What God Loves and Hates

In Psalm 5, David writes: “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers” (Psalm 5:4-5, ESV).

Most of us are uncomfortable with the idea of our loving God hating something, yet David’s statement that God hates all evildoers isn’t problematic; it is both profound and instructive.

A popular phrase used freely in the church today is “God hates sin but loves the sinner.” We all get the gist of this, but in a sense, the phrase separates the sinner from the sin in a way that bypasses the sin committed. Scripture makes clear that God has something else in mind.

We know that God so loved the world that he gave his begotten Son for it, and this love includes all sinners. His sovereign desire is that all humankind would repent and be saved. 

On one hand, scripture gives us a powerful sense of God’s love, yet we cannot deny the equally powerful sense in scripture of what God hates. He can love the world and the people in it and yet also hate what those people do, hate the wickedness they bring, and the harm and destruction they cause in others’ lives. 

This twofold character of loving and hating does not end with God. It has to be a part of our lives, transforming our hearts and informing our minds. If we have God’s love in us, we will hate the evil done by those who oppose God’s love. For instance, if you love children, you’re going to hate abortion and child abuse. If you love peace, you’re going to hate war, and the death and destruction it brings.  

God is love, and he is also just, which means he hates evil. In his awesome love, he will not stand by forever while evil is done. In time, he will pour out his wrath of righteous justice upon wicked evildoers. God is faithfully at work, and David told us the Lord won’t let evildoers continue in their ways. God is sovereign over them, too. 

^{This devotional has been adapted from Gary Wilkerson’s book, The Altar of Our Hearts: An Expository Devotional on the Psalms.}