Does God hate the sin but love the sinner?

“The cliché, God hates the sin but love the sinner, is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty Psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, His wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Romans 1:18ff) and on the sinner (John 3:36).”
-D.A. Carson
The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, Crossway, 2000, p. 70.

(HT: Reformed Voices)

Peter serves as a pastor-teacher, at home and abroad, resourcing gospel-centred communities.

3 thoughts on “Does God hate the sin but love the sinner?

  1. That’s an interesting quote. I’ve been thinking about the idea itself recently. John Macarthur said something to the effect: If God loves the sinner and hates the sin, then why does the sinner go to hell?

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