IF GOD SO LOVED "EVERYONE", THEN WHY DID HE HATE ESAU?

[Eddie Ramos]

It seems like John 3:16 is by far the most widely memorized verse among people who know anything about the Bible because it speaks about God loving the world. While this verse may seem like "good news" to everyone who reads it, it does not stand alone from the rest of the scriptures. No verse does.

So, as most people are glad to memorize that verse, what happens when they come across a verse like this?:

Romans 9:13 (KJV) 13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

Malachi 1:2-3 (KJV)
2 I have loved you, saith the LORD.
Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?
Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD:
yet I loved Jacob,
3 And I hated Esau,
and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

Psalms 5:5 (KJV)
5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight:
thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

Psalms 11:5 (KJV)
5 The LORD trieth the righteous:
but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

Psalms 5:6 (KJV)
6 Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing:
the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.

How does John 3:16 look in light of these passages? Did God change? No, God does not change (Malachi 3:6). This teaches us that we can't just focus on John 3:16 and conclude that God's love for the world, in the giving of his Son, is actually not referring to every individual in the world (because there are passages that tell us about God hating others), but rather John 3:16 is referring to certain people within the world. These certain people are also known as God's beloved which means to be loved.

1 John 4:10-11 (KJV) 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

The beloved are thise who were chosen for salvation, those who were called to be saints.

Romans 1:7 (KJV) 7 To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

My question for this thread is: Can you see that the Bible, on one hand, speaks of God's love in conjunction with those whose sins were laid on Christ? And on the other hand, can you see that those who were hated, are those whose sins were not laid upon Christ? This is what it means to be hated. It means that you have to pay for your own sins by your own death.

[sridatta]

It seems like John 3:16 is by far the most widely memorized verse among people who know anything about the Bible because it speaks about God loving the world. While this verse may seem like "good news" to everyone who reads it, it does not stand alone from the rest of the scriptures. No verse does.

So, as most people are glad to memorize that verse, what happens when they come across a verse like this?:

Romans 9:13 (KJV) 13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

[

Let us understand it. God is Father of all souls in this creation and His love to souls is in uniform level only, which is the maximum most. But, the expression levels differ from one soul to the other as per the proper requirement and the difference in the love expressed may be qualitative or quantitative.

I will explain this with the example of a wise father’s love towards his issues. Let us take a baby and an adult issue of the same father. The father or mother gives only milk to the baby and gives food of various sweet and hot dishes to the adult issue based on their digestion. Similarly, God expresses His love in various quantities to various levels of devotees as per the requirement. This will help the lower level devotee to develop and become higher level devotee.

Students are given different classes like record break, distinction, first class, second class, third class etc., to various levels of students in order to encourage the lower levels to do further study, work more seriously so that the lower levels attain higher levels. Such difference shown in the degree certificates does not mean that such difference is due to difference in the love of the teacher towards students. If difference in the appreciation is not maintained in quantitative levels, there will be no inspiration for progress of devotees.

Love is expressed with qualitative difference also. Appreciation and reward is one form of love. Similarly, depreciation and punishment is also another form of love exhibited in various levels as in the case of appreciation as explained above. As the levels of rewards are based on different levels of merits or good deeds, levels of punishments are also based on different levels of defects or sins. Punishment must be understood as the form of love only.

When an ignorant boy tries to put his finger in fire, his parents will scold and even beat him so that such boy will not repeat it again. Such scolding and beating by parents is taken as the love of parents towards that boy and it is not taken as anger or revenge or hatred towards that boy. Hence, the creation of hell represents only the real love of the Divine Father towards the soul. God is reforming the soul through punishments and divine preaching of spiritual knowledge by coming as human incarnations.

The Manusmruti says that the souls punished here or in the hell will get rid of their sins and go to heaven for their merits and good deeds in par with good people doing only good deeds going straight to heaven (Santah sukruitino yathaa). A wise father acts like God towards souls in different levels of qualitative and quantitative expressions towards his beloved issues.

A foolish father blind with blind love towards his issues expresses his love towards his issues in one qualitative form (appreciation and rewards) in the same quantitative level (same reward to all his issues irrespective of qualitative and quantitative difference). God is not such blind father like king Dhrutaraashtra, who is physically and mentally the blind father.

The love possessed by the Divine Father is qualitatively and quantitatively same on all the souls, which are His issues as per the Gita (Aham biijapradah pitaa). The love expressed on different souls is different qualitatively as well as quantitatively as per the proper need. Even if God is furious and punishes a soul, such anger is a form of basic love only since the aim of the Divine Father is only to develop the soul in materialistic path (Pravrutti) and in spiritual path (Nivrutti).

If you see the possessed love only in His mind, you can very easily realise that He loves all the souls equally. But, you should not expect that the expressed love also should be in the same way. If it is in the same way, the souls do not progress at all and get easily spoiled.

[Purple Knight]

To me, as an atheist, it seems a case of people writing something absurd and that coming out. It's like when people try to write characters with superintelligence while limited by their own intelligence. They fail. This time it's a matter of writing something all-loving while being limited by their lack of perfect, agape love.

Whether it's true or not, agape love is not something most people can understand fully and it comes down to the Bible having human writers either way. Even if the Bible represents a real entity called God and what it did and didn't do, that's going to be constrained by human understanding.

If God actually used the word hate, I don't blame him, I sometimes do the same thing: Using a word that is not absolutely technically correct because the word I chose fosters a better understanding. If the goal is the best understanding in the head of the listener and not the most technically correct utterance I feel this is fine, even necessary at times. This is how people see the world, liking this person who did good and hating that one who did evil.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to DJT_47 in post #20]
See posts #18 and #19.

