Can love ever look like hate?
The bible tells us that there was a point in time where God’s love looked like hate. Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity, God in the flesh, bore all the wrath of God on Himself in our place. God inflicted His wrath on His Son. Isaiah 53 tells us that God was pleased to crush His Son! Let us forget for a moment that this passage is talking about God. What father would command his son to go to a people that would mock him, beat him, and ultimately murder him in one of the most gruesome ways imaginable? Wouldn’t he do everything in his power to prevent such an awful thing from happening? And what father would be pleased to crush his own son? Imagine what the angels must've been thinking when they observed Christ’s life: God has loved His Son perfectly for all of eternity, but now He throws Him into the dirt to take on human flesh. The moment he was born, a king tried to kill Him! When He sets out to preach, He washes the feet of filthy fishermen, the people reject His power and even say He is from Satan, one of His very own followers sells Him out and the rest abandon Him as He is beaten, mocked, spit on, and condemned by His own people! Why hasn’t God stepped down to stop this brutality against His Son? Did He not hear His prayer in the garden where He sweat drops of blood? Why is He allowing Him to be marched up a hill to be crucified next to thieves? Did He hear the cry of His Son, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” Does He now hate His Son?
But now, what is this? He rises from the dead! Sin is defeated and mankind is saved! Why would God have such care for mankind when a third of us angels sinned there was no offer of redemption to them? God spoke in Noah’s day and said that He regretted even making man because the intention of his heart was always evil at all times! Why does He love these sinful men and women?
Church, this is the deep mystery of God: that He loves us. We were dead in our sins and yet God loved us. When you see weeks-old roadkill no affections, no longing or sense of love is stirred in you, but how much worse is the dead human soul to God? It is utterly repulsive to Him, yet He loves us! It is easy to love something that is cute, like a puppy or a new born baby, but it requires great love to love someone or something that is repulsive. And we were more than repulsive dead corpses before God, we were His enemies who hated Him. Just look at the nation of Israel: when God parted the sea and led them out of their land of slavery by a pillar of fire and smoke, they complained; when God gave them manna from heaven, they complained; when God let them rest while He spoke to Moses, they made idols to worship. Every time that God reaches out His hand in love towards human beings, we always respond with hate, and we always will unless God changes our hearts.
Look at how much God loves the sinner! He loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son for us! Christ loved us so much that not only did He take on the weakness of humanity, He faced the heavy weight of temptation, experienced utter loneliness and abandonment, drank the full wrath of God in our place, and died a torturous death. When we look at God’s character, it seems impossible that He could love sinners and still maintain His glory and justice, yet that’s exactly what happens in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. God becomes both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus. More than the beauty of a thousand sunrises, more riches than all the gold in the silver that the world could offer to us, greater heights than the world’s mountains, and deeper love than all the world’s oceans is the grace of God towards us in Jesus Christ!
This is why Christ willingly obeyed His Father’s command that He should die: because our sins were great and required justice, yet He loved us. He hates sin and before Christ saves us, all that we do is sin! How can God save us? He cannot leave the debt unpaid because He is perfectly just. So because God hates sin and sinners and yet also loves us, He made Him who knew no sin to become sin in our place that we might become what He is: the righteousness of God!
The bible tells us that there was a point in time where God’s love looked like hate. Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity, God in the flesh, bore all the wrath of God on Himself in our place. God inflicted His wrath on His Son. Isaiah 53 tells us that God was pleased to crush His Son! Let us forget for a moment that this passage is talking about God. What father would command his son to go to a people that would mock him, beat him, and ultimately murder him in one of the most gruesome ways imaginable? Wouldn’t he do everything in his power to prevent such an awful thing from happening? And what father would be pleased to crush his own son? Imagine what the angels must've been thinking when they observed Christ’s life: God has loved His Son perfectly for all of eternity, but now He throws Him into the dirt to take on human flesh. The moment he was born, a king tried to kill Him! When He sets out to preach, He washes the feet of filthy fishermen, the people reject His power and even say He is from Satan, one of His very own followers sells Him out and the rest abandon Him as He is beaten, mocked, spit on, and condemned by His own people! Why hasn’t God stepped down to stop this brutality against His Son? Did He not hear His prayer in the garden where He sweat drops of blood? Why is He allowing Him to be marched up a hill to be crucified next to thieves? Did He hear the cry of His Son, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” Does He now hate His Son?
But now, what is this? He rises from the dead! Sin is defeated and mankind is saved! Why would God have such care for mankind when a third of us angels sinned there was no offer of redemption to them? God spoke in Noah’s day and said that He regretted even making man because the intention of his heart was always evil at all times! Why does He love these sinful men and women?
Church, this is the deep mystery of God: that He loves us. We were dead in our sins and yet God loved us. When you see weeks-old roadkill no affections, no longing or sense of love is stirred in you, but how much worse is the dead human soul to God? It is utterly repulsive to Him, yet He loves us! It is easy to love something that is cute, like a puppy or a new born baby, but it requires great love to love someone or something that is repulsive. And we were more than repulsive dead corpses before God, we were His enemies who hated Him. Just look at the nation of Israel: when God parted the sea and led them out of their land of slavery by a pillar of fire and smoke, they complained; when God gave them manna from heaven, they complained; when God let them rest while He spoke to Moses, they made idols to worship. Every time that God reaches out His hand in love towards human beings, we always respond with hate, and we always will unless God changes our hearts.
Look at how much God loves the sinner! He loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son for us! Christ loved us so much that not only did He take on the weakness of humanity, He faced the heavy weight of temptation, experienced utter loneliness and abandonment, drank the full wrath of God in our place, and died a torturous death. When we look at God’s character, it seems impossible that He could love sinners and still maintain His glory and justice, yet that’s exactly what happens in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. God becomes both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus. More than the beauty of a thousand sunrises, more riches than all the gold in the silver that the world could offer to us, greater heights than the world’s mountains, and deeper love than all the world’s oceans is the grace of God towards us in Jesus Christ!
This is why Christ willingly obeyed His Father’s command that He should die: because our sins were great and required justice, yet He loved us. He hates sin and before Christ saves us, all that we do is sin! How can God save us? He cannot leave the debt unpaid because He is perfectly just. So because God hates sin and sinners and yet also loves us, He made Him who knew no sin to become sin in our place that we might become what He is: the righteousness of God!