Hebrews 1:8,9; Psalm 97:10
Unto the Son, he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity.
Ye that love the LORD, hate evil.
GEORGE HARPUR (died 1899): To be like Christ we must love righteousness as He loved it, and hate wickedness as He hated it. To love and hate as He loves and hates is to be perfect as He is perfect. The perfection of this love and hate is moral perfection. Many a one hates iniquity, not for its own sake, but for the sake of its consequences. Such a hatred is not Christ’s hate.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Men never entertain a real hatred towards sin unless God illuminates their minds and changes their hearts.
THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): The first work of the Spirit is to make a man look upon sin as an enemy and to deal with sin as an enemy, to hate it as an enemy, to loathe it as an enemy and to arm against it as an enemy.
RICHARD SIBBES (1577-1635): It is evident that our conversion is sound when we loath and hate sin from the heart: a man may know his hatred of evil to be true, first, if it be universal: he that hates sin truly, hates all sin…If our hatred be true, we hate all evil, in ourselves first, and then in others; he that hates a toad, would hate it most in his own bosom. Many, like Judah, are severe in censuring others (Genesis 38:24), but partial to themselves.
THOMAS ADAMS (1583-1656): Many are like barbers, that trim all men but themselves.
RICHARD SIBBES: Our hatred is right if we can endure admonition and reproof for sin, and not be enraged; therefore, those that swell against reproof do not appear to hate sin.
RICHARD CECIL (1748-1810): I have seen many people very desirous of being told their faults; but I have seen very few who were pleased when they have received the information.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Hypocrites can never endure to have their beloved lusts touched.
ALEXANDER COMRIE (1706-1774): As soon as saving faith in any degree is wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost, there is war declared against all the enemies of Jesus in the soul; and the soul has the intention in the power of God, never to listen to any proposals of peace with any sin, but contrariwise to say unto all, “Begone, begone!”
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Repentance is a hatred of sin; it is a turning from sin and a determination in the strength of God to forsake it…It is a hatred of evil, a sense of shame, and a longing to avoid sin, wrought by a sense of divine love.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): True repentance, furthermore, shows itself before the world in a thorough breaking off from sin. The life of a penitent man is altered. The course of his daily conduct is entirely changed. A new King reigns within his heart. He puts off the old man. What God commands he now desires to practise; and what God forbids he now desires to avoid. He strives in all ways to keep clear of sin, to fight with sin, to war with sin, to get the victory over sin. He ceases to do evil. He learns to do well. He breaks off sharply from bad ways and bad companions. He labours, however feebly, to live a new life.
C. H. SPURGEON: No man may say he hates sin, if he lives in it.
J. C. RYLE: True repentance, in the last place, shows itself by producing in the heart a settled habit of deep hated of all sin.
RICHARD SIBBES: True hatred is fixed; there is no appeasing it but by abolishing the thing hated. Thirdly, hatred is a more rooted affection than anger; anger may be appeased, but hatred remains and sets itself against the whole kind.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): He sees that it is the greatest evil in the universe―not only as it is the cause of his sufferings, and has exposed him to the miseries of hell―but because it is the pollution of his soul, and the degradation of his nature, and has rendered him vile and abominable in the eyes of God.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Let us remember that “our God,” against sin, “is a consuming fire,” Hebrews 12:29. There is no question about this. God hates evil. God’s anger is displayed against it, and His wrath will be poured out upon it―He hates sin, and He will punish sin.
THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): Sin is a debt. “Forgive us our debts,”’ Matthew 6:12. It is a debt which binds over to the wrath of God; why should we love sin? Does any man love to be in debt? Sin is a disease. “The whole head is sick,” Isaiah 1:5. Will any man hug a disease? Will he love his plague-sores? Sin is a pollution. The apostle calls it “filthiness,’ James 1:21. It is compared to leprosy and to poison of asps.
J. GOODE (circa 1798): Sin is an enemy to us—are we enemies to Sin?
C. H. SPURGEON: We cannot love the Lord without hating that which He hates. We are not only to avoid evil, and to refuse to countenance it, but we must be in arms against it, and bear towards it a hearty indignation.
RICHARD SIBBES: Therefore look to thy heart, see that thou hate evil, and let it come from sincere looking to God. “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil,” saith David; not only avoid it, but hate it; and not only hate it, but hate it out of love to God.
ROBERT MURRAY M’CHEYNE (1813-1843): There can never be peace in the bosom of a believer. There is peace with God, but a constant war with sin.
C. H. SPURGEON: Let me tell you that if you have a peace today, which enables you to be at peace with your sins as well as with God, that peace is a false peace. Unless you hate sin of every sort, with all your heart, you are not a child of God, you are not reconciled to God by the death of His Son. You will not be perfect; I cannot expect you will be without sin; but if you are a Christian, you will hate the very sin into which you have been betrayed, and hate yourself because you should have grieved your Saviour thus. But if you love sin, the love of the Father is not in you. Be you who you may, or what you may—minister, deacon, elder, professor, or non-professor—the love of sin is utterly inconsistent with the love of Christ. Take that home, and remember it.
