Love, Hate and Judgment — by Keith Petersen

In the Bible the subject of love is, most evidently, predominant.  This would have to be so, as 1 John 4:8 defines for us that “God is love.”  We’re also told in the well-known John 3:16 that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal.”  Further, the Lord said in Matthew 5 “Love your enemies, [bless those who curse you,] do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who [insult you and] persecute you”.  The foundational thrust of the Bible clearly involves love.

Perhaps largely as a result of the above Scriptures and, possibly, others, it is evident with many Christians that it is thought that we are to simply love everybody—after all, isn’t that what we see with God?  Where could hate/hatred come into a Christian outlook?

This is a very important subject, and, we need to look at several Scriptures so as to have a balanced outlook on the question of love and hate.

The first thing to say is that, in alignment with the heart and mind of God, our attitude towards men most certainly should be one of charity and love.  This is the clear antidote to the hatred that came early into the book of Genesis where we see that Cain hated his brother Abel and murdered him.  Love acts in the opposite way to this—“love your neighbor as yourself.”

However, if we look at the word “hate” in the Bible it might be a bit surprising that it is used 175 times—a fair amount of use.  Most of this use is in the OT; however, the Bible always establishes throughout the same essential principles as to teachings and doctrine concerning God and men, right and wrong, life and death, etc.  These principles do not change—they are God’s principles and, He is unchangeable ("For I Jehovah change not”—Malachi 3:6).

We are aware that we can hate things, so to speak—after all, someone says “I hate these hot, muggy days”; or, says “I hate the taste of cod liver oil”, etc.  But, what about hating a person; or, hating people—as Christians do we have any Scriptural basis for this type of hating?

It is important to recognize, then, that the Bible shows us that God Himself hates not only sin and evil; but, is shown to hate a person, or persons.  If we mistakenly think that God just unreservedly loves everybody and everyone; then, this reality should give us pause.  Malachi 1:2-3 says this:  “Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith Jehovah, and I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau; and made his mountains a desolation, and [gave] his inheritance to the jackals of the wilderness.”  Strong and solemn language! and, this is confirmed in Romans 9:13—"according as it is written, I have loved Jacob, and I have hated Esau.”

So, the question to be faced is this:  “I suppose I can understand that God in His sovereignty can be said to hate someone; but, as a sinner myself can I also make a similar statement?  After all, we are all sinners.”

Here is a reverse consideration:  Are you able to earnestly and unreservedly say (i.e., directly to the face of the person such as the following), “I love Adolph Hitler[1] (or, Jeffrey Dahmer, or, Pol Pot, or Stalin, etc.)?”  Such an attitude defies even common sense.  These are wicked, evil men—seared in their conscience as to right and wrong.  The apostle Peter writes as to some being “as natural animals without reason, made to be caught and destroyed” (2 Peter 2:12), and the apostle Paul speaks of being “delivered from bad and evil men, for faith [is] not [the portion] of all” (2 Thessalonians 3:2).  Our attitude towards all men is to be in line with the charity and love which are foundational to the Gospel; but, we have to see the distinctions made in the Bible.  If the Scripture shows that God hates someone(s), it would be not only a total contradiction, but, an affront to God, to step up and say that we, on the other hand, unreservedly love such a one(s).  Psalm 5:6 says that “Jehovah abhorreth a man of blood and deceit.”  There is no pronouncement of love in that.

David says in Psalm 139 “Do not I hate them, O Jehovah, that hate thee? and do not I loathe them that rise up against thee?  I hate them with perfect hatred; I account them mine enemies.”  Yet, as already quoted, the Lord said for us to love our enemies—how then do David’s words (which are inspired Scripture—see 2 Timothy 3:16—"Every scripture [is] divinely inspired, and profitable for teaching”) comport with Matthew 5:43-44?  In answering this, we must be reminded that we cannot conflict Scripture, as “the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).  The answer can only be that we must make judgment calls as noted above regarding Adolph Hitler and such types of evil, wanton men, etc.  How could we love someone who is purely evil?  Certainly, we should be affected in heart and mind that someone could be so evil—they started out life as someone’s little baby; but, the end result was or is untrammeled evil with no change and no remorse.

As the late theologian R.C. Sproul has indicated, “There is a common mantra to hate the sin but love the sinner; however, God doesn’t send the sin to hell but the sinner is sent to hell.”  He rightly says that the inherent danger in thinking that God unreservedly loves everyone is that it can leave an unrepentant soul to think that, essentially, everything is and will be ok because God loves everyone—i.e., how could anything negative be assigned by God to even the unrepentant and unredeemed?  John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in California agrees that there needs to be a healthy fear in the mind and heart of the unredeemed in respect to a pending judgment for their sin.  We can add that the Bible says this exact thing:  “The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the Holy is intelligence” (Proverbs 9:10).

