Have you ever noticed how much the world speaks about love and hate? Clearly, there is a message pushed about choosing love over hate, that love is all you need, and that hate has no place, well, anywhere. 

This seems like such a shiny, happy message, so what’s wrong with that?

Much. 

As I’ve grown in my faith, I have had to unlearn worldly ideas and ideals, and learn biblical ones. I’ve had to rethink my beliefs about everything from very basic things to profound concepts. Love and hate fall into both the basic and the profound.

Our world tends to want to define love as how we feel, while the Bible defines love as an action. The world points to love as what we need to make everyone happy, happy, happy just as they are. The Bible points to love as a command. The world tends to operate in eros love (feelings and me-oriented) and philia love (shared interest and we-oriented), perhaps with a little storge love (family-oriented), while the Bible describes over and over again agape love (Christ-oriented and others-oriented).

Two of the greatest commandments referenced by Jesus when He was asked were, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36-40). In His answer, Jesus adds that “All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands” (v. 40). What this means is, the entire law and prophecies from God are designed to motivate and enforce love for God and love for other people. Pretty incredible!

So yeah, love is critically important to God and should be to us. But how we define love and what we love matters greatly.

Many people, even unbelievers, will throw out the words, “God is love.” And of course, He is (1 John 4:8). However, when the phrase “God is love” is used to try and force worldly love upon everyone, it’s nothing more than a rewrite of history to present a more palatable design. It’s like saying, “you must love what we love because anything labeled love has to be good; after all, God is love!” If they just throw God in there, it makes it good, you see. However, you can’t meld biblical love with worldly love like this. The two are diametrically opposed.

You can’t have God and only have love. God’s love includes hate. Touting “God is love” conveniently leaves this part out.

What does hate have to do with God’s love? Well, if we’re sticking to the truth of God’s love, and I believe we should, then we have to understand that God hates, too. It might seem like a contradiction, yet the very reason that God’s nature is love, is also the reason that He hates what is contrary to love.

The object of God’s love is His people. He loves us and wants what is in our best interest. Not only that, but He always knows what is in our best interest. Seriously, always. He’s never wrong.

Knowing this, then what is the object of His hate? Sin and wickedness. God knows that sin and wickedness is not what’s best for His people, and so He hates and judges the things that will lead to the hurting and death of His people. The Bible tells us He hates idolatry, child sacrifice, sexual perversion, and those who do evil, among other sins such as pride, lying, and murder (obviously not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea).

What’s more is that sin cannot be separated from the sinner (except through Jesus), so it’s fair to say that God hates the sin by judging the person committing the sin. More on this in a moment.

Beside the group that only points to God’s love as a means to push their agenda, there’s a faction of people who will only point to God’s judgment as a reason to not believe – He’s just old fashioned and mean, they’ll say, and this offends them. 

TRIGGER WARNING: God should offend you. You need it. I need it. Stop pretending He is only what you want Him to be in order to justify your sin. He loves and He hates in His ways, not ours.

Perhaps what’s most “offending” is that God’s hate (judgment) leads us right back to where we began, with His love. God loves us so much that He planned a way for us to be forgiven for our sins (the things He hates). His perfect plan gave us Jesus, who offered His sacrificial love by dying on the cross for all of us. Jesus’ sacrifice brings forgiveness and restored closeness to God if we choose it, to be made even more in His likeness.

Does the world offer anything even remotely close to that? I think you know the answer. 

That’s why the world tries their hardest to take the parts they like about God and Jesus (like love), reconfigure them without the call to repentance, and sell them for profit. And to masses of people who are far removed from the Bible and churches that preach the true gospel, this message gives them the warm tingles, so they accept it. The trouble is, this message is unbiblical and counterfeit. It will not lead to knowing who Jesus actually is, and it runs the serious risk of confirming and accepting sin, which is the opposite of loving.

You can put the prettiest shade of lipstick on that pig, but it will never not be swine, getting its jollies by rolling in the mud.

God wants us to know Him – the real Him. When we love what He loves, and hate what He hates, we’re a fraction closer to this. We love God by keeping His commandments. We love others by showing them and leading them to Christ. This includes turning from what God hates, no matter how many layers of lipstick or lovely mottos the world has applied.

Reject the forgeries. Seek out the original.

“We love because He first loved us.”

1 John 4:19