Sunday, October 7, 2018

Does God Love Everyone? Or Does He Hate Some People?

Calvinists will insist that God can't Love everyone because lots of verses refer to God's "Hate" or "Eminity" or "Loathing" or says he "abhors".  It's not just Calvinists though, the Pastor I do not like to name also does this and he considers himself an enemy of both Calvinism and Arminianism.  If you believe in the doctrine of endless torment or annihilation you can't honestly claim you think God Loves everyone including the unbelievers.

I could simply question the accuracy of equating those Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words with the modern English notion of "Hate".  However even the modern meaning of "Hate" does not always carry the meaning they want it to, i.e. it's not mutually exclusive to Love.  The opposite of Love is indifference, there is a common expression that you can only truly Hate what you Love.  The only movies I've ever described myself as Hating are parts of Franchises that I Love, if I didn't care about the property in the first place I'd just forget about it.  And the only people I've ever truly felt like I hate are members of my own family when I'm really mad at them.

There is no single verse in Scripture that says the three word phrase "God Loves Everyone", but there is similarly no single verse clear statement on The Trinity. Jesus said God Loved The World in John 3:16, and in John 12 He says He will draw (can also be translated Romance) all humans unto himself.  Romans 11:32 says God will have Mercy on All.  1 John 2:2 specifically says Jesus died for the Sins of the whole world not just believers.  1 Timothy 2:4-6 also clearly says God will have all to be saved.  1 Timothy 4:10 says Jesus is the Savior of All Men not just believers.  And I John also teaches that God Is Love.

It's what's said about Esau in Malachi 1 and Romans 9 that is the crux of how Calvinists build their doctrine of God's Hate.  At the bottom of this post I'll link to an interesting Peter Hiett Sermon on the subject, but first I shall try to give my own take.

First of all there is no Verse anywhere in Scripture saying God "Hates" Esau in the present tense, both relevant verses say He "Hated" in the past tense.  In Hosea 9:15 God says he hated the children of Israel and loves them no more, same Hebrew word Malachi uses.  But when you read the whole book that clearly didn't stick.  Indeed this is a problem for the Calvinist misuse of "God never changes" since they specifically say God's Love or Hate for someone never changes.

The reason why these Esau verses are vital to Calvinism is because of the contrast to how God Loved Jacob.  They assume they must be equal, that the Hate for Esau must be just as irrevocable as the Love for Jacob.  But Scripture says the opposite, Psalm 8 says God's Anger is for but a moment, while the Psalms also repeatedly say (if you're KJV only) "His Mercy Endures Forever".  God's Hate can't be equal to his Love because God Is Love.

The Irony about using Paul's quotation of Malachi this way is that it's role in the grander meta-narrative of Romans is clearly that those God "Hated' in the Old Testament are being brought in now. Chuck Missler liked to say that Romans 9 is Israel's past, 10 the present (of Paul's time and probably still now) and 11 Israel's future.  In the present not only is Esau not still hated but if anything they've switched because Israel is now under Spiritual Blindness.  However that Blindness will be lifted, Romans 11 makes clear that after the "Fullness of the gentiles" are grafted into Israel, All Israel shall be Saved.

There had developed a Jewish tradition of identifying Rome specifically with Esau/Edom.  It's mostly associated with later Rabbinic tradition but there is a DSS manuscript that seems to imply this had been done already in the BC era by identifying the fourth Kingdom of Daniel 2/7 with Edom.  Maybe that's why Paul brought up Edom here, but either way the greater point is that Paul is trying to prove that God's love is not and never really was limited only to Israel.  I no longer think Rome literally genealogically descended from Edom, but I used to argue that in the past.

The basis in Genesis itself for what Malachi said is believed to be when The Angel told Rachel the younger of her twins will serve the elder, and yet no where does Genesis say Esau was hated.  Genesis 27:41 says Esau hated Jacob, but in the Hebrew that's a different word then Malachi used, a much rarer word that appears right next to Satan in the Strongs and is never used of God's feelings for anyone, at least not by a reliable source.

The same Hebrew word Malachi used is used in Genesis 29:30-33 in an interesting way, there it seemingly describes Leah being hated by Jacob.  But did Jacob really "hate" Leah?  No, he calls Leah Joseph's mother in chapter 37.  At this point in the narrative Leah feels hated because of how Jacob chose Rachel.  But then God opens her Womb which Provokes Rachel to Jealousy, again echoing terminology Paul uses in Romans where the fruitfulness of the Gentiles provokes Israel to jealously.

There are Prophecies that seem to refer to Edom as a nation (and Amalek his bastard offshoot) being permanently irrecoverably destroyed in a way no other nation is.  From Balaam's oracles about Amalek, to Obadiah, to Jeremiah 49 seemingly not promising Edom the restoration the other nations are, to Isaiah 34 and Ezekiel 35-36, and then of course what Malachi says at the start of his Prophecy.  And maybe that's true, maybe as a geo-political entity the nation of Edom will be no more, but that wouldn't preclude every single individual Edomite from still being resurrected to live in the New Creation as nationalized citizens of other nations.

But there are also potential translation issues with those prophecies, like Olam being translated Forever when it means Age.  And comparing Amos 9:11-12 as it is in the Masoretic text/KJV to how it's quoted in Acts 15:15-17 shows at least one reference to Edom should really be Adam (spelled the same in Hebrew) and so perhaps more should be and some of these prophecies are about Mankind's judgment.  And then there is the really fringe part of my brain that contemplates the possibility that Jeremiah's different treatment of Edom is because he and Obadiah 4 are saying Edom migrated to outer space.

Here is that Peter Hiett Sermon.
http://www.thesanctuarydenver.org/sermons/does-god-love-everyone-even-esau/

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