"Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies."
These highly-politically-incorrect verses (above) are often misunder-
stood. Believers are not to hate sinners the way liberals and other un-
believers hate Christians: because we stand in the way of their sin. In-
stead, Christians are to hate unrepentant sinners the way God does (to some extent): we both love *and* hate them at the same time. We hate them for their detestation of our Savior; but we love them be-
cause they are created in the image of God (and we desire their salva-
tion).
It is not good enough to use the old unbiblical formula: "Love the sin-
ner/Hate the sin." God would have us get much more personal and passionate than that--even as He Himself does.
[Puritan quote of the day: "He who does not know the evil of sin as fully as he ought cannot hate it as much as he should." --Nathaniel Vincent, in, "A Discourse concerning Love"]
