Welcome back for Part 2! Definitely asking for divine help to get this right. Also, thanks to those of you who helped me work through some of this. You know who you are 🙂

Series Outline:

• Part 1: John 3:16 might not mean what you’ve been told
• Part 2: John 3:16 cannot mean what you’ve been told
• Part 3:John 3:16 shows that you can live a victorious life now, that you can overcome those things that are gnawing away at your soul as you read this

Outline for today:

• A little pep talk
• Part 2: John 3:16 cannot mean what you’ve been told
  • Part 2a (today): John 3:16 cannot mean that God loves every serial killer who ever picked up a butcher knife
    • The dynamic duo
    • Yes, you are correct…there are different kinds of “hate” in the Bible
    • The dynamic duo, take 2
    • Dear child of God, don’t back yourself into a corner
    • Do you have tons of questions now? Good!!!
  • Part 2b (a later post): John 3:16 cannot mean that God loves every serial killer who ever picked up a butcher knife…not even an eensy weensy bit
  • Part 2c (a later post): John 3:16 cannot mean that dead people are supposed to “believe” anything
  • Part 2d (a later post): John 3:16 cannot mean that God has 4 ways of saving people

A little pep talk

Where do you go when your life is falling apart? What do you do when you wake up in the middle of the night and everything seems hopeless? What if you are the sole breadwinner and you lose your job? How can you put one foot in front of the other when it seems like your life is so tangled up that there is no way it could ever be straightened out?

My point is, don’t get lost in the nitty gritty details of Bible interpretation that we are getting into here. Parts of it may seem dry at times, but what we are trying to build up to is something VERY relevant to your everyday life. The moon landing was an exciting, seminal human achievement…but it was the culmination of many many years of careful, patient, detailed, not always fun work.

Of course, I could just jump to the conclusion, and skip all the details, but that doesn’t give you much of a foundation. I don’t want any of you thinking, “Well, The Form of the Fourth said xyz, so that’s what I believe!” Rather, I want you to see what I see. Once you see it in the verses for yourself, THEN it is powerful. Only THEN can you really own it in your real life.

What’s most important here is “Thus saith the Lord”. Not “thus saith The Form of the Fourth”…or anybody else.

So, as we did in Part 1, we are going to spend a lot of time looking at Thus saith the Lord. Look at the verses I am mentioning and ask yourself this question:

“If I stopped worrying so much about…

• Angry reactions from others
• Social repercussions
• Disappointing my parents or my spouse
• Financial repercussions (for those of you who are in the ministry)
• The embarrassment of admitting I’ve been wrong for a long time
• The majority opinion
• How many letters come after this person’s or that person’s name
• Whether or not I immediately get a warm fuzzy feeling
• Whether or not God’s approach is exactly the approach I would have taken if I were God

…how would I interpret these verses?”

Part 2: John 3:16 cannot mean what you’ve been told

In Part 1, I tried to show that the popular interpretation of John 3:16 is by no means a slam dunk. Today, I want to show that, far from being a slam dunk, the popular view actually creates a massive, illogical rift right down the middle of the Bible. Some of the things I say will hopefully raise many questions in your mind. But I won’t get to all those questions today. We have to take this a little bit at a time.

Part 2a: John 3:16 cannot mean that God loves every serial killer who ever picked up a butcher knife

It might not be OK to say this, I know. But I’m saying it anyway: God does not love everybody.

I strongly disagree with the popular theology that claims that God loved Ted Bundy, a man who brutally, wantonly, and perversely murdered at least 30 women. I’m bringing up the Bundy case to get your attention, but the real reason I disagree with that popular theology is that it doesn’t hold up biblically.

We may be uncomfortable with the idea that God does not love everybody…but what if accepting an idea you don’t like allows you to unlock a bunch of Bible verses that never made sense before? Would that be worth it to you?

