Proverbs 6:16-19, God Must Hate Sin

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March 12, Proverbs 6:16-19

John 3:16-36 “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).

God Must Hate Sin

Man cannot circumscribe God. We are finite creatures. “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being.” His understanding is infinite (Ps. 147:5).

  1. God’s Hate Accord with God’s Life (v.16). God is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity (Hab. 1:13). He hates all sins, for all are abomination to His nature. They are eternally repugnant to Him. When God hates, therefore, He does so in accordance with His character as a Just and Holy Sovereign over His Creation. He must deal with sin, and, contrary to much popular evangelical preaching, He must deal with the sinner also. It is unscriptural, we believe, to say: “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” As long as the sinner remains in his sin, he is in defiance of God, and is thereby under the just wrath of God (Jn. 3:18). “At every door where sin sets its foot, there the wrath of God meets us” (Wm. Gurnall). Remember, God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day (Ps. 7:11). Solomon reminds us that it is whom the Lord loves He chastens and corrects (Pr. 3:11-12). Paul develops this by showing that chastening is for sons, but if ye be without chastisement, then are ye bastards, and not sons. It is men and women of faith that endure affliction for they see Him who is invisible (Heb. 11, 12:5-8).
  2. God’s Hate Accords with God’s Light. There is no darkness in the God of Light (1 Jn. 1:5). These things does the Lord hate. The moral darkness of this world is all too plain to the believer in the Bible’s God. These seven sins are rife and rampant everywhere in our world, regardless of all our so-called maturity and progress! The horrors of Europe are not much different from those in Africa or India. Neither culture nor creed seems to have much bearing on the atrocities that perpetually bombard us. An infection following a cancer operation can be as deadly as the cancer, but there is never infection after divine surgery! With God there is only absolute purity. When God operates on (hates) the sins of His children, He does so in order to heal and save those whom He loves.
  3. God’s Hate Accords with God’s love. God hates sin, and when man fell in the Garden of Eden, He promised a Redeemer. If we love the God of Scripture, we too must hate evil as God does, nor is there any doubt as to what that involves. Ye that love the Lord, hate evil (Ps. 97:10), or Hate evil, and love the good (Amos 5:15). “Those things which God hates it is no thanks in us to hate in others, but we must hate them in ourselves” (M. Henry). To do this our life must also be in accord with the life, light, and love of God, and this is what happens when your life is hid with Christ in God (Col. 3:1-4). Is not the immediate commission of the redeemed to act as salt checking corruption; light shining in this dark world; love carrying the One message of Hope to mankind (Jn. 10:10)? There is a time to hate (Eccl. 3:8), but when we hate it must be in accord with God’s character.

Thought: “The character of God is a perfect and glorious whole” (W.S. Plumer).

Prayer: Lord, prepare me for life in that city whose builder and maker is God.