Biblical Anthropology

What is Man (Made Of)?  

Emotions

Should we hate?

Background

References

• Psalm 5: 5, 6
• Psalm 11:5
• Psalm 15:4
• Psalm 34:14
• Psalm 97:10 
• Psalm 101:3-8
• Psalm 119: 97, 113, 118, 136, 158,163, 
• Psalm 139:19-22
• Proverbs 8:13
• Amos 5:15
• Matthew 5:43-48
• Mark 12: 30, 31
• Luke 14:26 (Gen 29:30,31)
• John 3:16
• Romans 12:9
• 1 John 4:19-21

Summary Statements

When Scripture speaks of God hating or loving it refers to His settled intentions, His disposition toward…not an irrational, unhinged, or overpowering emotion.

God can and often does both love and hate the same person.

When moderns speak of “hate” or “love,” they often refer to an overpowering emotion arising unbidden from within someone.  The Bible uses it along the lines of an evaluative decision, a stance, a disposition, a code of conduct arising from.

The people of God are not to be cavalier toward, apathetic around evil.  Also, they are not to be cavalier toward, apathetic around goodness.  Rather, they are to love the good and abhor evil.  

Repeat: to love properly involves hating evil.  Thus, aiming for complete positivity and tolerance – to “see no evil and hear no evil” – is not the way of love.

Recognizing the good and then responding properly involves training!  “[In the “Abolition of Man}, Lewis argued that the primary task of early education is to train our emotions to respond correctly to objects in the world. That is to say, we must learn to love what is lovable and to despise what is despicable…Virtue is thus a matter of loving, and not merely knowing, what is true and good and beautiful.” – from Justin Buckley Dyer and Micah J. Watson, C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law (Cambridge University Press, 2016) retrieved from the Mars Hill website.

Out of loyalty to God we stand opposed to and feel contempt for – “hate” – those disloyal to God, those who scorn Him, those who are workers of iniquity (which, we should point out, isn’t true of every unbeliever).  At the same time, we are committed to valuing and – as much as lies in us – benefitting every creature made in the image of God.  In other words, we “love” people.  Also, in allegiance to God and His Kingdom, we pray and work for and hope for and commit to the reconciliation of the world and God.  That is, we “love” sinners.  The distinction to keep in mind isn’t between hating the sin yet loving the sinner.  It’s rather between hating the sin and the sinner while not forgetting also at the same time to love the sinner.  

In all of this we shouldn’t forget to cast the log out of our eye first!

Not leaving anything to chance, Jesus gives His disciples an explicit command to love their enemies (assumedly while in some sense hating them).  

In some contexts, “hate” is a Semitism referring to a love that is ordered lower.  It is in this sense we’re to love God and hate all others.  Whenever we are forced to choose between God and anything else, then we must “hate”—i.e., reject—the anything else and “love”—that is, choose—God.

A Christian should never “hate” – reject, ignore or work against the good of – a fellow believer.