Text: Psalm 85
Theme: hate and Love
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Intro – Listen to this quote and see how it sounds to you: “He who believes in freedom of the will has never loved and never hated.”[1] Take it in a poetic or an ironic way, you still find some truth in it. When we fall in love, we might find ourselves enslaved to the object of that love – even if when are not loved back. We end up making most of our choices connected to it; we give up preferences just to satisfy it. In this case, we live what we usually call “blind love”, which I would argue if it were really love, or something else. Now, as strange as it may seem, the same thing happens when we hate. When anger consumes us, it blinds us too. Our lives start to revolve around the person or situation that is hated. We become fixated on the person or situation we despise, freezing a significant part of our lives to serve that one overwhelming emotion.
In Psalm 85 we hear the Psalmist crying to the Lord, “Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger for generations?” The answer is: He won’t. When we reflect on the history of God’s people and their frequent falls from grace, it is astounding how often Yahweh forgives them. Why is this?
God has free will. He is the only One who has free will in its full sense. The Lord may become angry, but He is never enslaved to anything – let alone hate, anger or wrath. It is really difficult for us to understand this because we cannot hate without sinning. Bad feelings and thoughts run across our mind when anger consumes our heart. That is not the case with God. His anger is not merely a feeling, an emotion, a vengeance-filled piece of sentiment that spills over human race. God’s anger is action taken against ungodliness. God’s anger and sin are like fire and heat, water and wetness, Vancouver and rain; they always go together. God’s wrath is manifested against people, for sure, but against sinful people. The actual anger is against sin. God hates sin.
When it comes to our anger, there are two good quotes to illustrate it: “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”[2] And “Hatred always shoots at something, but its aim is pretty bad.” That is not the case at all with God though. He has all the right reasons to be angry and manifest His wrath against a very definite object – Sin.
So how do you escape it, since you are a person, a sinful one. When sin is there His anger will show up too. The only way out is through God’s love, which also has to do with freedom of choice: He chose freely to love us. His love is not a blind, selfish, enslaved type of love that binds Him to an irrational feeling. His love is manifested in a person, His son – Jesus Christ. The Messiah came to us, to meet us; he took the first step. There is a key verb on Psalm 85 – shuv, to turn. It appears over a thousand times in the Old Testament, and here it is pointing to God’s action of turning hate of sin into Love for sinner, as He again forgives His people and “restores the fortunes of Jacob”. God’s anger doesn’t last forever. He turns our sinful reality into a realm of forgiveness and peace in Christ.
Even though we remain sinful people, now God’s Love is manifested to us because of Christ. So here is the difference: God may manifest hate, anger at times; but he IS Love. And He gives us love. Not that type of love we mentioned in the beginning that enslaves us to people or earthly things. Here’s an illustration about what is Love in the Scriptures:
Think of a person you love deeply; a person you really appreciate, like, admire. You love him or her. Now, what happens when that person commits a mistake? Or when you hear him or her saying things you don’t like to hear, when you see them in sin? What happens when she is not very understanding as you’d like to, when he does not show affection in concrete actions towards you? What is your reaction when this beloved person is ungrateful, or when he or she doesn’t follow what you requested them to do? What do you feel?
This question, “how do you feel?” misses the mark because it is obvious that we feel several things in front of each one of the situations. Sadness, anger, frustration, irritation…The question should be different: When those types of undesired things happen, do you stop loving them?
I think I know the answer: no. If you really love them – then no. When you compliment or when you reprehend; when you joyfully cheer or when you strongly disagree; in times of joy, in moments of sadness, love is there. Perhaps only in a different way, like a sad love, or a worried love, an anguished love. But still, and always, love. Actually, sometimes you say and do things to exhort, correct and direct people you love which don’t make them very happy at the moment. But you do that exactly because you love them and wish them well.
This shows us that love is not just a ‘feeling’. Feeling refers to evanescent and bouncy things such as joy and sadness, anger and relief, frustration and fulfillment. But love is principle. It is constant. As the Bible says, love never ends. God’s love never ends.
This is how God loves us. He doesn’t simply feel love, but He has love. He is love. He manifests hate – against sin – but he Is Love. When we obey and do the right thing He loves us. When we disobey and sin, He loves us and calls us to change. Not that He is ok with error – as we see also from Psalm 85, he manifests His wrath against sin and unholiness – but He continues to love us. To Love, therefore, from the biblical perspective means firstly and above all to have love, not just to ‘feel’ it. Then, it is not to be enslaved, it means to be free. Free to serve. That’s why to love is a verb of action – words, actions, support, as we reach out to our neighbours. God has set the example, not only having love for us, or not just saying that he loves us, but acting, becoming a human being, living among us: His Son became flesh and gave His life for us. Of course, we cannot love perfectly as He loves us, but in Christ we are loved, and we can have love. Love for him and love for others.
Still thinking about the person, you love I asked you to? I would suppose so, for those whom we love are always in our thoughts. Similarly, remember also that this is how God acts in our direction: He has us always on his mind. But most of all – and best of all – we are always in His heart.
Cc – From slaves to anger, to disobedience, to sin, and from the wrong type of love, we become free when we are embraced by this love through faith. We become free to love, to live, to learn, and serve in a way that we don’t need to let hatred turns us into inmates of the prison cell of bitterness; nor blind love to take away the autonomy and freedom to love and also to exhort and instruct. We can share it. Then, we will hate to miss any of the opportunities we may find to share this freedom in love that Christ has provided us with.[3]
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[1] Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
[2] Benjamin Franklin
[3] Sources
-BRUG, John. A commentary on Psalms 73-150, p.102-109