Does God hate sinners

[Guest shiloh357]

I see this morning that Shiloh and I are in agreement on this, and he has already written a more complete rebuttal but I will post my two cents that I wrote offline anyway. Although in the case of Esau, the idea is of a

[Guest shiloh357]

I have a hard time seeing how God can be said to love someone when he is hardening them and sending them to hell.

The problem is that God is not actively hardening anyone. If you take a block of clay and a block of wax and put them on a sidewalk in the sunlight during the hottest part of the day, the clay will harden and the wax will melt. Why? Is it because the sun wanted the clay hardened the wax to melt? No, rather it was the properties of the two objects that determined their response to the heat of the sun.

In the same way God "hardens" people by virtue of their propensity to be hardened. To say that God creates a person just so he can destroy them and that He forces them to hate Him to that end, is not biblical and is certainly not an accurate representation of God's character.

[EricH]

I have a hard time seeing how God can be said to love someone when he is hardening them and sending them to hell.

The problem is that God is not actively hardening anyone. If you take a block of clay and a block of wax and put them on a sidewalk in the sunlight during the hottest part of the day, the clay will harden and the wax will melt. Why? Is it because the sun wanted the clay hardened the wax to melt? No, rather it was the properties of the two objects that determined their response to the heat of the sun.

In the same way God "hardens" people by virtue of their propensity to be hardened. To say that God creates a person just so he can destroy them and that He forces them to hate Him to that end, is not biblical and is certainly not an accurate representation of God's character.

Which begs the question, how did they get that way in the first place. The answers are not always as straight forward as we would hope

[Reuben Hick]

I have a hard time seeing how God can be said to love someone when he is hardening them and sending them to hell.

The problem is that God is not actively hardening anyone. If you take a block of clay and a block of wax and put them on a sidewalk in the sunlight during the hottest part of the day, the clay will harden and the wax will melt. Why? Is it because the sun wanted the clay hardened the wax to melt? No, rather it was the properties of the two objects that determined their response to the heat of the sun.

Shiloh357, I love you, but good grief, when are you going to stop insulting us by making these claims that are so easily refuted? I mean, I can only shake my head and wonder what is going on over on your side of the world.

What should I do with this passage - get out the Marks-a-Lot?

Jn 12:40 He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them."

and tear out these pages?

"And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh..." (Ex 9:12; 10:1; 10:20,27; 11:10; 14:8; Dt 2:30)

In the same way God "hardens" people by virtue of their propensity to be hardened. To say that God creates a person just so he can destroy them and that He forces them to hate Him to that end, is not biblical and is certainly not an accurate representation of God's character.

I guess this page fell out of the Loose-Leaf Bible too:

Ro 9:21-24

Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

Please, don't give us some tale about how the Potter sits back and merely watches the clay form itself into what it wants to be. I just don't have enough duct tape laying around.

[Reuben Hick]

I have a hard time seeing how God can be said to love someone when he is hardening them and sending them to hell.

The problem is that God is not actively hardening anyone. If you take a block of clay and a block of wax and put them on a sidewalk in the sunlight during the hottest part of the day, the clay will harden and the wax will melt. Why? Is it because the sun wanted the clay hardened the wax to melt? No, rather it was the properties of the two objects that determined their response to the heat of the sun.

In the same way God "hardens" people by virtue of their propensity to be hardened. To say that God creates a person just so he can destroy them and that He forces them to hate Him to that end, is not biblical and is certainly not an accurate representation of God's character.

Which begs the question, how did they get that way in the first place. The answers are not always as straight forward as we would hope

Nice refrigerator magnet, not good theology though. God knows how to harden clay and melt butter, and he also knows how to soften clay and harden butter, when it serves his purpose to do so. His purpose is not to harden people so that he can cast their worthless butts into hell, however, so he uses water to soften the clay of some people

[Guest shiloh357]

Shiloh357, I love you, but good grief, when are you going to stop insulting us by making these claims that are so easily refuted? I mean, I can only shake my head and wonder what is going on over on your side of the world.

What should I do with this passage - get out the Marks-a-Lot?

Jn 12:40 He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them."

and tear out these pages?

"And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh..." (Ex 9:12; 10:1; 10:20,27; 11:10; 14:8; Dt 2:30)

Like I said, I do not view those verses as meaning that God was on the one hand demanding Pharoah's obedience and compliance while at the same time forcing Pharoah to disobey and then punishing pharoah for the very disobedience that he was forcing pharoah to commit.

As in the case of John 12:40, God gives the irretrievablly wicked to their sin, and that is what God did to Pharoah as well. Pharoah's disobedience was His own doing, and God's intervention only served to reinforce what was already there. God did not force Pharoah to disobey, and He did not force the Pharisees to reject Jesus.