In the last post, I tried to show that “world” in John 3:16 does not have to mean every human being who ever lived. Now, I’m going further: If you insist that “world” in the passage means every human being who ever lived, you create a boatload of inescapable contradictions with other verses. If John 3:16 says that God loves everybody, then the Bible is internally inconsistent, and not just in one verse here or there.

Last thing before we dive into this concept that God actually does hate certain people: take a big breath of fresh air. Specifically, I strongly believe, based on the Bible, that God does love a vast number of people, from all different religions, races, nations and time periods, and they will ALL fly away to be with Jesus some sweet day. Period.

The dynamic duo

Consider these two verses:

[Psalm 5:5 KJV] The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

[Psalm 11:5 KJV] The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

The previous two verses explicitly state that God hates “all workers of iniquity”, “the wicked” and “him that loveth violence”. But words have different meanings in different contexts, don’t they? I tried to establish that in the last post. Is it possible that God can hate people in the sense of the above two verses but love those same people in a John 3:16 sense?

Let’s take the same approach in this post that we took in the last post. Let’s look at other uses of “hate” in the Bible to try to get insight into what it means here. Let us rightly divide the word of truth, the Lord being our helper.

Yes, you are correct…there are different kinds of “hate” in the Bible

[Luke 14:26 KJV] If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

What kind of hatred is under consideration here? Read the next verse before you answer that.

[Ephesians 5:25 KJV] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

This is a situation where some might say “A ha! A contradiction! One verse says to hate the wife. Another says to love her!”

Instead, let me mention some Bible stories to show both of these non-contradictory verses in action.

[Luke 14:26 KJV] If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

is demonstrated by:

[Job 2:7-10 KJV] So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

See? It’s about priorities…it’s not about smoldering animosity towards your wife. It’s about hierarchy…God is supreme; yes, even above our own spouse. That is Jesus’s point. We should all notice also that Job did not call her a fool. Don’t you love the restraint? May we all learn from his example.

Here is another example where “hate” clearly means love less. I won’t make any additional comment on it because it is very obvious.

[Genesis 29:30-31 KJV] And he went in also unto Rachel, and he LOVED ALSO RACHEL MORE than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And when the LORD saw that Leah was HATED, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren. 

In turn,

[Ephesians 5:25 KJV] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

is demonstrated by Jesus’s life, obviously, but also this verse:

[Genesis 29:20 KJV] And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.

I know it’s not as majestic as Christ’s example, but still, you see Jacob sacrificing his time and energy in order to win his fiance from her father. It’s an expression of love.

Hopefully we all agree the contradiction regarding loving and hating your wife is resolved. Yes, sacrifice your very life for her. No, do not violate God’s law or speak against God just to please your wife. Always love God more than you love anybody else.

The dynamic duo, take 2

Now, let’s go back to the two verses I started with:

[Psalm 5:5 KJV] The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

[Psalm 11:5 KJV] The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

So, we want to know what kind of hatred this is. Is it the “love less” kind? Or is it the more common meaning, namely, that God actually is hostile towards them, he is sorely displeased with them, and he is going to come down on them like a ton of bricks?

Would you agree that all the people in hell fall into the category of “workers of iniquity” as in Psalm 5:5 above? Then, in order to understand Psalm 5:5 better, we can look at what God says and does to people as he is sending them to hell. I just realized there is additional justification for the linkage I am making when you notice that the verse immediately below ends with “work iniquity”. Psalm 5:5 and the verse below are both talking about people who work iniquity.

So, read the next few verses and see what kind of vibe you get. Is it the “love less” vibe or the ton of bricks vibe?

[Matthew 7:23 KJV] And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

[Matthew 25:41 KJV] Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

[Matthew 25:46 KJV] And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

[2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 KJV] Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

The above verses are the reason why I strongly  believe that hate in the two verses below does not mean “love less”. It really does mean hate. As in hate hate. Not “love less” hate.

