I want to preface this article by stating that God loves you. He loves you more than you can even fathom, but as humans we often times focus on how much God loves us and how forgiving God is of our sins. On the other end of the spectrum, we understand that God loves us, but sometimes we question that love, feeling as if we need to earn something in return for such a merciful and graceful love. That is another article all together, but what I want to focus on more closely is how we rarely acknowledge how much God hates sin.
Sin is scary. Sin is what keeps us from going to Heaven, but we sin every day. For myself, I’m one that tries to avoid the harsh negative realities of life. If I feel like I did poorly on an exam, I will avoid looking at my grade until I can’t avoid it anymore. I avoid conflict like it’s the plague, and I often times don’t look at my credit card bill until the week before it’s due. None of these habits are particularly beneficial, but it’s the same with sin. Sometimes I will start my nightly prayer and I won’t even be able to think of a time when I sinned, not because I’m perfect (HA HA), but because I just push it out of my brain and usually act like it didn’t happen. I don’t dwell on the bad, I usually try to avoid it, or just move past it without acknowledging it. Hopefully I’m not the only one, or this article might not make sense.
However, let's get back to the point. There have been scholars and just people in general that often feel like the God of the Old Testament (in the Bible) isn’t the same God as the one in the New Testament. Their argument is that the God of the Old Testament had a fiery wrath towards people who sinned, and the God of the New Testament is associated with love and forgiveness, two very opposite ends of the spectrum. Something to keep in mind is that God is the same God today as He was back in Adam and Eve’s time. With that being said, the same God who washed this entire Earth from the human race excluding Noah, his family, and some animals because of their sin is still the same God we serve today. Sin is not to be taken lightly or to be overlooked. Sin is what keeps us from drawing closer to God, and inevitably sin is what keeps us out of heaven. For example, I always like comparing God’s relationship with us to a family because it is quite a similar relationship, just on a grander scale. Let’s say you live in a family who loves you very much. You know you are loved, but one day you disobey your parents and go to a friend’s house you know you shouldn’t be at, and then you lie about it to your parents. When you get home from enjoying your 3 hours of freedom, your parents quickly find out that you had broken several rules. Now lets stop here for a moment, the love your parents have for you has not changed. That remains the same, but just because they love you doesn’t mean that there will not be consequence. Going back to the story, your parents now ground you for two weeks and take away your privileges to hang out with any of your friends or play video games. Bummer, but you knew the rules and you broke them, so there was clearly going to be a consequence. It’s the same with God. When we sin but choose not to acknowledge or change the sin, then God’s ultimate consequence is hell.
The New Testament does highlight God’s final judgement at the end of the world. The Old Testament highlights God’s love and willingness to forgive time and time again when he desires the people to turn away from their sin and return to Him. We need the Old Testament so we can learn of God’s ultimate power, and occasionally His anger (towards sin, not the sinner), just as we need the New Testament so we can learn of God’s love and forgiveness. From the beginning to the end, there is no difference in the God we serve. God is both a wrathful God of mercy, and a God who hates sin but loves the sinner.
