Friday, August 29, 2008

Question: "Are we to love the sinner but hate the sin?"

Simple Answer: John tells us clearly, that God is love. Before we cloud any issue with thoughts and opinions, let us bear this in mind, preeminently.
The Bible clearly teaches that God is love, as well as that God demonstrates love. I John 4:8-9 tells us that if you do not know love, you do not know God. In fact, it goes on to tell us that God visibly manifests his love toward us, through his son, the Christ.
Often, we use the cliché "Love the sinner, hate the sin."
However, we must realize that this is an exhortation for us, as imperfect humans. There are limits to our love and hate. We can help people out of the harmful lifestyles that they are involved in, because of our love for them, and for God.

Why should we love them? Because this is the picture God has given us. He loved us, when we were unloveable; forgives us, over and over.
The difference between us and God in regard to loving and hating is vast. Even as Christians, we remain imperfect in our humanity and cannot love completely, nor can we hate without malice. God, however, can do both of these perfectly well, because He is God! God can hate without any sinful intent at all. Therefore, he can hate sin in a perfectly holy way and still be willing to lovingly forgive.
This means that God can love a person as someone he created and can redeem them, as well as hate their unbelief and sinful lifestyle.
How glorious it is to see the love and forgiveness of God at work, in broken lives!
He who forgives, he who loves...he is my God.

1 comment:

The Fire Scribe said...

If only this were clarified more readily, and in previous generations, and not just said but expounded upon, how different our perceptions would be.