I hate golf. I don’t know why I can’t get the hard, little, white ball up on the smooth, level green in regulation. Why is putting so hard? The hole is bigger than the ball, and it’s just straight in, right? Oh, it is so frustrating! It’s the hardest game I ever tried to play. I hate it, but I love it. Golf courses are beautiful, and I like being in such places to enjoy God’s creation. A challenge is always there, and I like challenges. Regardless of who might be with me, I am playing against myself and trying to improve. Sometimes I do par a hole. That’s exciting! Moreover, the friends with whom I may spend a few hours are a blessing to me. They are equally challenged, and they struggle right along with me. It’s a great game. I love it. But, how can I love something and hate it at the same time. That doesn’t seem right. Is it even truly possible?
Through the prophet Malachi, God said to the remnant of Israel, “I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated” (Malachi 1:2, 3). Hundreds of years later, Paul picked up the argument in a letter to the Roman church saying, “As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’” (Romans 9:13). In Malachi, God was not talking about individuals. He was speaking of Israel’s precedence over Edom in the divine plan of salvation, not individual election. Israel, the nation, was descended from Jacob, and Edom, the nation, was descended from Esau. Likewise, Romans 9 is not a discussion of damnation or of salvation but of how God uses people to carry out His will providentially. Jacob and his descendants were the better choice for the production of the Messiah. But “hated” is a strong term to use, is it not?
When such a word as “hate” is used of God, it is a figure of speech that ascribes human emotions to deity. Certainly the type of hate that humans so often have is not to be literally attributed to God. Also, “hate” is sometimes used to suggest that one is loved less than another. Moses said of Jacob that “he loved Rachel more than Leah” and that “the Lord saw that Leah was hated” (Genesis 29:30, 31). In Matthew’s account, the Lord said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Luke’s record of that teaching uses the word “hate” to express the same idea (cf. Luke 14:26). I believe this is the sense in which “hate” is used of God in Malachi and Romans.
God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). He does not love; He is love, the ultimate of love. The very definition of “love” is God. Yet, He loves some more than others even though He loves all. He “so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). He is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Still, in Solomon’s list of seven things God hates, there are “a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers” (Proverbs 6:16-19). The simple point is this: It is possible to love and hate the same one or the same thing at one and the same time, at least in some sense. And God hates sin but loves the sinner. He loves some sinners more than others (cf. 1 John 1:7). He is wishing that we would repent so that He can love us even more.
–Andy