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Steven Morrow
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Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 18

Posted 10/1/2003 4:49 PM (GMT -6)

In Psalms chapter 5 the Bible describes God Hating and abhoring the wicked. The Reason I ask does God hate the wicked is the result of a conversation I had with a Calvinist friend.
I questioned him saying does God love everyone, and he responded no, infact if your not part of the elect God hates you.
Can someone give me an interpretation of these verses or does God hate the wicked?

Steven Morrow

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 10/1/2003 5:40 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by Steven Morrow

In Psalms chapter 5 the Bible describes God Hating and abhoring the wicked. The Reason I ask does God hate the wicked is the result of a conversation I had with a Calvinist friend.
I questioned him saying does God love everyone, and he responded no, infact if your not part of the elect God hates you.
Can someone give me an interpretation of these verses or does God hate the wicked?

Psalm 5:4 You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell.
5 The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.
6 You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors.

There's nothing in Psalm 5 about the "elect". I think God loves everyone (John 3:16) but eventually He gives up on those who continually choose evil. When that happens is not our judgment call.

Where in Psalm 5 did your 'friend' see election?

2 Peter 3:9 For God is not willing that any should perish.
looks pretty inclusive to me

inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 10/1/2003 7:33 PM (GMT -6)

Ah, the tensions of text harmonization...

How about this? There were some biblical authors who did believe that God HATED wrong doers and LOVED those who kept God's words and precepts. Yep. God could detest persons. (No "love the sinner, hate the sin" stuff) These biblical authors did NOT believe in God's universal love for all human beings...though they may have believed in God's MERCY being shown upon all at some point in one's life.

How about the Psalmist WASN'T John?

Just a thought.

Triskal
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 198

Posted 10/1/2003 8:22 PM (GMT -6)

If you were to believe that "[God] hate all who do wrong." then you would have to conclude that God hates everyone. Because who among us has never done wrong? And honestly, who among us does not frequently do wrong? The Bible even says "All are sinners, and have fallen short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)

I'm not quite sure how to interpret Psalm 5. I guess I would have to know the underlying hebrew and what the words really mean. Maybe the Psalmist is exaggerating here to make the point of how far removed God is from evil? Maybe these verses are saying that God hates the evil nature in man?

I am not by any means a theologian, so i'll let some of the smarter people here try to interpret these verses. I just thought i'd share my two cents on them.

In His Grip,
- Matt -

"In Him we live and move and have our being" - Acts 17:28

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

rossfadeinout
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428

Posted 10/2/2003 3:53 AM (GMT -6)

Meph,

If some biblical authors didn't believe in God's universl love ( the Psalmist) and some did (John) -- who was right Question

Doesn't your position have huge implications on other points. Do you think that some biblical authors believed in a limited atonement while others believed in a universal atonement?

Your position seems to cause some pretty big problems in the area of biblical authority...

Just some thoughts, Wink

Ross

"Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite." -Thomas Reid

the_rickster
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 19

Posted 10/2/2003 5:01 AM (GMT -6)

All-

This is a very interesting topic. Psalm 5 seems to clearly say that God hates certain people. Yet, we have all heard of God's love for all people. How can these both be true?
Is it possible that God both loves and hates someone? Ask yourself a question, "Is there anyone that I both love and hate?" My answer would be myself. I love (have a committment to the true good of myself) myself, but I also despise myself. So it seems possible to both truly love someone and hate someone.
Let me know what you guys think.
Rickster

honorman
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137

Posted 10/2/2003 5:20 AM (GMT -6)

The Psalms are poetry. They are meant to convey a point and are not to be taken literally, but in the way they are written. I seldom make strong theological points based on literal interpretation of poetry.

Laplace
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 138

Posted 10/2/2003 6:03 AM (GMT -6)

Perhaps a way of reconciling the apparent contradiction is to consider the terms "love" and "hate" not in strict exclusiveness, but in relative terms.

Meaning, that when you "hate" someone, you do not necessarily NOT "love" them. It's just that your affection for that person is less in comparison.

There is evidence in the Bible that this is the case. Jacob for example loved Rachel, but didn't care for Leah. Doesn't mean Jacob "hated" Leah as English speakers would imply, but I think that is what the original Hebrew word entails: "Not liking AS MUCH". The same could be said in Malachi where God loves Jacob, but hates Esau.

Even in the NT, there is evidence of this. Jesus said we should love one another, and that obviously includes our family members as He rebuked the Pharisees for not caring for their parents using God as a scapegoat. However, Jesus also said that unless we "hate" our parents and siblings, we cannot be His disciple. Obviously the word does not imply loathing, but a comparative. Our love for God should be so contrasted to that for people that it would on the surface seem like hating.

As final evidence, other languages use this convention of relative liking and hating. Take Japanese for instance. They have a word for "like" (suki), and a word for "hate" (kirai). However, in convention, you rarely use "kirai" to describe something you don't like (such as "I don't like pickled plums"), but would rather use suki.

Laika speaks the truth however that there is a point where God knows that the person is beyond redemption and enacts His judgement on them. In this instance, we may consider this "hating", but again, since the Bible also teaches that judgement is also a relative scale, there is a factor of "love" in there.

"I say we blast the meatbag, Master" -HK-47, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

John Earp
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715

Posted 10/2/2003 6:18 AM (GMT -6)

Some time back we had an fairly extensive discussion on this. I said then as I say now that I find that Scripture teaches that God doesn't love everyone UNconditionally. He GREATLY DESIRES to love everyone (in the sense of genuine fellowship), but because God is eminently JUST and GOOD, he simply cannot condone sin by overlooking it. Ps. 5 says essentially the same thing as Romans 1 does -- The WRATH of God is being revealed from heaven because people WILLFULLY reject the truth that they DO know, suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and have BECOME utterly depraved as a result. For this reason, God is "angry with the wicked every day" for they COULD do otherwise. They could be righteous, but they choose not to.

