When God Feels…Hatred

Malachi 1:1-5

August 3, 2025 • Mount Pleasant UMC

The song you just heard a few moments ago in the video is a classic, released all the way back in 1995. It is maybe most remembered for the controversy it created when it first came out, especially among Christians. “What if God were one of us?” A lot of people didn’t (and still don’t) like that idea, although every Christmas we celebrate the fact that God did become one of us; that’s the message of the incarnation (John 1:14), when God came to live among us in the person of Jesus. And I find it ironic that people get upset thinking about God being “one of us” because we routinely picture and talk about God as if he were just a big human being. It’s been said that God created us in his image (cf. Genesis 1:27) and we’ve happily returned the favor. But the Bible says that even though God became “one of us,” he is not like us; he is absolutely other than us. Yet he is close to us. The fancy theological words are that he is “immanent and transcendent.” He is “other than us” but he is close to us, and we are made in his image.

One of the ways we “image” or reflect God is through our emotions. Do you ever picture God as having emotions? Aristotle pictured a divine being as an “unmoved mover.” He believed God would be emotionless and that our emotions would have no affect on him. And a lot of people today still think of God that way. We’re uncomfortable with God having emotions, partly because we think of emotions as “irrational, uncontrollable, and confusing” (Lamb, The Emotions of God, pg. 4). And yet the images of God in Scripture are very emotional. God feels what we feel. Sometimes God feels what we should feel but don’t. In the Bible we see God weeping, angry, hating, loving and having all sorts of other feelings. What kind of God is this? For the next few weeks we’re going to look at the emotional side of God. God created us in his image, so as we understand him better, we will also understand ourselves better and know more who he made us to be. So, just because I think it’s fun, we’re going to start with what are usually considered the negative emotions and work our way to the more “positive” emotions over these next few weeks. And today, we begin with hatred.

Malachi is the last writing prophet in the Old Testament and he preaches to Judah after they have returned from exile. I once heard a speaker refer to him aa “Mala-chee, the Italian prophet,” but it’s Malachi and he preaches some sixty to seventy years after the rebuilt Temple was completed. The sacrificial system is functioning and the priests are leading regular worship. All seems to be well…except the people aren’t taking worship or God seriously. They just move through the rituals without any heart involvement, which is why the prophets of the time tell them their worship is unworthy. But it because the people generally believe God has abandoned them or forgotten them (Baldwin, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, pg. 223; Goldingay, Daniel & The Twelve Prophets, pg. 257; Alden, “Malachi,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 7, pg. 709). In other words, it’s a sad time, a difficult time on all sides. And into that time, at the very top of this prophecy, God says to Judah, “I have loved you” (1:2).

Judah responds in a way that sounds almost cynical or at least disbelieving. “How have you loved us?” (1:2). It sounds to me like they’re saying, “You say you’ve loved us? Then prove it. You seem to be blessing our enemies more than us, and we’re supposed to be your chosen people” (cf. Baldwin 222-223). You say you’ve loved us; prove it!

So God, through the prophet, uses an image, a story from the Old Testament, to explain what’s happening here. It’s the story of two brothers—twins, actually—named Esau and Jacob. But not only are they twins, they are competitors. Even in the womb, they are fighting to be in charge. Their mother, Rebekah, feels them jostling in the womb and says, “Why is this happening to me?” When she asks God about it, she is told, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger” (Genesis 25:22-23). That is, in fact, what happens. Esau is born first, but Jacob comes out grabbing his heel, and throughout their lives they are fighting for prominence. But even before they were born, God is clear that the “younger” (by only a few moments) is the one he has chosen. Jacob will continue the line of God’s people and Esau will be the forefather of the nation of Edom. And despite Esau and Jacob’s reconciliation in Genesis 33 (well, sort of reconciliation), Edom and Israel remained enemies even into Malachi’s day.

So that’s the story behind Malachi 1: “I have loved Jacob,” God says through the prophet, “but Esau I have hated” (1:2-3). Wait a minute, I pretend to hear you say. We’re told in the New Testament that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Not just that God loves, but God is love. I mean, we just looked at that passage a few weeks ago; John is quite clear about God’s nature being love. So how could that God also say he hates someone? That he hates a whole nation of people? “I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated” (1:2-3). And that’s not the only place in the Bible we are told that God hates. God is often said to hate our actions, even to despise our worship rituals, and even on occasion to hate people. Proverbs lists seven things God hates: “haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community” (Proverbs 6:16-19). That’s quite a list, and if you notice it goes from actions to people. And maybe that makes a little bit of sense of the verse in Ecclesiastes when we’re told that there is, in fact, a time to hate (Ecclesiastes 3:8). Whether we’re comfortable with it or not, the Biblical witness is that God hates.

