The hate of God? Don’t you mean the love of God? Hate is a topic we hate to talk about, especially when it is associated with God. There are verses in the Bible (especially Old Testament) that seem to contradict our belief that God is love: ‘Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant…’ (1 Samuel 15:3). ‘…He will wipe you off the face of the earth’ (Deuteronomy 6:15). ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’ (Romans 9:13). ‘For the Lord will pass through and smite the Egyptians…’ (Exodus 12:23).
Do those verses make you feel uncomfortable? Some people won’t even read the Old Testament (apart from Psalms and Proverbs) and others think God changed. In the Old Testament He is angry and judgmental and in the New Testament He is kind and loving. This cannot be true as Hebrews 13:8 tells us, ‘He is the same yesterday, today and forever’. God is consistent. So what is the variable? It’s the circumstances that change. My parents love me the same now as the day I was born; that hasn’t changed, but the circumstances and how they relate to me certainly have.
What changed the situation for the human race? Why is the Old Testament different? Sin! It’s hard to conceive how good things were in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve enjoyed a close and unique relationship with God. It was all ‘good’. But when Adam and Eve disobeyed and ate the fruit they discovered sin and changed the world all in one mouthful. The circumstance changed - mankind lost innocence and found knowledge of evil. It’s like our knowledge of nuclear bombs. We can’t ‘undiscover’ them. The world can never be the same as it was. The moment they ate of the fruit, a veil of sin and death descended over the human race and the world we live in. It affected everything: the animals, plants, even the soil. The earth groans under the weight and effect of sin, literally.
As you read the Old Testament you must appreciate that the circumstances have changed from what they were in Genesis 1. You are seeing God through a veil of sin and death. But it doesn’t change the fact that on the other side God is still the same: just as loving, just as kind, just as merciful as He ever was. He did not change - the situation did. Sin will always change things. When you realise this the rules, laws and stories of the Old Testament are understandable. How could God let us know He was pure, holy, and righteous with that veil of sin and death in the way? God deliberately made up impossible rules to show us there is a standard we can never reach by ourselves.
God knew people weren’t seeing Him the way He really was. So He sent Jesus. God came to our side of the veil. That’s why Jesus is called Immanuel, ‘God with us’. There could be no doubt about the way God felt about humanity as His true nature and heart were now on display through the life of Jesus. The New Testament reads differently from the Old because Jesus tore apart the veil of sin and death when He died on the cross. Sin and death are still here, that’s evident; but it’s been conquered by Jesus. It cannot stop us from gaining direct access to God any more. We can see God clearly now. There’s a new covenant but God remained the same.
‘You still haven’t faced the fact that God has hate’. Most of the times the word ‘hate’ appears in the Bible it is our problem. God does not use the word as much as you think, but when He does He is still justified. When God ‘hates’ it comes from His righteousness. When we hate it comes from our sin nature. The two are totally different. The only thing God has given us permission to hate is sin, so let us concentrate on that and stop assassinating His character over a few verses we really don’t understand!
How could God tell the Israelites to totally destroy whole people groups? What a harsh judgement. You’re probably thinking, ‘But why the children?’ It is possible God gave such harsh orders because He sees more than an innocent child. He sees what they become. Evil dictators were once harmless children. Having access to the future allows God to make decisions beyond human understanding. What appears to be judgment may actually be mercy. God may have been trying to prevent greater suffering and death in the future. He is the only one who truly knows if something is a lost cause.
Some people concentrate so much on judgement and forget the heart of God is salvation. Every book of the Old Testament has somewhere in it a picture of salvation. For example, the books of Ruth, Esther, Hosea. God uses the story of Ruth and Boaz to paint a picture of undeserved grace; Esther and the King has a theme of mercy; Hosea and Ephraim demonstrate incredible forgiveness (God will take you back no matter what you have done). God’s message is clear - He’s not out to condemn but to save. Jesus makes this clear in John 3:17, ‘For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him’. Who sent Jesus into the world? It was the God of the Old Testament! He has not changed. His passion is and has always been to ’seek and to save that which was lost’ (Luke 19:10).
God has never, anywhere in the Bible, rejected a genuine cry for mercy or forgiveness. Prostitutes, tax collectors, murderers, adulterers, liars. Gentiles, cheats, whoever! God has and will always respond to a genuine cry for mercy. He can’t help it! When I read the minor prophets (Hosea - Malachi) I get this picture of God twisting and turning, doing everything He can to hold off judgement. Joel 2:13, ‘Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness. And relenting of evil’.
‘His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He’ (Deuteronomy 32:4). After reading that, do you think God can or would make a bad decision? Do you think He is partial to being unjust? Do you think when He said some of those ’smiting’ scriptures He might have had a reason that maybe we don’t know about? God’s character and His ability to know the future create the ultimate combination to make perfect decisions. All His ways are just; it is impossible for them to be anything else! Think of a scripture now that really makes you cringe, one of those ’smiting’ ones. You can trust and believe that God made a perfect decision. I’m not saying you have to like those violent parts of the Bible, but only that you understand - it was just, perfect for that situation and the future. Look at everything God has done and will do through the eyes of Deuteronomy 32:4 and realise the God of the Old Testament is the Jesus you meet in the New. The Bible is not about judgment - it’s about salvation.
(All Bible quotes from the NAS)