“If God is love, how can He hate anything?” That is a fair question. The Bible says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). It also tells us that God hates certain things. We need to hear both, even if they are hard to hold together.
Lets begin with Proverbs 6:16–19:
“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who declares lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers.”
Some words in that passage deserve a closer look. “Haughty eyes” describes pride that looks down on other people. A “false witness” is someone who lies about another person. The one who spreads strife causes trouble between people who should be at peace. God places these alongside the shedding of innocent blood and the planning of evil. He does not call them harmless because they are common.
God also rejects worship that covers a life of injustice. In Amos 5:21–24, He says He hates their festivals and does not accept their offerings. Then He calls for justice and righteousness. The problem was not that they had gathered for worship. They were worshiping God while refusing to live rightly. He would not accept their songs as a substitute for obedience.
The festivals were days when the people gathered to worship God. They brought offerings and sang songs, but they were also treating others unjustly. God rejected their worship because their lives did not agree with what they sang. We should hear that warning today. A church can hold services, sing beautiful songs, and speak about loving God while its people ignore sin or mistreat others. Worship does not cover disobedience. God calls us to live by His Word after the singing ends.
Psalm 5:5 says something even harder: “You hate all who do injustice.” Injustice means treating people wrongly or denying them what is right. The verse speaks about people, not only their actions. We should not quietly change its words because they trouble us. God’s hatred of evil is more serious than the saying “God hates the sin but loves the sinner” can fully explain.
Does that mean God has no love for sinners? No. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.”
Ezekiel 18:23 says:
“Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord God, “rather than that he would turn from his ways and live?”
We must also ask what we should hate. Romans 12:9 says:
“Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.”
“Abhor” means to hate something so strongly that you turn away from it. That begins with examining our own lives. It is easy to condemn pride in someone else while overlooking it in ourselves.
But God’s hatred of evil gives us no permission to hate people who have wronged us. Jesus said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). We can oppose what a person does, speak the truth about it, and still pray that the person will repent and be saved. We must not use God’s holiness as an excuse for our own cruelty.
So how can the God who loves also hate? He is holy. He does not look at evil and call it good. He judges evil, yet He has given His Son to save sinners. That should make us take sin seriously, beginning with our own, and take His mercy seriously too.
The question is not only, “What does God hate?” We should also ask, “Am I excusing something God tells me to turn away from?” His Word gives us reason to examine ourselves and to come to Christ.