| Loving the Sinner but Hating the Sin
John McClean
The Briefing, Issue #61, Dec 18 1990, Page 8.
St Matthias Press, Sydney.
A lot of the time, we explain our way through the world with
a set of sayings. They tumble off our lips and seem to make
sense, and they help us feel like we know what's going on and
how we should act. But often, when I think I am understanding
or explaining the world, I am merely reassuring myself by
using a safe but misleading label. It pays to ponder these
everyday experiences, and look beyond the cliche.
Let me give you an example. I was talking with a friend about
how Christians should treat [deleted]. I suggested, "We
should be like God, hating the sin but loving the sinner."
Now stop there. It sounds like a great argument (who could
argue with Christians modelling themselves on God?), but
think about it for a minute. Does God 'hate the sin but love
the sinner'? After some reflection, I decided that he does
not - and here's why.
It is not the way God judges sin. Is there any evidence in
the Bible that God judges sin and not sinners?
"The wrath of God is being revealed... against all godliness
and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their
wickedness... they neither glorified him as God nor gave
thanks to him... they became fools... therefore God gave them
over in the sinful desires of their hearts..." (Romans
1:18-24).
Is God angry at the sin or the sinner? Clearly he is angry
with both. Indeed, can we sensibly talk about 'sin' except in
relation to a 'sinner'? Sin is breaking the relationship
between creature and Creator. It can hardly stand alone as an
object in itself. (The word 'sin' is used variously in the
Bible and in places such as Romans 6 it is personified and
perhaps separate from the sinner - but for the rest of this
discussion we can continue with the above analysis).
It is not the way the Bible treats people. Our thinking,
influenced by Greek thought, tends to separate people into
component parts, each of which is treated separately. The
Bible, however, presents a far more integrated view of
personality, in which the various "parts" are different ways
of viewing the same person.
The Bible doesn't split a person from their actions. Your
actions come from your thinking, attitudes and values; your
actions are part of you and can't be separated from you.
Jesus said, "... the things that come out of the mouth come
from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean'. For out of
the heart come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft..."
(Matthew 15:18-19). Or in a most memorable saying: "For out
of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks" (Matthew
12:34).
We can not absolve ourselves of responsibility by separating
ourselves from our actions. Some contemporary psychology
attempts to do just this, by locating the causes of behaviour
in the subconscious. But God will not allow it. Certainly, I
am motivated by forces I don't fully understand, but my
actions are still 'part of me'.
Paul's teaching on the 'sinful nature' makes the same point.
Why can I not please God by submitting to his law? Is it
because of some abstract principle which is thrust upon me?
No! Rather it is the sinful nature - that is, my sinful
nature - that is the problem. God redeems me not by stopping
me doing sinful things, but by giving me a new nature - I
need to be reborn.
'God hates the sin but loves the sinner' is, I am sure, not
the best way to describe God's reaction to us. But it is
popular. Why?
Christians recognize that God is described as being both
angry (Romans 1:18; Psalm 2:5, 76:10; Isaiah 13:13;
Revelation 19:15) and loving (Psalm 6:4, 25:6; Isaiah 55:3;
Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:16). We wonder how we can reconcile
these two apparently contradictory truths and we solve the
problem by deciding that God's anger and love must be
directed at two different objects - he hates the sin but
loves the sinner. The Bible has a far better solution.
God's anger and love are not mutually exclusive - God can be
concerned for our welfare and also angry with us. His anger
is profound and just, not cheap and malicious, and both his
anger and his love came from his character, his holiness.
When God reveals his name to Moses, it is this:"Yahweh,
Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger,
abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to
thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He
does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children
and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third
and fourth generations" (Exodus 34:6-7).
God's love and anger are perfectly integrated in his
holiness. They are also integrated in the message of the
gospel. This points sinful men and women to the greatest
evidence of God's love for them - Jesus' death on their
behalf (John 3:16, Romans 5:8-9; 1 John 4:10). The cross is
the great sign of God's love for rebellious people. But it is
also the greatest evidence of his hatred of sinful people,
for God turned his anger on his own son (2 Corinthians 5:21).
What was happening and [on?] the cross was not a safe,
simple, legal transaction. It was real and horrible as seen
in Jesus' terrible cry: "My God, my God why have you forsaken
me?" (Mark 15:34). To say that 'God loves the sinner but
hates the sin misses the horror and wonder of the cross.
If we want to be like God, how are we going to treat sinners
(ourselves included)? Firstly, we will take sin with utmost
seriousness, for sin denies God and provokes his anger. If
sin makes God angry, then it should make us angry (that is,
with righteous anger). Secondly, we should allow people to
take full responsibility for their actions, and not offer
excuses for their rebellion (and ours). Thirdly, we will see
that people need a new nature and not simply a new code of
behaviour. And will strive to bring that new nature to them
through God's powerful gospel and prayer.
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| Cliches
From Mike Geeves, Blaxland
The Briefing, Issue #63, February 19 1991, Page 7.
St Matthias Press, Sydney.
Thank you for The Briefing - it is always a very stimulating,
challenging, encouraging, and at times, admonishing
experience to read it.
