Does God Love the Sinner, but hate the Sin?

Usually, Troll doesn’t just plow into a topic that falls into the area of Ogre, but today will be different.  Two of my dear friends, in the same week, used the old saw “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.” In both instances, I stated that I did not agree, but in neither case was the circumstance appropriate to elaborate.  Since this perspective is so pervasive in the US, I thought it needed a good discussion.

The statement above implies a couple of things.  First, it implies that deep down inside, man is basically good.  Secondly, it implies that even if the sin of Adam was federally imputed to all of mankind, the role of the Atonement becomes a clearing of the slate.  This further implies that the standard of God can be less than perfection, because Jesus gives the gift that keeps on giving, unless you are Roman Catholic, in which case you’ve got some work to do in Purgatory.  Both of these examples are works theologies, and typical of the liberal perspective.  Let us look at this statement from a theology of Grace instead of a theology of Works.

Is man basically good?  I’ve addressed this issue many times in the past, but here are just a few passages that speak to the issue.  Jeremiah 17:9, Psalms 5:9, 14:1-3, Isaiah 6:5, 59:7-8, Ecclesiastes7:20, and of course Romans 3:9-12.  We have a problem of sin.  Notice how Paul describes the condition of sin in Romans 5:12-21.  He is contrasting the imputation of sin by Adam on the whole human race to the imputation of perfect righteousness by Christ to the elect through the gift of faith from the Holy Spirit.  The problem here is that we are born sinners and we will die sinners.  We require an alien righteousness, a righteousness that is outside of ourselves, a righteousness that we can obtain from someone else, to satisfy the Justice and Glory of God.  And here is the rub: without this alien righteousness, our own deeds, our own works, condemn us to hell. 

Therefore, can we truly say that God loves the sinner?  Perhaps, if we argue that while we were still enemies of God, He provides us with this perfect righteousness, then we can say that God loves us anyway.  But here is the problem with that line of reasoning.  God doesn’t save everyone.  There is an elect remnant, Romans 9, that God has held back for Himself from before time.  For these, He loves us and gives us the free gift through Grace of faith in the meritorious work of Christ on the Cross.  So, does God love us due to any particular virtue of our own?  Of course not.  He loves us because of the imputed righteousness of Christ that is added to our account.  Without this imputed righteousness, He truly does not love us, but instead, we suffer His Just Wrath.

What if we come to the problem from an Arminian, Semi-Pelagian or Roman Catholic perspective of the Atonement?  What does this mean?  The work of Christ on the Cross was sufficient for all people to wipe our slates clean, in these systems.  Our free will, being thus cleansed of sin, is now capable of following the commandments.  Our salvation is based upon our efforts and works during this life.  If we make an effort, God will forgive the rest in the first two cases, or give us a time in Purgatory in the third case.  Now, I’d like for a moment to discuss how this violates the Holiness of God.  We are saying here that God will accept sinful people into heaven.  Check out Matthew 5:48.  The standard is perfection.  No joke.  Perfection.  Dwell on that bad news for a minute.  Do we really expect that God’s love implies that He will simply overlook our sin?

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that all who believe in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.  John 3:16.  We all know this verse, but we seem to turn off our brains when reading it and add some stuff that just isn’t there to the equation.  God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that all who believed in Him and followed the commandments and took one step towards Him and prayed the prayer at the altar call and voted Republican would not perish, but have everlasting life.  Hmmm.  All that stuff is not actually in there, (except the bit about voting Republican.  It’s in the Grand Old Pachyderm Revised Standard Version (GOPRSV).)  As C.S.Lewis put it in the Screwtape Letters, just get them to add something to the Gospel, add anything to the Gospel, and then it’s no longer the gospel.  What this verse does say is that the work of Jesus on the Cross is 100% efficacious for all believers.  This means that salvation is based upon faith alone.  Certainly, I could have selected many other passages, particularly in the Pauline epistles, that are more explicit on this subject, but this is from John, and it is very well known.

Finally, God hates sin.  God abhors sin.  Any who sin, or are born in the condition of sin in Adam, in other words everyone, is condemned to hell.  God went about a rescue mission for an elect remnant of native vines and wild vines (Jews and Gentiles) in which He not only provides a perfect sacrifice that turns away God’s wrath, but also reconciles us to God through Christ Jesus’ blood.  Our sin, the sin of all believers, before we were born, was imputed to Christ.  His righteousness was imputed to all believers, and this righteousness is credited to our account on the Last Day.  Therefore, He lived the Life we could not live.  He died the death we could not die as a perfect sacrifice.  He arose from death and ascended into Heaven, becoming the firstborn from the dead.  On the Last Day, He will raise all of us and clothe His elect in His own righteousness, so that we may walk boldly in Judgment, confident in a perfect righteousness that isn’t our own.  God gets to see us through this perfect righteousness and His Holiness and Justice remains intact.  God, in this way, is not diminished by our sin.  We are accepted immediately and completely, full inheritors of His Kingdom.

Why did God go through all of this for us?  I’m sure He’ll tell us all someday.  Until that Day, the Last Day, we must trust in the scripture and believe.  Our reaction to this gift of faith and mercy is obedience and humility.  We will sin again and again as long as our bodies are IN Adam (until we die), and though it drives us nuts and upsets us that we cannot be the perfect man that Christ was, we persevere in the certain hope that our Salvation is secured in Christ.

That, my friends is why I do not agree with the opening proposition.  The theology of works is not my claim to salvation.  I’ll take grace, thank you.  Don’t give me what I deserve.  I’ll simply accept that free gift that the Holy Spirit has given me.  As bad is the bad news really is, the Good News is much better than you can possibly imagine.

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