The following was inspired by a recent exchange I had with a Christian friend—let’s call him “Reuben.” I'm indirectly speaking to him, while at the same time preaching to myself.
Reuben has become increasingly outraged at the perversion of LGBT activists: not only their private behaviors, but their corrupting of children, especially, and their hostility toward Christians and other moral traditionalists. He's told me that “if God punished the first-century Jews—His own covenant-people—for rejecting the Messiah, I see no reason why He wouldn’t smash sexual predators today.”1
I wouldn't suggest otherwise.
But aren't there other considerations?
Reuben quoted Psalm 5:4-6:
O God, you take no pleasure in wickedness; you cannot tolerate the sins of the wicked. Therefore, the proud may not stand in your presence, for you hate all who do evil. You will destroy those who tell lies. The LORD detests murderers and deceivers.
Strong language there—but contrary to Reuben's claim, this passage doesn't “literally tell us God hates these people.”
a) My friend isn't considering just how inclusive these verses are. God “hate[s] all who do evil,” which obviously is a much broader category than what Reuben called “the LGBT mafia.” Psalm 5:5 and similar verses are universal.
And it doesn't matter that some people’s favorite sins aren’t, as Reuben put it, “simply mistakes.” Have you ever sinned either knowingly or on purpose,2 rather than “by mistake”? Of course you have! We all have. Like Psalm 5:5, verse 6 is also very broad: “those who tell lies.” This too includes virtually all of humanity. Who and what God “detests” is far broader than those who fall into the category of LGBT activists.
God detests my sin as much as theirs. In fact, I'd argue that He hates my sins more, because the LGBTers don't claim to know Him. I do.
So, according to Psalm 5—as interpreted by my friend—God's going to destroy all of us, right?
b) No, because this psalm is targeting sinners who refuse to repent. “Do you think that I like to see wicked people die?” God asks. “Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live.” (Ezekiel 18:23) This points us to the very core of God's being: He is “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4); “a merciful and compassionate God” who is “eager to turn back from destroying people.” (Jonah 4:2)
John 3:16 and a many related verses make it clear that God loves all of humanity, which logically includes LGBT activists, as heinous and revolting as their sins may be. Bible passages that talk about God's wrath on sin still leave room for His love and offer of salvation toward everyone. Even those who, at the moment, are hardhearted. “Indeed, the ‘right time’ is now. Today is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2)
c) My friend is being self-righteous. He assumes God should look at him differently for some reason. But the truth is that there's an infinitely bigger moral gap between God and Reuben than there is between Reuben and sexual deviants. God hates Reuben's sin more than Reuben hates Alphabet activism.
That should humble him. In time, I hope it will.
d) In Scripture the term “hate” doesn't always mean what English-speakers mean by “hate.” It can be used figuratively to mean “reject” or simply “love less (than someone else).”
The classic example of this way of talking comes from Jesus himself: “If any of you come to Me without hating your own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and yes, even your own life, you can’t be My disciple.” (Luke 14:26)
It should be obvious this isn't meant literally. It means that our love for Christ/God should be so much greater than our love for anyone else, that it's like comparing love with hate. Or, if we had to choose between Christ and anyone else, we should choose (“love”) Him and reject (“hate”) the other.
Back in Psalm 5, then, “hate” means God rejects sinners who are unrepentant. He can't carry on a relationship with someone who refuses to walk with Him. “If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful [to Himself], for he cannot deny who he is.” (2 Tim. 2:12-13)
It doesn't mean God doesn't care about them or want them saved (Ezekiel 18:23; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9; and again, John 3:16).
But what about the word “detest” in Psalm 5:6? Doesn't this describe how God feels toward extreme, dug-in sinners?
It certainly does. Psalm 106:40 pairs the same Hebrew term3 with the word “anger”: “the LORD’s anger burned against his people, and he abhorred his own special possession.” To “abhor” means to be repulsed by someone or -thing. So, yes, God finds the recalcitrant sinner repulsive.
That must mean this kind of person is doomed, right?
No:
Even so, he pitied them in their distress and listened to their cries. He remembered his covenant with them and relented because of his unfailing love. [Psalm 106:44-45]
Abhorrence doesn't negate mercy. Repulsion doesn't negate repentance and restoration. It means that God has different sides to Him: to be self-consistent, He must both judge sin and offer sinners a way out.
That's kind of the point of the Cross.
