Is There Such a Thing as RIGHTEOUS HATRED or RIGHTEOUS ENMITY?
Yes, there is such a thing as righteous hatred or righteous enmity. Believers are instructed to “be imitators of God” and “follow God’s example” in Ephesians 5:1 and the Scriptures clearly show that the LORD hates certain things:
16 There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.Proverbs 6:16-19
4For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness;
with you, evil people are not welcome.
5 The arrogant cannot stand
in your presence.
You hate all who do wrong;
6 you destroy those who tell lies.
The bloodthirsty and deceitful
you, Lord, detest.
7 But I, by your great love,
can come into your house;
in reverence I bow down
toward your holy temple.Psalm 5:4-7
4 The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord is on his heavenly throne.
He observes everyone on earth;
his eyes examine them.
5 The Lord examines the righteous,
but the wicked, those who love violence,
he hates with a passion.Psalm 11:4-5
In response, someone might understandably ask: ‘But I thought God loved the whole world, as it says in John 3:16?’ Let’s read that popular verse:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The Greek word for ‘love’ in this passage is the verb form of agapé (ah-GAH-pay), which refers to practical love, as observed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. In other words, God so loved the world that he did something practical — the suffering & death of His Son — to redeem those who are willing to repent and reconcile (Acts 20:21). However, this obviously does not mean that God has tender affection for every person on Earth, past & present. In other words, God isn’t close to every person and adores them with warm fuzzies. There’s another Greek word for love in the sense of tender affection & respect and that is phileo (John 11:36).
With this understanding, you don’t have to have phileo love for people — affection/respect/closeness — to agape love them. Why? Because agape love refers to practical love and has little to do with affection, that is, liking the person. This explains how we can fulfill Jesus & Paul’s instructions to love our enemies (Luke 6:27 & Romans 12:20-21). Do you like your enemies, that is, phileo love them? Are you close to them? Of course not. But this isn’t a problem because we are not commanded to phileo love our enemies, we’re told to agape love them. Are you following?
This explains why agape love is often defined as “unconditional love” since it is practical in nature and, again, not dependent upon liking the individual or on how well they treat you. I should add that loving someone in an agape sense — i.e. practically loving them — does not just refer to gentle love since tough love is sometimes in order.
We know from the Scriptures that “God is love” (1 John 4:16) and so our Creator loves (agape) the world, just as the most popular passage states, John 3:16. What this means is that God is extending practical love to all human beings even though unbelievers are unregenerated “children of wrath” by nature (Ephesians 2:1-5). I was only saved and “made alive with Christ” because of God’s great agape love!
But God does not phileo love everyone, that is, have tender affection for them. He doesn’t have a close bond with every human. Why else do you think the Scriptures instruct us to “come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8)? If we have to make a willing effort to come near to our Creator in order for the LORD to come near to us, that obviously means God isn’t near to everyone. For instance, do you think God is up there observing the many pedophile priests and saying, “Oh, I just have so much warm affection for these sick perverts?” Do you think the LORD was close buddies with genocidal political monsters, like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot? Of course not.
You can read more about the different types of love in the Bible here.
Hatred of Evil is Righteous
The Bible says “Let those who love the Lord hate evil” (Psalm 97:10). Furthermore, we know that Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24) and wisdom plainly says: “To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech” (Proverbs 8:13).
A critic wrote me and said he felt I was “hateful.” To which I responded: “The only thing I hate is evil, lies and corruption.” As the Bible says: “The righteous hate what is false” (Proverbs 13:5).
This is why I hate the Democrat Party & Liberal idiotology because so much of what they say & do is based around gross lies, slander, corruption and immorality (RINOs too, of course). They’re satan’s favorite political party in America in light of the fact that they’re anti-Christ, anti-JudeoChristian, pro-thug, anti-police, pro-lawless, pro-strife, pro-perversion, pro-deviance, pro-baby killing (including letting abortion survivors die on the table), pro-silencing Conservative voices and more. All of these things are the bad “fruit” of Dems/Libs — their beliefs and policies — and Christ said that we can identify false prophets “by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-23).
While I don’t like hardcore Dems/Libs — that is, I don’t have any affection/respect for them and therefore I’m not close to them — this does not prevent me from loving them in the practical sense of agape love, which of course includes tough love when necessary, like “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15 & John 7:7) .
Righteous Hatred / Righteous Enmity / Righteous Hostility
‘Hatred’ means “enmity” or “hostility” and, as detailed above, there is such a thing as righteous hatred, righteous enmity or righteous hostility. Righteous hatred is not evil, but good. Why? Because it’s righteous.
Consider Hebrews 10:13, which references Christ’s “enemies” who will eventually be made his “footstool.” ‘Enemies’ in the Greek is echthros (ech-THROS), which is where we get the feminine echthra (EKH-thrah) translated as “hatred” in Paul’s list of works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21. So there is such a thing as righteous hostility or righteous enmity; and this explains passages that say point blank that the LORD hates the arrogant, the violent, etc. (e.g. Psalm 5:5 & 11:5).
The wages of sin is death, which the Almighty Creator must ultimately execute on those who reject the gracious offer of reconciliation and eternal life through the gospel; that is, those who refuse to repent (Acts 20:21). This is the “second death” that the unrepentant will face where “raging fire will consume the enemies of God” (Revelation 20:13-15 & Hebrews 10:26-27,31).
Notice that those who refuse to repent are called the “enemies of God.” They’re God’s enemies by their own choice (James 4:4). The LORD must carry out this “second death” because He’s perfectly just; and divine justice demands the execution of the penalty of sin. However, the LORD is also love, which is why He’s offering a way out for sinners; i.e. redemption. The Creator doesn’t “want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Please notice the balance of God’s righteous hatred and agape love. Too many believers swing to one extreme or the other and end up with error: The LORD is either a big mean cop in the sky who can’t wait to punish sin and abolish sinners or God is so loving he would never judge & punish sin. The truth is in between these two extremes. As they say, the middle road is the way to go. See the article Hermeneutics — Proper Bible Interpretation for details.
Close
Most believers are ignorant of these biblical truths and don’t realize that enmity can be righteous and justified. Did you know that the LORD loves justice and hates crime (Isaiah 61:8)? This explains why He ordains human governments to punish wrongdoers; that is, criminals (Romans 13:1-4). Believers are called to imitate God (Ephesians 5:1) and therefore we are to love justice and hate crime as well, which involves seeing to it that criminals are apprehended and punished according to the God-ordained governing authorities.
Obviously carnal hostility (hatred) is different from righteous hostility. Carnal hatred is rooted in enmity based on arrogance, envy, jealousy and rivalry, which are all works of the flesh (Proverbs 6:16-19 & Galatians 5:19-21). People who regularly and unrepentantly walk in carnal hostility are “in the darkness,” even those who say they’re believers. That’s what John was getting across in 1 John 2:9-11. Being “in the darkness” is STAGE ONE level spirituality, which is the lack of spirituality; you can read more about the stages of spiritual growth here.
Related Topics:
Is There Such a Thing as RIGHTEOUS ANGER?
The Four Types of LOVE in the Bible
Jesus Christ — Milksop or Mighty Lord?
What Does Love “Always Protects” Mean?
Deny Yourself or Love Yourself — Which is It? (Both)
“Be Merciful, Just as Your Father is Merciful”
Understanding “the Right” and “the Left” from a Biblical Perspective
The Left’s Unbalanced View of Christ & Christianity
Is Name-Calling Ever Appropriate?
GRACE: What is It? How Do You Grow in It?
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