We looked at divine hatred in the Old Testament yesterday. Today, let’s examine human hatred as it is reflected in the New Testament.
The Greek verb “to hate” is found 40 times in the New Testament.
There are two masters in the world: God and Satan (represented in Matt. 6 as love for wealth). Jesus says in Matthew 6:24 that we must hate one and love the other, be devoted to one and despise the other.
Jesus promises His followers that we will be hated by all if we stay faithful to His teachings (Matt. 10:22). But God will save us from the hand of all those who hate us (Luke 1:71). In fact, it is a blessing when men hate us for standing up for the Truth of God (Luke 6:22-23) because it reveals where our true devotion lies. At the same time, Jesus calls on us to do good to those who do hate us (Luke 6:27).
Jesus also requires us to hate our father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even our own lives, in order to be His disciples (Luke 14:26). There are certainly passages that teach us to love these various family members so we need to understand this statement by Jesus as being an exaggeration, a hyperbole. We must love Him supremely, foremost, if we are to be His disciple.
Those who hate Christians are often simply those who hate the light and refuse to see the light because their behavior is evil and they don’t want their evil exposed (John 3:20). It’s also true that sometimes, Christians bring hatred on themselves because we are not teaching the Truth with love and kindness. Let us make sure that the hatred is directed at us because we are standing for the Truth and not because our attitudes do not reflect the Truth.
The world hates Jesus because He testifies that its deeds are evil (John 7:7). Jesus was much more concerned about honoring His heavenly Father than He was about not offending people. Except, Jesus was able to walk that line very effectively. We have trouble doing that; let us be careful that in our walk that we lean more toward not offending God than not offending humanity!
There is, in fact, an extended discussion of hatred of Jesus and His followers in John 15:18-25, wherein Jesus quotes from Psalm 69 as we have already observed. If people hate Christians for our stand for the truth, then they also hate Jesus, and if they hate Jesus, they hate the heavenly Father.
Paul describes our lives before we became Christians, in Titus 3:3, writing that “we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” So, even while there are behaviors that we ought to hate, and people ought to know that we hate those behaviors for their own sake, we should not be known as hateful people. That is a good way to burn bridges.
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In 1 John 3:13, John writes that we ought not to be surprised if the world hates us. But, the letter is full of calls for us not to hate our brother (2:9, 11; 3:15; 4:20).
DIVINE HATRED IN THE NEW LAW:
It is interesting that the only references to divine hatred I have found in the New Testament is in the very last book of the Bible, Revelation and it has to do with false teaching: “Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (2:6).
DEALING WITH HATRED:
- Make sure we hate what God hates.
- Don’t become so consumed with even righteous hatred that this is all you are known by.
- Make sure that hatred does not degenerate into something that is or becomes sinful, like anger and other sinful behaviors.
Hate what God hates. That is the only way to be righteous. Hatred of evil is the counterpart to love of the righteous.
Paul Holland
