Does God Hate Sinners?

Does God Hate Sinners?

God hates sinners!

I was web-surfing through church’s and pastor’s websites I found on Google and one site had that emblazoned across the top.  Another site said that God hates Islamics and that He was “stoking” the fires of Hell higher and hotter just for them!  Yet another said that the spreading of the Sahara Desert into formerly lush and tropical central Africa was a result of God’s wrath on the devil worshipers living there. You’d think that God was mad at unsaved people.        

John 3:16 

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

   From these verses I would be led to believe that God loves sinners and wants them to come to him so they don’t perish and spend eternity separated from Him. Verse 16, the most popular and most quoted verse of all the 31,373 verses in the Bible, makes a strong and positive declaration of God’s love.  I’ve read this verse over and over using many different translations and none say, ‘For God so loved the world, except Moslems, devil worshippers and religious fanatics ……..’  This verse declares that God loves the world.  By implication, “the world” means everyone.  That means all the nice people and all the jerks and all the old people and all the young people, (even the ones who let their pants hang too low and show their underwear,) and He even loves the overweight people who wear their PJs to the store.  He loves the whole world in its entirety.  God did not wait for the world to turn to Him before He loved the world; He loved and gave His only begotten Son to the world while it was still alienated from Him!

   The expression of this great love is in the fact he gave a truly priceless gift.  I’ve read of times when some rich man would give a woman a diamond the size of Rhode Island and the press would write it was a “priceless gift.”  God’s gift to the world is so big and so valuable and so magnificent it can’t be described by a word as small as “priceless.”  He gave a one-of-a-kind gift – His only begotten Son.  His love didn’t just lead Him to feel sorry for the plight of a fallen world; He moved to do something about it.  He gave His only Son to reconcile the world to Himself.

   So who benefits from this expression of God’s love?  Does it get bestowed on everyone automatically?  No.  God loves the world, but the world does not receive or benefit from that love until it believes in Jesus, the gift that the Father gave.  When He says, “believes in,” He means much more than just knowing about the gift or some intellectual agreement that the gift is real.  To receive a gift at Christmas you need to do more than get up Christmas morning and walk to the tree and see the pretty wrapped packages and squeal, “Oh goody!  I got gifts!” And then walk away leaving them piled under the tree unopened.  You need to take up the gift and open it and use it and keep it for it to be a useful gift.  You need to not only believe Jesus is real but you need to go to Him and receive Him to yourself.  Only then can you receive God’s great gift.

   So what is God’s intention in giving this gift?  God’s gift will save people from eternal destruction.  God’s gift gives eternal life.  God saw a world full of people who were destined to spend eternity separated from Him and offered a bridge to let them cross from this destructive path to the path leading to eternal life.  This bridge is God’s only begotten Son.  No other bridge exists.

   How long will this gift last?  Just for eternity.  I’ve said many times that we really don’t understand eternity.  We are finite beings living in a world slaved to time.  All we see is this world and all we experience is the movement of time.  We cannot see or experience any other way of life.  But God’s gift is outside of this experience and when we pass from this life we will see and experience this timeless life we call eternity.

   How can anyone read John 3:16 & 17 and say, “God hates sinners?”

   In closing I pass on this chart I found and it sums up John 3:16 so well.  

The Seven Wonders of John 3:16:

God - The Almighty Authority

So loved the world - The Mightiest Motive

That He gave His only begotten Son - The Greatest Gift

That whoever - The Widest Welcome

Believes in Him - The Easiest Escape

Should not perish - The Divine Deliverance

But have everlasting life - The Priceless Possession

Stephen Cram                            February 3, 2013                      Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8