Why Does God Hate Sin?

The Cup of Sin

How is it that people have such a perverse understanding of the nature of God? Do we think He is some kind of dummy? This shows us how little we know about Him and His nature. The religious world has painted a picture of God as this big mean angry old man stomping around heaven with a big stick telling us not to have a good time; ready to strike you if you are doing something wrong. People have this image of God being all pissed off all the time. This is not the case at all. At least not yet, that day will come at Judgment. First let me remind you of my post about why God made man. He made mankind for love. Our self centered little lives can’t comprehend the degree in which God loves us. Eph: 3: 17: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18: May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19: And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” Why am I talking about the love of God in relation to sin? I was kind of hoping a light bulb would go on in your head. Did it?
It is because of His Love that God hates sin. Sin hurts the object of His love, therefore He HATES it. Sin doesn’t hurt God anymore. It hurt Him on the Cross, but now it hurts us and keeps us from Him because it destroys faith, and our lives.
I wonder how many parents out there when disciplining their children don’t explain the reason for the discipline. The child asks “Why?” and the reply comes back “Because!!!” When we understand the reason for the correction, it becomes much more effective. It helps us to see the wisdom in following the will of our parents or Gods word.
Some sin only affects us, but in most cases it affects others as well; usually many others. Some is willful, some is from habit, some is from deception and some is because we don’t understand or know any better. We sin because it is our nature, Rom: 7: 21: I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22: For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24: O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? In Romans: 6:23: it tells us “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Bible banger types use that scripture as a threat, but it was just meant as instruction, declaring what happens as a result of sin. It works death in your members.
Man in himself is incapable of pleasing God, so no matter how hard we try, we can not. That issue was paid at the cross. God is able to embrace us because we have been washed by the blood of Jesus. So the issue of sin as an obstacle to come before God is no longer the case. The reason to flee from sin now is not because it hurts God but because it hurts us the object of His Love. Most sin comes from pride at the root, and pride is the result of separation form God. Ultimately we are all insecure, so we try to escape from that insecurity through many different paths. We were told by the Devil in the Garden that we are “Gods” but for some strange reason the rest of creation hasn’t noticed that you are really all that wonderful; so you set about to prove it. People do this by many different means. They try to impress you with their talent or their wealth and show off how ever they think they can impress. Sometimes we even resort to embellishing how wonderful we are with lies. Why do we do this? What we really want is to be loved. When we try to impress, and exult ourselves, all we do is create resentment and/or stir in others the same deception; a competition to be better than you or a struggle to keep up. That won’t get you love, but it will get you resented. I have wonderful news. If you want to be loved, give Love. You will reap what you sow. Francis of Assisi prayed; Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
You don’t have to be rich and famous to give love. Others will lap it up like a sponge.
You can spend your life striving to be rich or famous, but without love, you are nothing 1Cor:13.
I believe God would have us know why sin is wrong and bad for us. For example: Sex is inferred to be so sinful, but why? We tell our young people to abstain from sex but hardly ever give them any real reasons why. I have preached that; many times the good can be the enemy of the best. God gave us sex as a type of the ecstasy we can experience with God. We are the bride of Christ. It is an expression of love and oneness. The marriage is a picture of the Bride and Bridegroom, the relation between God and man. Just as we are to have no other God and be loyal to God we are to be loyal to one another in marriage. This helps us to understand the fullness of what God has given; but sex can be destructive in many ways. It can become as a lust that will consume you, never able to get enough, which then becomes all about self gratification. If you feed a fire it becomes bigger, it does not satisfy the fire, the more you feed it the bigger it gets. It can break the heart of another, not to mention that a child my result. Then of course there are STDs to be concerned with. I bring this up because sexual sins seem to be the one of main focus of the Religious Right. It is something they can convict most of, yet it is the one that the Lord seemed to have the most mercy for. I could go on and on about the various traps that can be associated with sex, love and self gratification. My main point is to have a look at yourself and see if your life is on a self destructive path, or if it is exploiting another, because therein lays the evils of sex, what it can do to you and others.
John boiled sin down into three categories. 1Jn:2:16: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, (sex and gluttony) and the lust of the eyes (covetousness), and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” It is important to truly believe in Gods forgiveness. Otherwise when we try to pray we feel guilt. Then you begin to believe a lie and fall away. God wants to save us and bring us into the fullness of what he has for us. If our heart is to please God we come boldly before the throne of grace Heb: 4:16 and our attention will go from our wretchedness to His wondrous splendor. He is like a refiner’s fire and it is in his presence that we will be conformed into his image.
So far in this post I have been discussing the kind of sin that the humble heart realizes he is guilty of as he tries to draw near to God. In a scene it is a good thing to feel your unworthiness and that you question your own heart; but it is of utmost importance that we trust in Gods forgiveness. I believe we understand more of Gods forgiveness as we forgive others. In fact God forgives us in the same proportion as we forgive others. Remember what Jesus says in the Lords Prayer? “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.” Thus Forgiving builds our faith to truly receive and trust in the forgiveness of God. 1Pt:5:6: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:”
I would have to say that the worst kind of Sin is that which most are blind to; The Pride of Life. It is pride that is the most destructive to the world. It is the haughtiness of the Religious Right that turns them into Pharisees; looking to take the speck out of everyone else’s eyes, while ignoring the log in there own. Trying to convict others of sin and lay heavy burdens on them, to keep people oppressed with guilt. They strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. What was really the true sin of Sodom? Ezekiel tells us. Ezek: 16:49: “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, PRIDE, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness (wealth) was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 50: And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.” (For you Rapture people out there, again it was the wicked that were taken). I believe this is a sin against the Holy Ghost. It is unforgivable because it is unrepentant. It is unrepentant because they are blind to it; they are blind to it because they know not the Father nor the Son, regardless of what their doctrine may be.
When Jesus was in the Garden and prayed that “this cup” be removed and He sweat blood, it was not that he was afraid of the suffering and the death on the cross. What do you suppose was so repulsive to him? It was what was in the cup, and what would happen when he took it. It was the Sin and Iniquity of all mankind. This Holy Body that had never known sin was now to become sin for us. When he took the cup of sin it separated him from the Father; A separation that had never occurred before. Now we can begin to understand why he was repulsed to have to take this cup; “but not as I will but as Thou willeth”. This is why when he was dying on the cross he cried “Father why hast thou forsaken me?” Not that God had forsaken Him, but it appeared to Jesus that He had; because He was now like us, blinded by sin. Oh what Great LOVE He has for us to have laid down His life and experience separation from the Glorious Light of the Father.