This entire issue of love and hate, then, has also been addressed in theological circles—what should be an acceptable, Biblical perspective is as follows:  God’s love and attitude towards mankind can be said to be (1) Benevolent (2) Beneficent and (3) Complacent.  Benevolent simply means that God is favorably disposed in attitude and heart towards all men—we have already referenced John 3:16.  Beneficent means that God in His love and favor towards mankind provides universal benefits—i.e., “he makes his sun rise on evil and good, and sends rain on just and unjust” (Matthew 5:45).  Complacent love is described as the full love of God towards the redeemed—a love given only to the redeemed and not to the unredeemed.  This is immediately seen in Ephesians 2:4 where it says, “God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith he loved us [i.e., the redeemed]”.

All this raises another, lateral subject—which, evidently, is greatly misunderstood by many Christians.  The subject is judgment.

For God—or, anyone—to evaluate evil either in circumstances, events or people, it is, obviously, necessary to judge that such and such involves, or is, evil.  It is as true to say that we must evaluate what is right and good—in each of these cases, of course, according to the truth and reality.  Such assessments involve a necessary level of intelligence and spiritual sensitivity.  The Scripture tells us that “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16); so, we are capacitated in both respects.

Again, we cannot conflict the Scripture, and, especially when it comes to the critical, doctrinal issue of judgment, it is most important that we understand what the Bible teaches on this subject.

Psalm 89:14 says, “Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of thy throne”.  This language is quite direct.  Righteousness is linked to judgment—how does this correlate?  Simply, to have righteousness, what is unrighteous must be excluded.  The first step to accomplishing this is to judge what is right and what is wrong—and to then implement the judgment to exclude the wrong.  We can add into this the Lord’s own words—“judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24)—and even these two brief Scriptures should consolidate in our minds and hearts that there is a necessity to judge.  What and whom do we judge?  Everything and everybody.  The Holy Spirit has come and, being “the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13).  The apostle Paul says to those in Corinth, “I speak as to intelligent [persons]: do ye judge what I say” (1 Corinthians 10:15), and in Acts 17 the Bereans did not accept unreservedly the teaching of Paul; but received “the word with all readiness of mind, daily searching the scriptures if these things were so.”  They were judging even this great apostle’s teaching.

We every day make any number of judgments in our circumstances as we go through life—assessing and judging as to a multitude of choices, issues, people, etc.  Are we then to follow this process; but, suddenly halt judgment when we come to Christianity?  The words “judge” and “judgment” are used in the Bible almost 650 times—and, we know there is even a book in the OT titled Judges.  This all needs to be meaningful to us—the Bible is obviously not ignoring judgment.

Probably with many Christians the difficulty arises from having isolated a few, particular Scriptures and overriding others such as quoted above.  The single most prevalent Scripture used in this respect is undoubtedly that of the well-known Matthew 7—“Judge not, that ye may not be judged.”  On the face of it, this appears to be an incontrovertible edict as to not to judge.

However, when looked at in its entirety, this section communicates something quite different.  Here is the full quote:  “Judge not, that ye may not be judged; for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.  But why lookest thou on the mote that is in the eye of thy brother, but observest not the beam that is in thine eye?  Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Allow [me], I will cast out the mote from thine eye; and behold, the beam is in thine eye?  Hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou wilt see clearly to cast out the mote out of the eye of thy brother.”

When properly examined it can be understood that the Lord is not negating righteous and proper judgment.  First, the word in the Greek (“krin) used here “to judge” means “to try, condemn, to punish, to sentence to”.  It is more than just righteously evaluating something or, more particularly in an instance such as this, someone(s).  It involves, whether just mentally, or in reality, passing a sentence.  For example, if I decided that such and such a one has sinned in such and such a manner (which may well be true) and that such and such a punishment is going to accrue to them—I am both condemning and passing judgment upon them.  I have become both jury and judge.  The punishment is God’s work alone—I cannot pronounce that; although, I may well and rightly quote to such that God does not ignore sin and that “Be not deceived: God is not mocked; for whatever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap.  For he that sows to his own flesh, shall reap corruption from the flesh; but he that sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit shall reap eternal life”  (Galatians 6:7-8).

Laterally, on this particular point and so as to be complete, we must consider the actual judgments, for example, passed by the apostle Peter and by the apostle Paul.  Peter told Sapphira that “Lo, the feet of those that have buried thy husband [are] at the door, and they shall carry thee out” (Acts 5).  This is strong, direct language and involves the direct judgment and sentence of Peter (of course, under the hand of the Holy Spirit—this was not by any means an arbitrary decision by the apostle).

In a similar way the apostle Paul said to the magician Bar-jesus who had sought to turn the pro-consul away from “the faith” in Acts 13, “O full of all deceit and all craft: son of [the] devil, enemy of all righteousness; wilt thou not cease perverting the right paths of [the] Lord?  And now behold, [the] Lord's hand [is] upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season.  And immediately there fell upon him a mist and darkness; and going about he sought persons who should lead him by the hand.”  This again, involves an actual sentence upon a particular individual.