[Psalm 5:5 KJV] The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

[Psalm 11:5 KJV] The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

If God’s sentence of “everlasting punishment” for the wicked does not prove his hatred for them, ask yourself, what would God have to do to prove to you that he hates them? What else could he do to them?

So, if you read those verses about hell that I gave, and you are still thinking hate in the two verses above means “love less”, please let me know why. I would love to discuss with you. Before moving on, here is another verse which convinces me that God’s hatred of the wicked is not the “love less” kind.

[Psalm 7:11 KJV] God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

Dear child of God, don’t back yourself into a corner

If you have been in the church for a while, you have probably heard it preached many times that God loves everybody. Now that you have made it to this point in today’s post, you might be experiencing some cognitive dissonance.

Try this 10-minute debate highlight reel (I used to have a link to the whole thing but it doesn’t work anymore).

You will hear the skeptics asking pointed questions about hell, and how could God possibly be said to love the people in hell. Listen to the response from the gentleman from Biola and his friends. Then ask yourself if it stacks up Biblically.

Remember, the Christian side in this debate is made up of very intelligent, very well-studied Christians. If there exists a Biblically sound defense of the idea that God loves everybody, they of all people should be able to present it.

One of the claims from the Christian side in the debate is that the reason for the torment in hell is to prevent the inhabitants from harming each other. I did not hear a single Scripture reference to back up this claim. Also, the claim is not even logical, because if the idea was to restrain them, God could just use handcuffs. Yes, the atheists asked some good questions that night. And they correctly distinguished between a spanking and hell.

So, what does the Bible say about the fires of hell? Are they there to prevent the damned from hurting each other, as Clay Jones from Biola claims? Consider this passage that I already pasted earlier:

[2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 KJV] Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In FLAMING FIRE TAKING VENGEANCE on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

Did you notice what the fire is for? It’s not to restrain anybody. It’s for vengeance. Vengeance for, perhaps, Nero’s decision to use Christians as human torches in his garden. Perhaps vengeance on Ted Bundy for the unspeakable horror that he inflicted on 30+ young women.

Could it be that we just don’t like admitting that God doesn’t love everybody, and so we get backed into a corner and start speculating wildly and unbiblically as a result?

Paul the apostle takes a very different approach. Saddle up now, because we are about to ride roughshod over all the fluff, all the polishing, all the clever speculation, all the arrogance of man.

[Romans 9:16-20 KJV] So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? NAY BUT, O MAN, WHO ART THOU THAT REPLIEST AGAINST GOD? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

Do you think those atheists could have backed Paul the apostle into a corner?

We need a little more boldness, my friends. We need to take the Bible for what it actually says. God does not love everybody. And we should try to present this in a winsome way, seasoned with salt. But you know what? If the atheists in that debate still don’t like it, we need to pop open a can of “NAY BUT, O MAN”. We need to call out the arrogance of man that says “I get to decide how God can behave! I am wise enough! I am smart enough! I am qualified to pass judgment on an eternal, all-powerful, self-existent being!” Anytime you hear a Christian squirming and struggling because someone is pressing him on hell, remember these words: NAY BUT, O MAN, WHO ART THOU THAT REPLIEST AGAINST GOD?

What do you think would have happened in that debate if the Christians had more boldly and accurately proclaimed Biblical truth? I bet some of those atheists would have gotten very angry! Too bad. God doesn’t read opinion polls. My God is awesome like that.

Dear child of God, if this is all sounding pretty radical to you, perhaps this next passage can serve as sort of a reintroduction between you and your mighty Savior.

[Daniel 4:34-35 KJV] And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to HIS WILL in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and NONE can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?

Do you have tons of questions now? Good!!!

This post was just a glimmer. A brief sketch which hopefully prompted lots of questions. I will get to those, Lord willing. Next time, we will confront the idea that God has an eternal love for his chosen people, and a temporal love for every single human being (including, you guessed it, Ted Bundy).

God bless you.

P.S.: God rules

Links:

Ted Bundy on Wikipedia