Sproul, https://twitter.com/RCSproul/status/740269117698150400