Returning to Psalm 5, Reuben zeroed in on verse 10: “O God, declare them guilty. Let them be caught in their own traps. Drive them away because of their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.”
a) Again, this has to be understood in light of God's desire for sinners to repent and be saved. Verse 10 presupposes that some people will not repent—without negating those who still might.
b) The line “Let them be caught in their own traps” doesn't require that God intervene in a special way; nor that He's necessarily reached the end of His patience. It means David is asking Him to withdraw His regular outpouring of grace so as to let the wicked experience the natural consequences of their evil. Romans 1:18-32 seems to illustrate God doing this very thing.
“But these are people who don’t love their kids,” Reuben insisted. “They love themselves and the attention. Parents are supposed to die for their kids.”
Of course! The Bible refers to this very thing:
You should know . . . that in the last days . . . people will . . . consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and . . . have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. [2 Timothy 3:1-3]
That word “unloving” seems generic, but the Greek word used here is more specific. It's astorgŏs, literally meaning “without natural affection.” This applies especially to family members who stop caring for each other. Paul had even said to Timothy earlier that “those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers.” (1 Timothy 5:8)
So, as you can see, the Bible is quite aware of such people. Yet it never gives any hint that they're beyond saving. God doesn’t “hate” them (in the English sense). What they're doing is certainly worthy of hate—but they can still be forgiven.
(c) Psalm 5 is an example of what are called the “imprecatory psalms,” in which the author calls upon God to punish or destroy the wicked. While these psalms teach us about God's view of sin—they also reveal the emotional life of the authors. They're expressing their anger and frustration. And God encourages us to “pour out [our] hearts to him, for [He] is our refuge.” (Psalm 62:8)
But it doesn't necessarily follow that we should want or say everything the psalmists want or say. After all, the imprecatory psalms themselves don't actually tell us we should want what their authors wanted.
Does this interpretation suggest that those psalms aren't divinely inspired? No. Because not everything the Bible records is good or true: the record itself is what's good and true. The best example of what I'm talking about is this: “You won’t die!” (Genesis 3:4) That's the Devil deceiving Eve.4 The Bible accurately records Satan’s lie.
In the same way, it's possible the imprecatory psalms, being divinely inspired, accurately record their authors’ mental states without necessarily endorsing them. Obviously, since they were fallen human beings, they struggled with sinful desires—such as vengeance—just as we do. They may in some cases have believed they were more righteous than others.
That was certainly true of the prophet Jonah. Here's what happened after God decided not to destroy the Ninevites, because they'd repented:
This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry. So he complained to the LORD about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, LORD? . . . I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, . . . eager to turn back from destroying people.” . . .
The LORD replied, “Is it right for you to be angry about this? . . . Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?” [Jonah 4:1-2, 4, 11]
Likewise Jesus' response to his disciples:
He sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival. But the people of the village did not welcome Jesus . . . . When James and John saw this, they said to Jesus, “Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them [Luke 9:52-55].
He taught them the opposite approach:
“. . . I say to you who are listening, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who are cruel to you. . . . If you love only the people who love you, what praise should you get? Even sinners love the people who love them. . . .
“But love your enemies, do good to them . . . because [God] is kind even to people who are ungrateful and full of sin. Show mercy, just as your Father shows mercy.” [Luke 6:27-28, 32, 35-36]
Sadly, I don't think my friend Reuben is following this command.
But after saying what I just said, I'd better make sure I do it myself.
This means, in part, being careful about applying psalms that have a theme of what might be called “cold, hard justice.” I specifically think of those psalms when I think of certain politicians or rulers who are extremely corrupt and/or oppress their own citizens, especially my fellow believers.
So I pray two things for them:
That they will be exposed to the Gospel multiple times, so as to be saved. But…
If they will never be saved—and God knows if they will or won't—that He would destroy them, so as to halt their destroying.
In other words, I want these people to know God's mercy, if they're willing to accept it—but His wrath if they will not.
This dovetails with what martyred saints are asking from God as you read this article:
. . . I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony. They shouted to the Lord and said, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us?” [Revelation 6:9-10]5
Yet I am never justified in hating these “targets” of my prayers.
So my friend is simply wrong when he tells me that “the godly attitude is to hope the Lord destroys the Alphabet activists and protects the innocent—and then SHOUT FOR JOY!”