No need for reading a deterministic view of election into this. People EARN God's wrath by sinning, and God is just and holy AND truly loving in condemning them for their own sins.

As to the question, "Does this mean God hates everyone?" Obviously, the Psalm itself reveals the answer: God ceases being angry with those who fulfill the conditions of the covenant; namely, repentance (as often as necessary), faith, and continuance in the faith.

Psalm 5

1 Give ear to my words, O LORD,
Consider my meditation.
2Give heed to the voice of my cry,
My King and my God,
For to You I will pray.
3My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD;
In the morning I will direct it to You,
And I will look up.

4For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness,
Nor shall evil dwell with You.
5The boastful shall not stand in Your sight;
You hate all workers of iniquity.
6You shall destroy those who speak falsehood;
The LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

7 But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy;
In fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple.
8Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness because of my enemies;
Make Your way straight before my face.

9For there is no faithfulness in their mouth;
Their inward part is destruction;
Their throat is an open tomb;
They flatter with their tongue.
10Pronounce them guilty, O God!
Let them fall by their own counsels;
Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions,
For they have rebelled against You.

11But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You;
Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them;
Let those also who love Your name
Be joyful in You.
12For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous;
With favor You will surround him as with a shield.

"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.

revivaltheology.net

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 10/2/2003 7:09 AM (GMT -6)

Alot of good suggestions here -- its poety, loving and hating the same person in certain respects, etc... Another related consideration is the way "love/hate" is hyperbolically used in semetic culture to show "preference." When Jesus tells us we must HATE our mother and father to follow him, he isn't telling us to violate the ? commandment to honor our parents. He's telling us to PREFER him over family members. In this light Ps. 5:5 could be a hyperbolic expression that God favors/blesses those who walk with him over those who don't. Of course, we all do -- and don't -- in varying degrees.

In any event, I would think just about any interpretation of this passage would be less of a stress than an interpretation that thinks iGod decided to hate some and love others.

Doc

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

fyodor
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 179

Posted 10/6/2003 3:32 AM (GMT -6)

Psalms are indeed poetry and maintain poetic tools to convey a message.
One of the most common tools of Hebraic poetry is juxtaposed metaphors. The psalmist in this case used one line of imagery,

"The boastful shall not stand in Your sight"

and then responded to it by juxtaposing another set of imagery with a stronger and more emphatic result.

"You hate all workers of iniquity."

The same is true of the preceeding and following verses...

4For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness,
Nor shall evil dwell with You.
6You shall destroy those who speak falsehood;
The LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

It's a poetic tool and is not meant to be taken literally.
G.B. Caird writes in "The Language and Imagery of the Bible,

quote:
When a metaphor comes fresh from the creative mind of poet or prophet, no listener is likely to mistake it for literal speech. But metaphors wear out and die, and a dead metaphor is a new literalism.

This is true of metaphors that use terms like love and hate. They are so commonplace, that in order to derive meaning from them, people will tend to interpret them literally rather than metaphorically, though the intent of the poet and the general pattern of Hebraic poetry arrive the reader in a metaphorical understanding not a literal translation.

†††"One rarely finds an exposition of which it holds true that the exposition is that which is expounded." – S. Kierkegaard

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/6/2003 11:15 AM (GMT -6)

Where some versions of scripture say that God "loved" Able and "hated" Cain, a better translation says "accepted" and "didn't accept."

quote:
Gen 4:4-5
The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.

It was the MANNER in which Cain offered that was the problem.

quote:
Gen 4:6-7
Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

God asked, If you offer in the right way, won't it be acceptaboe. Cain's selfishness made hisoffering unacceptable as worship. He loved himself, and not God, and not his brother.

Kebar
Registered Member

Date Joined Nov 2003
Total Posts : 1

Posted 11/24/2003 10:18 PM (GMT -6)

Does GOD hate? Yes, ofcourse, for why else would he have condemned the devil to be tormented in fire and brimstone forever? Is that love? And yet God is love. Because, first God loves. The Lord loves the stranger... But if one requites God's love with hatred, then after longsuffering, God shall hate such an one. "There is a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace". And as David wrote in the Psalms, for my love they were my enemies. And as in the Proverbs, he who repays evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house. Now, God hates four manor of people: 1) the wicked, 2) lovers of violence, 3) all workers of iniquity, 4) a false witness that speaketh lies. Of these four God despiseth the workers of iniquity. And it is these two, the wicked and the workers of iniquity, that Jesus and his holy angels shall cast into the fire when they return. CONTINUED explaination: What is wickedness? What is working iniquity? Well those are other questions and a very important ones. Wickedness burneth as the fire. So it is that though one can see the stars, yet one can not hear them. So it is, though one be hated by God, yet God may not yet have cast them altogether out of his sight. Salvation is far from the wicked for they seek not God's statutes. The first statute of God is to abstain from blood, as given to Noah and again by the Holy Ghost, Acts 15. To put it poeticly "No blood, no flood". God is a Holy God. There is no sin or iniquity in him. That which is not faith is sin. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word. When we disobeyed God then there was sin in us. Sin has four phases:1) wickedness, 2) abomination, 3) iniquity, 4) blood shed(death). Therefore, God gave us a mediator, the man Jesus Christ, who gave his blood at the cross in the place of own blood to atone for our iniquities, for those that believe in him (Jesus) and obey him. Thank God. God's will be done. Sincerely: KEBAR

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 11/27/2003 3:29 AM (GMT -6)

Un-Huh, Yeah, Sure . . .

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