Do I, in fact, hate God?

“We hate God.
Nobody really seeks him on their own.”

“I disagree. Some might hate him, but I don’t.”

“But, you are agnostic.”

“Yeah, but I believe in a God of Love.”

“So you don’t hate the God you believe in and/or don’t know about?”

“Of course not!”

“But what if that God you believe in is not real? Then could it be possible that you actually hate the real God?”

“No, because I believe we all basically believe in the same God, but none of us can know about him very well.”

“What about the God of the Bible specifically? If God were that God exactly, could you love that God?”

“Well, I don’t believe the real God is like that. . . .”

Have you ever had a conversation something like this where the person did not even want to admit the sheer possibility of something? I have and it makes me more and more convinced of God’s word. There’s a passage, a few of them, that I had a hard time taking at its word. For example, Romans 1 says that people refuse God because they are “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” to which I promptly responded, “No, that must be hyperbole. There are lots of sincere people trying to find the truth. I was one of them.” But are they? Was I? Is that really the condition I found myself in when God called me? Or was I rather delighted to stay in the apathy I had wrapped myself in and wait until I was old and grey before I sorted out and committed to the truth about God? In light of Romans 3:11 and 5:10, Tim Keller once said, “If you deny you are an enemy of God, then you’re really an enemy of God.” God took me, while still an enemy, reconciled me to Him and adopted me as a son and an ally.

If only more people would investigate Christ Jesus and the Bible more even handedly. If only they’d merely pose the “what ifs” of testing out the worldview of Christianity to see that it is sound rather than presuming that it isn’t when it doesn’t fit their own worldview (but does it fit what we know of the world on its own measure?). We have “uneven scales,” judging one worldview solely and only by another, and by so doing we’re unable to get away from our narrow cultural bias to think-test another point of view—to wear the other man’s shoes. If only more souls, when posed with strange Bible verses about, say, humanity’s spiritual deadness and hatred toward God, would react honestly with the Bible’s view of God in mind rather than their own god when they respond, “No, I love God. I just don’t agree with Jesus’ view of God.” Then they’d at least realize that if Jesus was speaking truly, they do hate God—the God of the Bible.

Jesus taught, “Whoever hates me, hates my Father also.” (John 15:23) And, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God.” (John 8:42)

So if your heart has convicted you and the Spirit is tugging at your soul to seek the truth about God, and if you desire forgiveness for breaking the most important moral commandment (to Love God), you may find yourself saying something like this: “Thus have you said: ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’

Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”
(Ezekiel 33:10-11 ESV)

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