I am sorry, but you did not answer my question. From the true (but enigmatic) proclamation that “God is Love,” you infer a great deal that seems to be foundational to your view of God, men, and redemption. God is Love. Additionally . . .
“For the LORD thy God [is] a consuming fire, [even] a jealous God.” (De 4:24 AV)
“God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry [with the wicked] every day.” (Ps 7:11 AV)
“For God [is] the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding.” (Ps 47:7 AV)
“But God [is] the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” (Ps 75:7 AV)
Genesis 1 says that God created man in his own image; Psalm 139 says that God saw us before we were born; James 1 says that God chose to give us birth; Jeremiah, and maybe everyone else too, was chosen by God before they were born.
I'm saying that I can't imagine that God could create, choose, nurture, watch over people and hate some of them.
And Jesus died for us while we were still lost, godless, sinners - he didn't wait for us to come to him before he decided to love us.
Of course love means more than being nice, sending out pleasing, positive vibes or whatever. Love is a choice, not just an emotion or nice feeling; it sometimes has to be tough, discipline or rebuke someone, or tell them things they may not want to hear. That is not the same as hating someone. In Scripture, the Lord says, "those whom I love I rebuke and discipline."
I have provided one example where the Bible expressly teaches that God hated one person before that person was born.
No, you have provided one place where the Scripture says that God hated a person.
But did the writer of those words really mean hate in the way that we use it today? Or were they just using the language of the time, that God did not choose Esau to be the father of the 12 tribes, so he must have hated him?
Hate is a strong, negative word, it means the absence of love, the desire to cause someone pain - always thinking the worst of them. That is not what God does because God is love. As I said, God's love sometimes means he has to discipline a person, it sometimes means that he will be angry or disappointed when that person lets him, or themselves, down; it doesn't mean he hates them.
You offer that the term “hate” may not mean what we understand it to mean today. However, in order to sustain the “God loves everyone unconditionally” doctrine. We would have to embrace the notion that God both hated and loved Esau.. This seems highly unlikely.
Not at all. You can love a person but sometimes not like them very much, or you can love a person but hate their actions or lifestyle. I've heard parents say that about their children - "I love them", (meaning that they are my flesh and blood, I gave birth to them and brought them up, I want what's best for them and want them to be happy,) "but I hate what they're doing", (maybe behaving badly, dropping out of school, doing drugs, alcohol, getting in with the wrong crowd, or whatever.) The likeihood is that such parents would still keep talking to their children, bailing them out, making excuses for them and bending over backwards to help and support. Why? Because they belong to them. God loved Esau, he just didn't choose him as he chose Jacob.
Children often say "I hate you" to parents who won't let them do what they want. They don't mean it though.
We use this word quite loosely sometimes, and mean different things by it. But I don't see anything in Scripture that reveals God as being a God who hates some of his creation. Unless maybe you are of the view that only some are chosen by God, and Jesus only died for a select number. I guess you could say that then. But that still doen't fit with the Biblical revelation of a God of love, and a God who is a perfect heavenly Father.
All very troubling questions I know. However that does not change what the Scriptures say.
It's not as troubling as the view of a God who created mankind, but decided beforehand that he hates, or will hate, some of his creation. Or of a God who loves us only as long as we do good; that if we mess up too often then he will no longer love us and send us to hell, (which is what the OP was asking.)
Jesus said that if human fathers, who are imperfect, know how to give good things to their children,
how much more will God give good things to his? He told us to call God Abba - which means daddy, it's an intimate term. He told us to be perfect as our Father is perfect.
John says that whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. He also said that God is light and there is no darkness in him at all.
If God hated, rejected, abandoned Esau and wanted nothing to do with him, why let him be born? Why make Rebecca go through a difficult pregnancy with twins, knowing that one of them might as well have been born dead for all the notice you were going to take of him? And that goes for people today too.
However that does not change what the Scriptures say.
As that verse, and use of the word 'hate', contradicts what I see in the rest of Scripture about the nature and love of God, then it cannot mean what it seems to say to us as 21st century Christians. Because that would mean that Scripture contradicts itself, which cannot be. That would mean that John
should have said, "God is love - except to some people whom he hates and shows his hatred". Or, "For God so loved a few countries in the world that he gave his Son, so that everyone he had chosen beforehand and selected to be saved; would be." Or maybe Paul should have said, "
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but only
some have been chosen to be saved, because God's love is limited and selective."
Still, the Scriptures teach . . .
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (Joh 3:36 AV)
I don't have a problem with that; it doesn't say that God doesn't love everyone nor that he doesn't want them to believe in his Son. Only that if they don't, they will not have eternal life. When someone who has constantly rejected God dies, God honours their choice and they do not, and cannot, spend eternity with him. They have died as unforgiven sinners. It doesn't mean that God didn't love them, didn't want to save them and isn't grieved that they rejected his Son and his amazing gift of love and life. It means that the person stubbornly and wilfully threw it back in his face, and God honours the choice that they have made. In his love, God does not force us to believe.
His love doesn't mean that he will say, "oh it's ok, doesn't matter how you behaved and treated others, come in to heaven anyway."
