Yesterday I saw this picture on the TobyMac page and thought it was beautiful. Then I made the classic mistake of reading the comments. So much commentary was defended God’s right to hate and that, in their view, God does hate and not love certain people he has created. And this was typically related to their actions. Straight out sharing the conditional grace of Westboro. I am fully aware that the Scriptures can be used to prove this point, Calvinists are true to this POV. I am not exactly sure where this view is Good News. It is a damaging view of which God ceases to be fundamentally good or love. Looking to Jesus, we see the love of God made flesh and bone. There is only one qualified judge and it isn’t you or me.
To trust that God is love and that God will do what is right is pivotal to a trusting faith. Otherwise faith is rooted in fear. If what I believe and share is, in fact, wrong; to believe that God is love and good and this leads people astray to damnation, then what kind of grace-less monster is this god? This is not the God revealed in Jesus Christ who shows us the Father’s heart and continues by the Holy Spirit to remind us we are the beloved and convict us on a better way, the way of Christ. It’s a twisted version of God that brings God into our most sick and petty image of power. The power of the bully to define goodness in a way that simply isn’t good. Our hearts know this to be true because we can see and know what true goodness and love is! Inside we know and have hope that God is good, even if it is the tiniest iota of hope it is universal.
"And they shall not teach one another or say to each other, "Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." Hebrews 8:11
Many of the proclamations in the thread on the Tobymac page were a sad gospel of a twisted version of the faith. One that I understand rejecting. If this is God, I am 100% deluded and I pray hell isn’t eternal. If God does hate people, I question our ability to determine who it is that God hates. Look at the sheep and the goats. Somehow I would doubt we have full clarity to know just who it is that God would hate. The evil among us were once abused children. Evil is very real. Judgment and condemnation is not our call! Grace is more offensive than judgement.
We are not the gatekeepers of grace! Those gates are flung wide open! The message of Jesus was and is to bring Good News to the poor, proclaim freedom to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind and to set free the oppressed. (Luke 4:18 paraphrase)
Let us trust in the God of hope to do what is right. To hope that God isn't a petty thug isn't all that strange is it? Let us default on the side of the God who IS love. There is so much fear in the world. Jesus came to show us that God is not one to add to the fear, contrary to our fire-insurance narrative.
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love." 1 John 4:18