I was especially delighted at John McClean's article on
"Cliches" in Issue 61 (Dec 18, 1990). It is about time that
the well-worn and unbiblical cliche "God hates the sin, but
loves the sinner" was exposed for what it is - a fabrication
of human sentimentality and dislike at the thought that God
will actually hold each one of us accountable for the way we
choose to live our lives. It may be of interest to your
readers, and I hope it is, for them to read such indisputable
statements of God's revelation as:
For you are not a God who delights in wickedness... you hate
all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord
abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful. (Psalm 5:4-6; see also
Psalm 11:5).
The gospel of Christ is 'good news' to those sinners who
embrace it and so are forgiven by God, but it is 'bad news'
to those who either refuse to embrace it or simply go on
blissfully ignoring it.
Perhaps our dilution of God's gospel into simply 'good news'
has contributed to (or maybe is a symptom of) our eagerness
to embrace a cliche which so clearly clashes with God's revealed
will and attitude. God's gospel is 'sobering news', even
'important news', meant to wake us up to face ourselves as we
truly are in God's eyes and to face God as He truly is as
revealed in His Word. We need to take very seriously God's
attitude to both our sins and to us sinners.
Only then can we appreciate the magnificence and magnitude of
God's great love and mercy, and so be the more passionate and
urgent in declaring it to otherwise 'damned souls'.
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| I have always (ie in [my] living memory ;-) supposed that this clich� referred
to the temporal position, where the sinner may yet be separated from his sin,
and escape the wrath of God.
"For God so loved the world ..." (John 3:16) - 'the world' is often used to
denote the sinfulness of the world, but obviously in this case, that is not
intended, but rather the people yet in their sins, as :
"While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" Romans 5:8
This is reinforced by :
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against
the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Ephesians 6:12
ie - the world is in the grip and delusion of sin, but the enemy we are
battling against, whom we must hate, is the devil and his forces, the fallen
angels; the evil spirits.
People who are yet in a sinful state are not 'the enemy', but they may be a
tool of the enemy. It is very important to distinguish between the two. If
you perceive someone as 'the enemy', it puts them, for you, outside any
possibility of salvation. If you perceive them as deceived into being used by
'the wrong side', your interaction with them becomes one of letting them see
the LORD, instead of merely defensive condemnation.
However, there is a 'point of no return', as found by Esau (Hebrews 12:16-17,
cf Romans 9:13), and Pharaoh (Exodus 7:13,22, 8:15,19,32, 9:7, until it is
taken out of Pharaoh's hands in 9:12, 10:20,27, 11:10). This, in addition
to the example in Romans 1. The LORD alone knows when someone has reached
this point, which He may reveal to us (eg Ezekiel 3:7, and note the different
responses in Acts 13:8-11 and Acts 8:20-23). The reason that the hatred
is attached to the sinner in the unrepentant case is because they are
identified with the sin, and their eternal condemnation is sealed, as in
Jude :7..:13...
However, generally speaking our mandate is to offer the gospel to all, because
we do not know who the LORD will ultimately save. Perhaps we would have seen
king Manasseh as the most unlikely candidate. We are told that he "led Judah
and all the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the
nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites" (2 Chronicles 33:9)
We are even told that it was the intensity of Manasseh's wickedness that
brought Israel to the judgement of the exile, in spite of Josiah's reforms (2
Kings 23:26). Yet after all this, we find that under the discipline of exile,
the repentance of Manasseh himself was accepted by the LORD in 2 Chronicles
33:12-13,19. I guess that would have thrown your average self-made
evangelist, though hopefully not one who truly heard from the LORD. In mid
diatribe against this dyed-in-the-wool sinner, the evil-doer king turns in
repentance - can this be accepted? Can *he* really defect from the enemy
camp? Reminiscent of "the chief of sinners" in 1 Timothy 1:15, who the
Christians were so (understandably!) wary of accepting, in Acts 9:26 ...
God's hatred is directed at sin, but sin only exists in the dimension of a
sinner committing the sin. Were there no sinners - no people - there would be
no sins.
We are all sinners, whom Jesus loves enough to separate us from the nature
which makes us repulsive. For those who reckon to love and cling to that
repulsive nature rather than to the LORD Jesus, the only destiny is separation
from the hated God, and the glories of His presence.
There is always a problem with clich�s, in flippant and inappropriate usage.
We should always be clear how we are using such a phrase, and what we mean and
convey by it. This particular clich� can be looked at from two perspectives.
The one I have represented above is what I would perceive as a valid meaning
for the phrase. There are invalid applications too. .1 is primarily
concerned with one of these.
The valid use of "God loves the sinner, but hates the sin" is in controlling
our heart attitudes to those who we would perceive as in personal opposition,
probably not (yet) under conviction. If God did not love the sinner, there
would be no salvation. At all. If God did not hate sin, there would be no
need for salvation.
The danger is to make the false link of assuming that God's love for the
sinner implies a love which includes the sinfulness which is an essential part
of his nature.
The invalid use of "God loves the sinner, but hates the sin", as addressed in
.1, is in diminishing the significance of sin, whether in one's own life, or
that of another, where it can serve to reduce or even neutralise
accountability to God, and the valid conviction of the Holy Spirit.
The clich� is valid only in its strict context. To use it too generally is to
blur its meaning into something totally different, and it becomes the
political negotiation of today, where words are mutually acceptable only
because they mean something different to each side.
Andrew
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