I guess this page fell out of the Loose-Leaf Bible too:

Ro 9:21-24

Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

What Paul is not saying is that Pharoah (or anyone, for that matter) was created to be a vessel of dishonor. It was only after he hardened his own heart that God used that hardness to bring glory to Himself and thus causing Pharoah to become a vessel of dishonor.

Pharoah was a wicked man and God, knowing in advance, what Pharoah would do and the choices he made, raised Pharoah up to make an example of him. There is exactly zero evidence that Pharoah could not have repented and obeyed the Lord.

[Reuben Hick]

Shiloh357, I love you, but good grief, when are you going to stop insulting us by making these claims that are so easily refuted? I mean, I can only shake my head and wonder what is going on over on your side of the world.

What should I do with this passage - get out the Marks-a-Lot?

Jn 12:40 He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them."

and tear out these pages?

"And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh..." (Ex 9:12; 10:1; 10:20,27; 11:10; 14:8; Dt 2:30)

Like I said, I do not view those verses as meaning that God was on the one hand demanding Pharoah's obedience and compliance while at the same time forcing Pharoah to disobey and then punishing pharoah for the very disobedience that he was forcing pharoah to commit.

OK, I understand that. But other than it offends your sensibilities, what justifies changing the natural interpretation of the passage? At some point you need to dump this Free Will template that you are strangely compelled to apply everywhere you look. In this case it is blinding you to the explanation for exactly why God hardened Pharaoh's heart:

For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth." Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

(Romans 9:17-18)

It seems to be a pattern that when it comes down to a contest of the Wills, you always root for the Man and heckle God. Somehow it pains you to see God glorified by having His perfect Will played out in His Creation.

As in the case of John 12:40, God gives the irretrievablly wicked to their sin, and that is what God did to Pharoah as well.

Except that the Bible doesn't read that way. Go read Romans 9:17-18.

Pharoah's disobedience was His own doing, and God's intervention only served to reinforce what was already there.

To reinforce what was already there? Didn't you even take a moment to vet out that statement and see the folly in it? Is there some level of rebellion that is in the heart that ends up performing a righteous work of obedience? Furthermore, Paul says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart "to show My power in you", and now you want this power of God to be watered down to some lame "reinforce what was already there" status? God's name will be "declared in all the earth" because he "reinforced what was already there?" If you aren't imagining yourself in a Southwest Airline ad right now, somethings is seriously wrong.

God did not force Pharoah to disobey...

So you say. The Scriptures say otherwise. Hmm, who shall I believe?

... and He did not force the Pharisees to reject Jesus.

I might go with your choice of words regarding the "force" aspect, but the Scriptures did say that God set out to blind them so they "could not believe". (John 12:40) In this case, like any other case of spiritual blindness, those suffering from the malady have twisted values, and in v 43 we read that the Pharisees prefered the praise of men more than the praise of God. Now let that thought roll around in your head. When you die, what will be more important to you? The praise of men, or the praise of God? Even still, what is wrong with the Praise of God while still alive? Doesn't the Praise of God bring about great and many blessings? Other than a swelled head, what good is the vain praise of men? Yet, to the man, each and every Pharisee rejected the Messiah while many rulers, not fearful of being put out of the synagogue, believed in Him.

As can be plainly seen here, Isaiah told of the day when God would blind the Pharisees to suit God's Purpose. Indeed, here in John 12 we see that God did in fact blind them so that would not believe. Perhaps it isn't "forcing", but it sure as heck is a invincible barricade against the door.

Pharoah was a wicked man and God, knowing in advance, what Pharoah would do and the choices he made, raised Pharoah up to make an example of him. There is exactly zero evidence that Pharoah could not have repented and obeyed the Lord.

Oh there abounds plenty of evidence that Pharoah could not repent. (The whole doctrine of the sin nature, and the gospel seem to scream this from every page). Is it suppose to be some freak coincidence that this nexus of Moses, Aaron, Pharoah and the fear of the Egyptians towards the Hebrews came about? You make it sound that God was just bumbling around in his heavenly attic and while lying on the sofa mindlessly surfing the Big Screen Plasma Tunnel O' Time device he caught Pharoah rebelling against God in Hypothetical time, rather than Real time. So now, in this desperate attempt to rob God of His Power and Glory, you conjure up this unnecessary Paradox of God reacting to Pharoah's hypothetical rebellion. A hypothesis that required God to hypothetically do signs and wonders before Pharoah could hypothetically react to all ten of them.

Sane people read "For this Purpose I raised you up". Which oddly enough seems to fit in well with Romans 13:1 where it says that God establishes ALL governments. Then we say, "God put Pharaoh in power". then we notice the word "Purpose" and we see that God arranged all of this for His eternal plan of redemption.