For the time being, since we don't know who will or won't repent, godly hope means hoping they will repent. But a time will come for rejoicing over God's destruction of destroyers: when we finally see who ended up repenting and who didn't:
“Rejoice over [the world's] fate, O heaven
And people of God and apostles and prophets!
For at last God has judged her
For your sakes.”Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a huge millstone. He threw it into the ocean and shouted,
“Just like this, the great city Babylon
Will be thrown down with violence
And will never be found again.“In your streets flowed the blood of the prophets and of God’s holy people
And the blood of people slaughtered all over the world.”
But even then, the joy is over the eradication of evil itself—with which the unrepentant chose to identify—not because human beings are suffering God's wrath. God Himself doesn't take joy in that.
“People usually repent from stealing,” Reuben claimed. “Many people repent if they’ve murdered. Many people are repentant for lying. Not many people are repentant for taking it in the ___, and then also forcing these things on their children. . . . There’s not many cases where the LGBT mafia is repentant, because they are generally reprobates.”
Sorry about the implied crudity in the third sentence, but I chose to include it for a specific reason. It reminds me of the ancient Corinthians' pet sins: “Do not be deceived!” the Apostle Paul warned them.
Neither sexually immoral people, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor passive homosexual partners, nor dominant homosexual partners, nor thieves, nor greedy persons, not drunkards, not abusive persons, not swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. [1 Corinthians 6:9-10]
The bolded words specify the sins in view. The single Greek word behind “passive homosexual partners” refers to
being passive in a same-sex relationship, effeminate esp. of catamites, of men and boys who are sodomized by other males in such a relationship.” . . . “[T]he passive male partner in homosexual intercourse . . . . As in Greek, a number of other languages also have entirely distinct terms for the active and passive roles in homosexual intercourse.”7
The second key term, rendered in the Lexham Bible as “dominant homosexual partners,” refers to
“a male who engages in sexual activity w[ith] a pers[on] of his own sex, . . . one who assumes the dominant role in same-sex activity . . . . It is possible that [arsenokoitēs] in certain contexts refers to the active male partner in homosexual intercourse in contrast with [malakŏs], the passive male partner.”8
So, like my friend, Paul and other believers must have written them off and wished ill on them, right? . . . No; instead, Paul preached the Gospel in one of the most morally bankrupt cities on Earth at the time, and later reminded them that
some of you were these things [including the LGBT activists of their time], but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. [v. 11]
People sin . . .
. . . but . . .
. . . God saves.
One of Reuben’s favorite words is reprobate. A reprobate is someone who is so hardhearted toward God that they absolutely will not repent; they are doomed.
The problem with slinging that word around is that it's indiscriminate: it's like swinging a machine-gun back and forth rather than aiming at specific targets. And as fallible human beings, unable to peer into the hearts of others, we can't actually identify who the reprobates are.
Only God can.
Reuben: you ain't God.
Nonetheless, my friend appeared to have forgotten this when he went on to challenge me with: “What does the bible say should happen to LGBT?”
Well, Reuben . . . the same thing that should happen to you. And to me. Because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and “all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual rag.” (Isaiah 64:6)9
So, when my friend voices what other sinners deserve, I hope eventually he realizes that instead of rejecting those trapped in sin, he needs to reject “bitterness, rage and anger, shouting and slander, and any and all malicious thoughts—these are poison.” (Ephesians 4:31).
I'm paraphrasing him to some extent. His language was much harsher and, well, “colorful.”
“Knowingly” and “on purpose” aren't actually the same thing.
תָּעַב, tāʿaḇ {taw-ab}
Although Revelation is chock-full of symbolism, nonetheless I believe this passage represents a real interaction going on between martyrs and God right now.
See also Revelation 11:17-18; Revelation 16:5-6; and Revelation 19:1-3. A superb primer on the book of Revelation is Steve Gregg’s Revelation: Four views | A Parallel Commentary.
Editors, New English Translation (Richardson, TX: Biblical Studies Press, © 1996-2017), 1Cor. 6:9 n5 (accessed 23 Oct. 2023).
Ibid.
Yes, “menstrual” is the literal meaning of what English Bibles typically tone down as “filthy.” The term is specifically meant to make the reader or listener feel repulsion. See also Romans 3:19; 6:23; Ecclesiastes 7:20.
AJ, Please resubmit, and I will post.
AJ, Please resubmit, and I will post.