[MissKate13]

If you look at the immediate context of Malachi 1:1-5, you will notice in verse 4 that the prophet transitions to using the name “Edom.” Malachi is using the words “Esau” to refer to the nation of Edom and “Jacob” to refer to the nation of Israel.

Israel and Edom had both sinned. Edom was to be destroyed, but a remnant of Israel was to be preserved, and that was because of the nation’s role in the coming of the Messiah.

The passage has nothing to do with Jacob and Esau personally. God gave Israel precedence over Edom because of His divine plan of salvation. The passage is not about individual election.

[OneWay]

It seems like John 3:16 is by far the most widely memorized verse among people who know anything about the Bible because it speaks about God loving the world. While this verse may seem like "good news" to everyone who reads it, it does not stand alone from the rest of the scriptures. No verse does.

So, as most people are glad to memorize that verse, what happens when they come across a verse like this?:

Romans 9:13 (KJV) 13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

Malachi 1:2-3 (KJV)
2 I have loved you, saith the LORD.
Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?
Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD:
yet I loved Jacob,
3 And I hated Esau,
and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

Psalms 5:5 (KJV)
5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight:
thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

Psalms 11:5 (KJV)
5 The LORD trieth the righteous:
but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

Psalms 5:6 (KJV)
6 Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing:
the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.

How does John 3:16 look in light of these passages? Did God change? No, God does not change (Malachi 3:6). This teaches us that we can't just focus on John 3:16 and conclude that God's love for the world, in the giving of his Son, is actually not referring to every individual in the world (because there are passages that tell us about God hating others), but rather John 3:16 is referring to certain people within the world. These certain people are also known as God's beloved which means to be loved.

1 John 4:10-11 (KJV) 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

The beloved are thise who were chosen for salvation, those who were called to be saints.

Romans 1:7 (KJV) 7 To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

My question for this thread is: Can you see that the Bible, on one hand, speaks of God's love in conjunction with those whose sins were laid on Christ? And on the other hand, can you see that those who were hated, are those whose sins were not laid upon Christ? This is what it means to be hated. It means that you have to pay for your own sins by your own death.

It means you have to go through your own cross to cross over to the other side
just like Jesus. Hence is why He commanded His followers to deny themselves and pick up their own cross and follow Him.

[MissKate13]

God hates sin, not people. He can’t hate them because God is love. He can, however, punish them for unbelief and disobedience, which go hand in hand.

[Tcg]

God hates sin, not people.

Not according to the Bible. This has already been quoted, but apparently needs to be repeated:

Malachi 1:3 "but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Esau was a person, not sin. Paul understood that God hated Esau:

"Romans 9:13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

It's as plain as day.


Tcg

[MissKate13]

God hates sin, not people.

Not according to the Bible. This has already been quoted, but apparently needs to be repeated:

Malachi 1:3 "but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Esau was a person, not sin. Paul understood that God hated Esau:

"Romans 9:13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

It's as plain as day.


Tcg

It seems plain to one who strips the verse from its context, but when one looks deeper in God’s word, he begins to see a different picture.

If we bear in mind that 1 John 4:7-10 says God is love and He first loved us, then how can a God of love hate someone? Is that not a contradiction of His character?

Edom is the nation which grew from Esau’s descendants, and Malachi is using the words “Esau” to refer to the nation of Edom and “Jacob” to refer to the nation of Israel. (Malach 2:2-4)

Esau was called Edom (Genesis 25:29-30).

29 Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom

The the focus on Malachi 1:2-4 is not on individuals. It is on God’s chosen people as a whole.

Furthermore, the overall context of the prophecy reveals that the nation of Israel had sinned against God just as Edom had (Malachi 2:11), thus, they would be punished because that which God really hates is sin (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Despite all this, a remnant of His people would be preserved in order to fulfill His promise of the coming Messiah (4:2-6), attesting to the fact that the passage has everything to do with the sovereign choice of God, desiring to bless Israel, whom Christ would come through (Malachi 3:1,4), and nothing to do with hating an individual.

[onewithhim]

God hates sin, not people.

Not according to the Bible. This has already been quoted, but apparently needs to be repeated:

Malachi 1:3 "but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Esau was a person, not sin. Paul understood that God hated Esau:

"Romans 9:13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

It's as plain as day.


Tcg

It has already been determined that to "hate" in many cases means to "love LESS." Sometimes we have to dig deeper to find the meaning of something.

[MissKate13]

God hates sin, not people.

Not according to the Bible. This has already been quoted, but apparently needs to be repeated:

Malachi 1:3 "but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Esau was a person, not sin. Paul understood that God hated Esau:

"Romans 9:13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

It's as plain as day.


Tcg

It has already been determined that to "hate" in many cases means to "love LESS." Sometimes we have to dig deeper to find the meaning of something.

Hello Tcg.

I agree that hate can mean love less.

However, one must dig deeper into the Scriptures to understand Romans 9:13, which Paul quoted from Malachi.

Edom is the nation which grew from Esau’s descendants, and Malachi is using the name “Esau” to refer to the nation of Edom and the name “Jacob” to refer to the nation of Israel. (Malach 2:2-4). It is the nation of Edom God hated. It is the nation of Israel God loved.

Esau was called Edom (Genesis 25:29-30).

29 Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom

The the focus of Malachi 1:2-4 is not on the individuals, Jacob and Esau. It is on God’s chosen people as a whole.

Furthermore, the overall context of the prophecy reveals that the nation of Israel had sinned against God just as Edom had (Malachi 2:11), thus, they would be punished because that which God really hates is sin (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Despite all this, a remnant of His people would be preserved in order to fulfill His promise of the coming Messiah (Malachi 4:2-6), attesting to the fact that the passage has everything to do with the sovereign choice of God, desiring to bless Israel, whom Christ would come through (Malachi 3:1,4), and nothing to do with God hating an individual person.