Then you come along and say that God was an opportunist that just happened to catch Pharoah doing some rebellion and God rearranged all of Space and Time in reaction to Pharaoh and to exploit Pharoah's own free will choices to rebellion. Now if God was 100% sure that Pharoah would rebel, how on earth could you possibly posit, in stark contradiction to your own stated position, that Pharoah COULD repent? Being consistent with your own line of thinking, God's Tunnel O' Time machine locked Pharaoh into rebellion each and every time because Pharoah rebelled during the critical hypothetical events. You cannot have God changing all time and space on a reaction to Pharoah's hypothetical actions then have Pharoah free to alter that which God has already seen. In your paradox, Pharoah completely lost his own free will for what He allegedly did in the hypothetical realm.

Where is that duct tape?

[Reuben Hick]

I have a hard time seeing how God can be said to love someone when he is hardening them and sending them to hell.

The problem is that God is not actively hardening anyone. If you take a block of clay and a block of wax and put them on a sidewalk in the sunlight during the hottest part of the day, the clay will harden and the wax will melt. Why? Is it because the sun wanted the clay hardened the wax to melt? No, rather it was the properties of the two objects that determined their response to the heat of the sun.

Shiloh357, I love you, but good grief, when are you going to stop insulting us by making these claims that are so easily refuted? I mean, I can only shake my head and wonder what is going on over on your side of the world.

What should I do with this passage - get out the Marks-a-Lot?

Jn 12:40 He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them."

and tear out these pages?

"And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh..." (Ex 9:12; 10:1; 10:20,27; 11:10; 14:8; Dt 2:30)

In the same way God "hardens" people by virtue of their propensity to be hardened. To say that God creates a person just so he can destroy them and that He forces them to hate Him to that end, is not biblical and is certainly not an accurate representation of God's character.

I guess this page fell out of the Loose-Leaf Bible too:

Ro 9:21-24

Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

Please, don't give us some tale about how the Potter sits back and merely watches the clay form itself into what it wants to be. I just don't have enough duct tape laying around.

Actually, when the Potter is working the clay, sometimes the clay, because of its nature, spins out of control, so the potter slams it on the ground again and starts over. If the clay keeps on getting marred in the hand of the potter, the potter may give up and turn it over to a different, dishonorable purpose.

Am I reading this right? You are saying that "sometimes" God is not in control? Exactly where did you get that idea from the passage in Romans? Also, the passage says the Potter already has in mind the purpose for each pot that is made. If I am interpreting your comments correctly, we occasionally have rogue clay with a mind of its own (an interesting anthropomorphism). Now what this would seem to suggest is that the clay from a particular batch of clay is not well mixed such where portions of the batch are compliant and other portions are not, so now we have to ask "who screwed up the clay" ?

I can hear the objection now, "You are reading too much out of this analogy". And I respond, "And you too inserted too much into this analogy"

Remember, the context is that God has predestined some people for glory, and God has also predestined some people as "vessels of wrath". It is a hard doctrine to accept, but just because we may not feel comfortable with it in our rebellious souls, is not cause for us to judge God. (for that is what is happening when we alter His word for our comfort and convenience)

[Reuben Hick]

What is the practical application of believing that God hates the sinner? It means that if we sin, God hates us, even if we think that we are justified by Christ. Of course, his blood does serve to put a kind of 'blinder' over God's eyes, he looks at us through rose-colored glasses, through the blood of Jesus Christ. So even if we do sin in Christ, if that is possible, God does not see it as sin and therefore does not hate us. But if we are outside of Christ and sin then he hates us, and all who are outside of Christ do sin.

The practical application?

How about God is perfectly Holy and Righteous and that which is not perfect cannot stand in His sight?

How about our sin and rebellion, no matter how simple and trivial we may think it is, is so offensive to a Holy God that He, in order to be Just, must find a punishment in direct "eye-for-an-eye" equivalence to the offense it brings to His Righteousness?

How about that God's love is not measured by the number of souls He saves (which will always be less than infinite), rather by how He can love those who infinitely offend Him by sending His own Son to take the punishment that we are all due?

If God didn't hate the sinner, then His love isn't all that much in comparison - you know, that mountain vs valley thing? If God didn't hate the sinner who did the sin, then He must not be all that Holy or Righteous.

What I don't really understand is why many here want to excuse the sinner and punish the abstract concept of sin. That would be like excusing the serial rapist/murderer while ranting about how evil and wrong raping and murdering is. People who love Righteousness and Justice throw the perp in prison (or in Texas, we kill 'em) because of the guilt in performing rape and murder.

Most of us have the good sense to punish the perp, but get angry and offended when God does it.

Go figure. I guess we value our own ethics and feelings far more than we respect any of the attributes of God.

[Guest shiloh357]

OK, I understand that. But other than it offends your sensibilities, what justifies changing the natural interpretation of the passage?

I am not changing the natural interpretation at all. It has nothing to do with "offendnig my sensibilities."

