Does God Hate Us, Love Us, Or Both?

Imagine explaining to your child that because they are not perfect, you must take them to the backyard, tie them to a tree, and burn them in a fire. However, because you also love them, you decide to burn the dog instead. Your logic, as you explain to your confused child, is that this is the only way you can uphold both love and justice.

Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, that’s probably the most popular explanation of the “gospel” in the Protestant world, based on Calvin’s model of Atonement, known as “Penal Substitutionary Atonement.”

For example, in his sermon, “God hates Sinners, not just the sin,” – renowned Baptist pastor David Platt explains: “Does God hate the sin and love the sinner? Well… sure… in a sense… But does God hate the sinner as well? Yes!”¹

Likewise, popular Calvinist Pastor Tim Conway, in his sermon “God Hates the Sin and the Sinner” explains:

What Scripture tells us is that all of mankind are children of wrath. We are objects of the hatred of God by nature. We don’t deserve His love… God is not unjust to hate mankind. Because mankind is a hateful thing by nature. It ought to be hated.²

Therefore, “God’s anger at sin and hatred of sinners causes him to pour out his wrath [on Jesus],” as explained by Pastor Mark Driscoll’s gospel presentation.³

What Happened to the Original Gospel?

The transition from the original biblical message of “love others” (Matthew 5:43-44; Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 6:27; Luke 6:35; John 13:34; John 15:12; John 15:17; etc.) to the convoluted message that “God hates sinners and must torture them in fire, yet loves them so much that He vented His wrath on Jesus instead” reflects a complex evolution in theological interpretations and cultural influences over centuries.

Initially, Yeshua’s teachings emphasized unconditional love, mercy, and forgiveness, encapsulated in his command to love one another as a reflection of the divine love (John 13:34-35). However, as Christianity spread beyond its Jewish roots into the broader Greco-Roman world, it encountered philosophical systems and pagan cultures that were vastly different. Evidently, none of the early Church Fathers and theologians articulated their faith in the same terms figures as David Platt and Mark Driscoll did. Throughout history, Christianity often adopted and adapted philosophical concepts from their pagan surroundings. This included the notion of an abusive and punitive deity, which was prevalent in many non-Jewish cultures.

Over time, these adaptations began to influence the way scripture was interpreted. The image of a wrathful God needing to be appeased through sacrifice aligned more closely with pagan practices than with the Judaic tradition of a loving and forgiving God. Theories of atonement and “original sin” were developed extensively in the writings of theologians like Augustine and later Anselm, who tried to rationalize how and why Jesus’ death was necessary under the assumption of a legalistic framework of justice:

As somebody said to me years ago, “If you take a half-truth and make it into the whole truth, it becomes an untruth.” And that’s a very serious thing because then the vision of God that people have is distorted, and so many people are actually put off the gospel––they just say, “No, that sounds like a bullying God. If there is a God, he can’t really be like that.” When some people talk about the gospel, you’d think that John 3:16 said: “God so hated the world that he killed his only Son.” Sometimes people say: “That picture is important—wrath and sin and hell and all the rest of it, and it’s because God loves us.” But simply adding the word “love” onto the end of that story can actually be actually even worse. It is like what abusers do when they say, “I love you so much”—it’s hideous.^{^[501]}
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright

Dr. Tim Mackie, the founder and chief theologian of “The Bible Project,” speaks of it as well:

Many of us have inherited a story about animal sacrifice, and it goes something like this:
“The gods are angry with me and are going to kill me. But maybe if I kill this animal and make sure the gods get their pound of flesh, they’ll be appeased and happy. Maybe they won’t kill me or send a plague on my family. Sure, it’s barbaric, but so are the gods…”
Much of popular Christian belief has simply imported a pagan storyline into Leviticus and the stories about Jesus’ death on the cross. The result is a tragic irony. What the Bible is portraying as an expression of God’s love gets twisted into something dark. Our version goes like this:
“God is holy and perfect. You are not. Therefore, God is angry at you, and hates you even, so he has to kill you. But because he’s merciful, he’ll let you bring this animal to him and will have the animal killed instead of you. Thankfully, Jesus came to be the one who gets killed by God instead of me. Jesus rescues us from God, so now we can go forever to the happy place after we die and not the bad place.”
Is this story recognizable to you? If so, you’re not alone. The main problem with this story, to be a bit snarky, is the Bible. More specifically, the problem is that this story has enough biblical language in it that it can pass for what the Bible actually says about animal sacrifice and Jesus’ death. However, when you step back and allow Leviticus and the New Testament to speak for themselves, you can recognize this story as an imposter.
Animal Sacrifice? Really?”, bibleproject.com

This theological shift was further cemented by the Reformation, which, despite its alleged emphasis on returning to scriptural basics, often portrayed God’s justice in a distorted and perverted way. Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin emphasized human depravity (while rejecting the existence of God’s image in people) as their explanation for why we all deserve nothing but to be tortured and suffer forever—a concept encapsulated in penal substitutionary atonement theory.

Furthermore, as Christianity became a dominant political and cultural force in various empires, the emphasis on God’s wrath and the need for punitive justice could also be interpreted as a way to impose moral and social order. The merging of political power and religious authority often led to a portrayal of God that justified the violent enforcement of religious conformity through fear of divine punishment.

This evolution in theological thought has led to a dichotomous portrayal of God as both loving and wrathful in ways that can seem contradictory. It highlights the tension between a God who is described in scriptures as “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8) and theological constructs that emphasize punitive justice.

In contemporary theology, there is a growing movement to revisit or “deconstruct” these interpretations and emphasize the coherence of God’s love and justice without resorting to concepts that portray God as vindictive or schizoid. This movement seeks to align more closely with the life and teachings of Yeshua, who exemplified and preached God’s unconditional love and the transformative power of grace, urging us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44), thus challenging us to embody a love that transcends human understanding and the limitations of retributive justice.

I invite you to explore this topic further with me in my new book, ‘The “Gospel” of Divine Abuse,’ available on this Amazon page. A free sample is available here.