There has been a recurring theme in our Americanized churches for some period of time that must be addressed if a proper understanding of sin and how God deals with it is to be attained. The theme is this, “Whatever happened to God hates sin, but loves the sinner?” Well, according to David Platt in his book “Radical”, the Bible happened to it.[1]
People do not like to believe in a God who is wrathful. People like to believe in a God who “loves everyone”; in essence, a God who no matter what we do, is looking down on everyone from heaven with love and compassion just longing for the day that we realize how unjust we are and flippantly ask for His forgiveness.
Unfortunately, that’s not the God of the Bible. It’s been said time and again, without wrath there can be no true love. God is Holy; and we are not. God is righteous in and of Himself; and we are not. We have no righteousness without Christ’s blood being applied to our wretched, sinful lives. Left to our own devices, it is impossible for us to please God; so how could we possibly see God as our ethereal “best friend” before we come to Christ?
Make no mistake; the Bible does not teach that once we are Christians we cease to be sinners. On the contrary, the Bible makes it quite clear that we struggle with our “old man” (Eph 4:22) and sin every day. The only thing that qualifies us to be “friends of God” (James 2:23) is the sacrificial imputation of Christ’s righteousness to our account when God brings us to belief in His Son.
In the book of Psalms, God makes it quite clear how He feels about unregenerate man and the relationship between God and man before belief in Christ. “The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong; You destroy those who tell lies. The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, LORD, detest.” (Psalm 5:5-6)
It’s obviously important here to look at the original word for hate. In the original Greek, the word used for hate here is sane'. The definition given of this original Greek word is: to hate, be hateful. Hater, one hating, enemy.[2]
It’s also important to take a look at the last word of verse 6; detest, which also says abhor. The original Greek here is ta`ab; which means: to loathe, abhor, and regard as an abomination.[3]
In Psalm 11:5-6 it states: “The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: [this shall be] the portion of their cup.”
It should be noted that the same word, sane' is the word for hate in verse 5, and looking on to verse 6, I don’t really understand how one would get the impression that God is someone’s friend who is considered to be in wickedness.
Jonathan Edwards, the famous pastor of the 1700’s, wrote one of the most famous sermons of all time in July of 1741 called, “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God”. In it he states: “So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment.”[4]
What Edwards is stating here is that as a natural man, (not regenerated), the only reason any particular person is not immediately dropped into the pits of Hell is the fact that God, for His own divine purposes, is keeping it from happening. And it should also be noted that God is under no obligation to do so. Man deserves the pit of Hell for all his unrighteousness and his want for autonomy.
Paul states in Romans 1: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”[5] “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”[6] (Emphasis mine)
If God’s wrath is being revealed, present tense; then as Edwards states the only thing keeping unregenerate man from slipping into the depths of hell is God himself, but not because He has given up His holy hatred of sin or the sinner. “In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.”[7]
Edwards goes on to say, ““his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment”[8]
When a holy, righteous God looks at a wretched, sinful, unregenerate man, His eyes burn with vengeance; holiness demands it. The only thing that can change that is the righteousness applied to that man’s account by belief in the holy and righteous Son of God, Jesus Christ. Before that belief, we are enemies of God, destined for hell in no uncertain terms.
God is just, righteous, holy…and wrathful. He owes man nothing. Man owes God everything. God spoke all of creation into being from nothing. He hung the moon and stars and set them spinning in the balance. He tells the sea, “You can come this far and no further”. He controls everything in the universe by His word; yet He looks at man and says, “Bend the knee”, and we say, “I will not”. We are guilty of the same sin as Lucifer. We want autonomy. We want to be God. It is a mockery of God to think He looks down at sinful man and is just begging for us to come to Him, as if He has painted Himself into some corner where He is required to love everyone equally.
Of course the question that arises from many is, “What about John 3:16, for God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son?” This has to be answered in a few different points.
1. The word world in this verse is the Greek word kosmos which by definition means: the world, the universe; the circle of the earth, the earth; the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human family; world affairs, the aggregate of things earthly; any aggregate or general collection of particulars of any sort.
While obviously men and the human family are included in this definition, you have to look at the whole definition. Men and the human family are just considered part of the whole of creation. When God created Adam and Eve in the garden, he gave them dominion over the earth to subdue it. When Adam and Eve fell from God, they in essence handed the deed of creation over to Satan; Jesus Himself referred to Satan as the prince and power of the air. Jesus came to redeem His creation and His rightful place as King over this world; and certainly sinful men are to be included in that. However, when one looks at mankind as part of the whole of creation of God, God also loves cows as His creation. God came to redeem His creation, but God does not redeem cows; so to accept that God loves every individual person on the earth equally is to take the word kosmos out of context in this verse.
2. Unfortunately Arminianism, which has been decried as heresy by the church numerous times throughout history has crept in and reared its ugly head yet again. Arminianism teaches that while man was damaged by the fall, he’s not in a state of total spiritual helplessness. Each person in turn has a free will and his destiny depends on how he uses that will; i.e. God loves everyone the same and is waiting patiently to see who will accept Him and who will not.[9] This the Bible does not teach; hence the fact that it has been declared heresy.
3. People in their human state tend to glaze over verses 17 and 18 in John chapter 3. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
God did not send His Son into the world (kosmos as described above), to condemn the world (kosmos), but to save the world (kosmos) through Him. So, here we have a generality about God’s creation, but it’s in verse 18 that the rubber meets the road. “Whoever (individual) believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever (individual) does not believe stands condemned already (present tense and no way out), because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
God’s word makes it quite clear there is a distinction between the all inclusive creation in verses 16 and 17 and the individual responsibility of verse 18. To read into this that God loves everyone the same is once again to take this out of context.
So what’s the way out??
Good question, glad you asked. As God makes quite clear in the above verse, belief in His Son Jesus Christ is the only way out of the dilemma. He who believes is not condemned. Fall on your knees. Beg Christ to forgive your transgressions and beg Him to be your Savior. Repent and turn from your sin. Take up your cross and follow Christ. Give up the things of this world and submit to His Lordship.
At that point and that point only are you passed from death to life. You are then considered to be a child of God; God’s friend. Anything short of all out abandonment of your will and submission to Christ is still to be an enemy of God, with the results clearly stated.
Jesus said it Himself, “but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand”[10]
What will you do with Jesus? Neutral you cannot be…
[1] Radical, David Platt
[2] Blue Letter Bible
[3] Blue Letter Bible
[4] “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” Jonathan Edwards 1741
[5] Romans 1:18 NIV
[6] Romans 1:20 NIV
[7] “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” Jonathan Edwards 1741
[8] “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” Jonathan Edwards 1741
[9] The Five Dilemmas of Calvinism Craig R. Brown
[10] John 10:26-28 NIV