At some point you need to dump this Free Will template that you are strangely compelled to apply everywhere you look. In this case it is blinding you to the explanation for exactly why God hardened Pharaoh's heart:

For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth." Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

(Romans 9:17-18)

The mercy spoken of in v. 18 is the mercy God gives the unrepentant before He gives them over to their sin. It is a different type of mercy than what God offers to the vessels of mercy mentioned later in v. 23. That is verse is talking about salvation. Who are the vessels of mercy? To whom is the gift of salvation available. Paul sheds more light on this in Roman 11:32 which is still following the same line of thought that Paul began in chapter 9. Paul says:

For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. Rom. 11:32 This is speaking of the mercy of salvation being available to all, not to a select group.

It seems to be a pattern that when it comes down to a contest of the Wills, you always root for the Man and heckle God. Somehow it pains you to see God glorified by having His perfect Will played out in His Creation.

Which is nothing but a straw man. The fact that God wants all men saved and this mythical "unconditionally elected" group, does nothing to detract from His glory at all.

God is not a sadist. He does not bring souls into existance just so He can crush and destroy them. Only a twisted mind would teach that God is "glorified" in such a thing.

QUOTE

Pharoah's disobedience was His own doing, and God's intervention only served to reinforce what was already there.

To reinforce what was already there? Didn't you even take a moment to vet out that statement and see the folly in it? Is there some level of rebellion that is in the heart that ends up performing a righteous work of obedience? Furthermore, Paul says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart "to show My power in you", and now you want this power of God to be watered down to some lame "reinforce what was already there" status? God's name will be "declared in all the earth" because he "reinforced what was already there?" If you aren't imagining yourself in a Southwest Airline ad right now, somethings is seriously wrong.

That is exactly what is taught when you take both Exodus and Romans into account. It is clear from the both texts that God left the way open for Pharoah to repent. God's hardening of Pharoah's heart, again, was not motivated out of some sadistic desire to put the screws to Pharoah. To claim that God was burning the candle on both and ends and preventing Pharoah from rendering the very obedience He demanded of Pharoah is just sloppy, incompetent and utterly grotesque "theology." If parents treated their children the way you say our heavenly father treats people, they would be locked up for abuse.

Oh there abounds plenty of evidence that Pharoah could not repent. (The whole doctrine of the sin nature, and the gospel seem to scream this from every page).

Exactly zero evidence. Pharoah could have repented at anytime. God always provides an avenue for repentance.

It would be pointless for God to call men to repentance, but then prevent them being repentant and then judging for their unrepentace if God Himself is responsible for it in the first place . There no justice in that, and there is certainly nothing about that, which glorifies God.

QUOTE

... and He did not force the Pharisees to reject Jesus.

I might go with your choice of words regarding the "force" aspect, but the Scriptures did say that God set out to blind them so they "could not believe". (John 12:40)

It is the same as before. Their blindness was already in place. Every commandment of God has is accompanied with the possibility of its fulfillment. God always supplies the grace to obey and to fulfill what He demands of us. Not all of the Pharisees were blind and Jesus had a magnificient following among the regular people, so much so that His enemies were compelled to put Him on trial in secret as to avoid a riot AND they had sought to have Him put to death as an enemy of Rome so that they would be off the hook in the eyes of the masses. The blindness from God only came to His enemies who were already demonstrating a propensity to such blindness.

Jesus blamed Pharisees for their unbelief. Jesus lamented that He longed gather Jerusalem (speaking to Jewish religious leaders) under His wings as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but it was Jerusalem that would not allow it, not God. Jesus did not blame God's purpposes, but the blame for their unbelief was placed squarely, 100% on Jerusalem.

Sane people read "For this Purpose I raised you up".

Intelligent and competent exegetes of Scripture have the ability to know the difference between the raising someone up and creating them for destruction. God, nowhere declares that Pharoah was brought into existence by God for the purpose of being a "vessel of wrath." Rather God raised Him up to become this AFTER He demonstrated his wickedness and stubborn unrepentant rebelliousness. God, in His sovereignty, used Pharoah to make an example of Him.

Now if God was 100% sure that Pharoah would rebel, how on earth could you possibly posit, in stark contradiction to your own stated position, that Pharoah COULD repent?

God knew the ultimate choices that nations and people would make, but God always sends prophets to call for repentance. God NEVER blocks the road, but God is always extending His mercy to the wicked providing genuine opportunities for them to repent when when He knows what their choices will be. God did not force Pharoah to be disobedient, and that is not what it means when it says that God raised Pharoah up for His purposes.

God did not have to come down and look for Himself to see the wickedness of Sodom and Ghommorah, but He did anyway.

God always presents genuine opportunities to repent even to those who He knows will reject His mercy, and He does this in part because loves them and in part because it will show the justness of His judgment against them after the window of mercy has been closed.