Love the Sinner, Hate Your Own Sin?

Love the Sinner, Hate Your Own Sin?

You've heard the cliché, love the sinner, hate the sin, and as we've addressed in a previous video, that came from Gandhi, not the Bible. The Bible says everyone is sinned, and God hates sin so much he'll judge sinners to an eternity in hell.

God's Love in Christ for Sinners

But he shows his love for us in that while we were sinners, he sent his own son Jesus to die for us. Those who repent and believe in him will live. Some witty teachers have tried to take the cliché and morph it into a new adage, love the sinner, hate your own sin.

Correcting Sin with Humility and the Log in Your Own Eye

That might sound better, but what it communicates is that we shouldn't address anyone's sin but our own. That's not what the Bible says. In Matthew 7, Jesus says to first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Loving Brothers by Correcting Wrongs

So address your own sin, yes, washed by the grace and forgiveness of Christ, but then care enough for your brother to lovingly correct his wrongs. Followers of Jesus have taken off the old self in all of its practices, and put on the new self being renewed in the image of our creator, and we're to help one another in this process of renewal.

Warning the World to Repent

We find many passages clarifying which behaviors reflect sinfulness and which reflect godliness. For those who don't know Jesus, we are to warn the world they're headed for destruction for their sin, telling them what sin is and to repent and follow Jesus.

How will they know unless they are told? What would truly be unloving is to know they're about to die and not warn them at all. When it comes to loving sinners and hating sins, how about this? Let's love what God loves and hate what God hates, and we know what those things are when we understand the text.