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The Gospel of Hate

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 20, 1914

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 34.

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The Gospel of Hate

By J. S. WASHBURN

J. S. WASHBURN
IN this world of opposites it is impossible to love unless we also hate. He who loves sin will hate God. He who loves God will hate sin. It is impossible to be neutral. “He that is not with me is against me.” When the eternal Father was publishing to the angels of heaven and to all the universe the highest possible recommendation of his only begotten Son, he said: “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”
He who loved us so much that he died for us has hated our sins with an infinite hatred. His command to those who would be like him is, “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.” The degree of our love to God is measured by our hatred of sin; and when a man really hates sin, he will begin by hating the sin that is nearest to him; that is, his own sin.
To “abhor” is to hate with repulsion and with horror. We never cherish or keep near us that which we regard with horror and disgust. When we allow the divine Spirit to place within us the divine hatred for sin we shall ask for and surely obtain power to put away that sin. Truly we need a baptism of hatred for sin. If we could see sin as God sees it, we should hate it as God hates it. We should regard sin with the shuddering horror with which a mother regards the bottle of poison that has just taken the life of her loved one; for every sin has in it the poison of death. We should regard it with the intense hatred a father would the deadly rattlesnake that had caused the death of his son.
The ancient legend of the father who went to rescue his two sons wrapped in the terrible coils of a deadly serpent vividly illustrates the attitude of God toward the sin and the sinner. He strikes desperate blows with all his strength to destroy the serpent. These blows may seem to be aimed at his loved ones. The serpent is so closely wrapped about them that they seem to be one and the same, but they are not. When God strikes against a sin in our lives,—an evil habit, a mighty weakness, that, coiling about us is strangling our very life,—it almost seems that he is seeking to destroy us; but it is not so. He seeks to destroy the serpent that he may save our lives. He hates the sin, but loves us.
So God’s messengers, who are sent to seek and to save the lost, hate the sin but love the sinner. How careful the aim, how skillful the blow, lest in seeking to destroy we should wound or kill the sinner! Who is sufficient for these things?—He alone who has asked for and has received divine wisdom.
O, how many times have we come short in this matter! We have hated the sinner rather than the sin. We have injured, perhaps mortally wounded, the very one God sent us to save. With what divine compassion, and tender, delicate, kindly, Godlike wisdom should we, as workers, deal with those who are sincere and honest, but entangled in the coils of falsehood and evil. Even with those who are manifestly wicked and corrupt, how careful should we be not to bring against them a railing accusation.
Christ, “when contending with the devil . . . durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.” We must fearlessly denounce sin; but ever there must be in our hearts, even while hating that sin that is destroying the sinner, the tenderest, deepest love for him, which would make us willing at any time to die for even the sinner who hates us and would destroy us.
Only God can hate the sin and love the sinner; and the moment we are left to ourselves and our natural weakness, we shall love the sin and hate the sinner. May God teach us to hate as Jesus hated, and to love as the Saviour loved.
Philadelphia, Pa.