However, we must recognize that, in both these instances (and, there are any number of other instances throughout Scripture of certain redeemed persons passing sentence upon others) these brothers not only acted under the hand of the Holy Spirit (“Paul, filled with [the] Holy Spirit, fixing his eyes upon him said”, etc.); but, in these instances, these brothers had apostolic authority from the Lord.  We don’t have this authority, as such—there are no more apostles (“For I think that God has set us the apostles for the last, as appointed to death”—1 Corinthians 4:9).

However, the principle of proper judgment not only remains but, as already touched upon, is threaded throughout Scripture.  The very Cross of Christ involves in its most foundational aspect—judgment.  The Lord said in this respect, “Now is [the] judgment of this world” (John 12:31).  In the Cross of Christ—an infinite and profound transaction, speaking reverently, come upon this morally impoverished world—God has unmistakably judged a broken world system engendered by a fallen, natural man and ruled by Satan.

Of interest is that even two Christians can enact a proper judgment as to Christian conditions and circumstances and this life—and, Heaven will abide by that judgment.  Matthew 18:18-19 says on this subject:  “Verily I say to you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on the earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on the earth shall be loosed in heaven.  Again I say to you, that if two of you shall agree on the earth concerning any matter, whatsoever it may be that they shall ask, it shall come to them from my Father who is in [the] heavens.”  How is such a decision made?  Simply, through a proper judgment under the hand of the Holy Spirit and thus in complete accord with the mind of Heaven.  We even see that the prophet Elias pronounced a judgment regarding Israel in the days of King Ahab (of course, a judgment aligned with that of God) to the effect that, “And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, As Jehovah the God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1).  This is a powerful Scripture, and, James 5 links it to the power and efficacy of prayer.

In summation, then, on this important subject of love, hate and judgment, it should be evident from the foregoing that, while we are to mirror the Divine attitude towards mankind of charity and love, God is shown to hate certain one(s)—we could not properly be in contradiction to that.  Are we to go about pronouncing hatred regarding this one and that?  In what might appear to be somewhat of a contradiction to what is set out in this chapter, I am hesitant to make that a general statement[2].  There are those who raise banners against gay people, for example, stating that God hates them and that they are going to Hell.  That is the opposite of the Gospel, which is that God “desires that all men should be saved and come to [the] knowledge of [the] truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).  We have to balance our attitudes and actions in accordance with relevant Scripture; but, the primary point to be understood is that God simply does not unreservedly love everybody, and, Christians have to be in alignment with that judgment. In addition, constant evaluations must be made as to right and wrong—and this of necessity involves proper, spiritual judgment.  In accord with this, we see in Revelation 18:20 that “Rejoice over her, heaven, and [ye] saints and apostles and prophets; for God has judged your judgment upon her.” 

Relative to the Christian’s ability to make proper judgments in this world regarding people and circumstances, it should be remarked that there is an often used statement—“Only God knows the heart of someone else.”  This has a certain pious ring to it—after all, God is a “heart-knowing God” (Acts 15:8).  However, 1 Corinthians 2:15 clearly says, “the spiritual discerns all things, and he is discerned of no one.”  We’re not God, of course; but, the spiritual Christian has a certain God-given ability to understand and discern.  God could hardly have set up the believing, Spirit-led Christian as His son—and, left such without any ability to be in alignment with the judgments of Himself concerning this world, other Christian, men at large, angels and Satan.  In its fullest result, we see in 1 Corinthians 6 “Do ye not then know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world is judged by you, are ye unworthy of [the] smallest judgments? Do ye not know that we shall judge angels? and not then matters of this life? If then ye have judgments as to things of this life, set those [to judge] who are little esteemed in the assembly.  I speak to you [to put you] to shame.” 

We’re to judge the world, and to judge angels—God expects us at the present, at the least, to make proper judgments in this world.  Among other things, it is the lack of—and, typically, a reticence towards—properly made judgments as to other Christians that has brought in the pervasive, distressing error and division that stamps Christendom today.  God’s House (“whose house are we”—Hebrews 3:6) is to be maintained as a Holy House; but, through lack of affection and proper judgments it has become what is seen in Matthew 13:31-32—an unclean, great tree.  This is to our shame.

I trust all the foregoing helps shed light on what is evidently a somewhat thorny issue for many Christians.  We cannot extrapolate John 3:16—"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”—to read, “God loves the world.”

[1] These are just immediate examples:  Adolph Hitler was obviously an architect of a mad delusion to rule the world at the expense of the brutal murder of millions; Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial, cannabilistic murderer of young men in the USA, Pol Pot was the architect of the merciless slaughter of millions of his own Cambodian people; Stalin was the Russian overlord who possibly slaughtered as many (or, more) as 20 million of his own people.

[2] We see in Jude that “But Michael the archangel, when disputing with the devil he reasoned about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a railing judgment against [him], but said, [The] Lord rebuke thee.”