Does God hate sinners

[Neopatriarch]

Neopatriarch wrote:

So when Romans 9:13 says, "As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" it really means 'Esau have I loved less'? If that's the case then why not have it also say 'Jacob have I hated less'? No. God really and literally loved Jacob and really and literally hated Esau. I have a hard time seeing how God can be said to love someone when he is hardening them and sending them to hell. And what anguish God must be in to see that those whom he loves are going to hell?! I thought God was eternally pleased with himself. Am I wrong?

First of all, you have to distinguish between Esau, the man, and Esau, the nation.

Where do you find that the man, Esau, was hardened and sent to hell? Or any individual for that manner?

There is no need to bring in the Edomites here. In Romans 9:13 Paul is using Esau, the individual man, as an example how God predestines people to hell. In context, part of Paul's point is that the Jews as a nation are not all elect. You must be a true Jew to be one of God's elect.

Second, the verse in Luke does show the use of the word

[Guest shiloh357]

Now what do you do with Ezekiel 5:13:

13

[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

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

[EricH]

The question that needs to be answered by those that believe people have complete free will, is why do some choose God and some do not choose Him. Free will is not an answer to that question. Free will is the mechanism through which the choice is made, but it is not the answer to why the choice is made. If 2 people with equally free wills end up making different choices, what causes the different choices?

In the same light, sin cannot be the reason that some choose God and some do not. Since all people have sinned (Romans 3:23) and all are dead (Romans 6:23) this cannot be the reason some choose God and some do not.

[EricH]

What I meant was that butter/clay statement is a clever line but it only invites the question,

[EricH]

1. How can God hold people accountable for their genes and parents (since these are the things that are causing them to make the choices they do?)

2. Who was it that greated them with the genes they had in the first place?

3. Who determined what parentage the people would have?

4. Who is in control of the circumstances of their lives?

This is where we are told to trust that our awesome, wonderful, mighty God is capable to judge righteously, and do justly, according to every person

[eric]

Only one question for the forum at this point.........Did God wait for Moses to be sent to set the captives free, before He hardened the Pharaoh's heart or did He, as the calvinists would have us believe, predestine his heart to be rebellious and hard, from the foundation of the world?

As shiloh pointed out, that the pharoah, had the same chance to repent as God gave to

Cain. Maybe the pharoah has repented since, but at that particular time, God used the opportnhity to demonstrate His power and the world would capture the glory of His sovereignty......just a thought.

[patricia1]

When my heart was hardened in was not God who hardened it. It was I. God allowed it!. Going to hell is not where God sends anyone but is where we decide to go by denying Him. I have done extensive search on the scripture in regards to Esau...If it was done by someone here the Greek will reveal more than one knows. It was not the person in was the condition of the mans heart!!! Even that esau could have repented and did not...His heart sought to Kill Jacob after harboring resentment and hatred..Thus wanting to wipe out Gods people...the nation of Israel.

[eric]

Well partially,, but the one thing in Romans 8:29 is this.......The kjv, goes like this,

"for whom he did foreknow he also predestined etc etc. So if you put the emphasis in the past tense verb did it sounds like He only forknew some and not all. so if you were to carry on and say.....for whom He didn't foreknow ??????.

I am not trying to be difficult here, just trying to tidy up some stuff in my mind.....like this for example. Jer1:5, before I formed the in the belly, I knew thee, before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

This one instance that God did foreknow Jeremiah, but does that mean Joe and Jane doe and little eric too.. In other words did God foreknow that pharoah would be set up for the oposite reason that Jeremiah was. One to Glorify God to the nations through righteousness and one for wickedness so that through his wickedness, God would be glorified.

Making sense??

[tsth]

Do not neglect the mention of God's "long-suffering", with regard to the hardening of Pharoah's heart. That term alone has great meaning with regard to the process.

Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

Romans 9:22 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,

1 Peter 3:20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

And last but certainly not least:

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

If Pharoah was predestined to be lost, there would have been no need for "longsuffering" on God's behalf, would there?

In His Love,

Suzanne