But the question is: what do the Biblical authors mean by “hate”? When we think of hate, human hatred, it’s an ugly, destructive emotion. Hatred is associated with white supremacists, terrorists, Nazis and others. It’s one of the most hurtful things we can say; what parent’s heart has not been ripped open by a child who says, “I hate you!”? Even if we know they don’t mean it, it still hurts. So is that the way God acts? Does God look at particular people and shout, “I hate you, Esau”? Or is there something else behind this emotion?

When the Bible talks about God hating, it’s almost always in reference to his reaction to sin. Just a short list of things God hates, according to the Bible: pride, divorce, robbery, violence, bloodshed, evil and wickedness. Now, it’s not that those things can’t be forgiven; we know that because of Jesus they all can be forgiven. There isn’t any sin or brokenness that Christ’s sacrifice can’t make right. But God hates the brokenness that comes into our lives because of these things. God hates sin because he loves justice, he loves good, he loves righteousness (cf. Lamb 27). He despises what sin and brokenness and injustice does to us and in us. He hates these things because he loves us (which is an emotion we will get to in a few weeks). Because of who he is, God cannot remain neutral when sin is in the picture. He will always hate sin and its destructive nature (cf. Lamb 41).

So why does Malachi single out Esau? Why does he say God “hated” Esau but loved Jacob? There are a couple of options Biblically speaking for Malachi’s statement. First of all, it could simply refer to the story back in Genesis and the difference between the two sons of Isaac (cf. Lamb 30). The text is clear that God chose to work through Jacob, the second-born and the physically weaker of the two. Isaac favored Esau and his wife Rebekah favored Jacob. If you read the story in Genesis (which you will have the chance to do if you follow the Scripture readings), you’ll see there is a rivalry between the two from the very start. But God sides with Jacob for a lot of reasons, most of which God keeps to himself. And it is through Jacob that the nation of Israel is eventually born; we’re told often he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not Esau. Esau was a flawed person who hated his birthright, but even so, God promised a nation would also come from him. So perhaps “hatred” has to do with “chosenness” or rather “unchosenness” (Lamb 31).

Another possibility is that “hatred” has to do with judgment (Lamb 31). Malachi, like the prophets before him, uses imagery and symbols a whole lot. He’s not talking about the actual person of Esau from centuries ago; he’s talking more about the people, the nation that has come from Esau, the nation that God promised. That was the nation of Edom, located in the very southern part of modern-day Jordan. If you’re an Indiana Jones fan, this is the part of the country where Petra is located, where the Nabateans eventually defeated the Edomites and ran them out of their territory. That, as far as the prophet was concerned, was part of God’s judgment on Edom. God himself takes credit for the invasion and Edom’s displacement. “I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals” (1:3). And even when Edom arrogantly declares their intent to rebuild and reconquer, God says, “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord” (1:4). Edom stands under God’s judgment and so they are experiencing punishment at the hand of God.

Part of our challenge is in the translation. I’ve said it before: English is a rather limiting language, with honestly not as many emotion words as other languages like Hebrew have. Where in English we have “love” and “hate,” in Hebrew those words are much more subtle, often meaning “gave myself to” or “turned away from” (Goldingay 258). In other words, this statement in Malachi could be translated as “I have given myself to Jacob, but Esau I have turned away from,” and the reason is that Esau turned away from God first. God does not reject anyone just because he doesn’t like them. God turns away from people only when they first turn away from him. It’s similar to what C. S. Lewis said about hell. Lewis argued that God doesn’t send anyone to hell. God doesn’t look out and pick you and you and you and that one over there to go to hell. Lewis put it this way: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell” (The Great Divorce). God doesn’t want to turn away from or “hate” anyone. But he will also not force anyone to love him. The choice is on us.

So, children of God reflecting God’s image, what does this mean for our own emotions? Is it right or are we allowed to hate other people? In the Gospels, it seems Jesus gives us permission not only to hate other people, but even to hate those who are closest to us. Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). And there was another time when he seemed to demonstrate that very behavior, at least on some level. Jesus is teaching in a home when his family arrives and asks for him to come out. They think he has lost his mind—mainly because he was keeping so busy he wasn’t eating. I get that. I might think that about him, too. But Jesus ignores his mother—his mother!—and he tells the crowd, “‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:48-50). I can only imagine how that went over with Mary, let alone his brothers!

At least part of Jesus’ use of the word “hate” here is hyperbole. Jesus exaggerates to get attention. He does the same thing when he suggests that if our eyes cause us to sin we should pluck them out (cf. Matthew 18:8-9). He doesn’t mean that literally; he’s using the Jewish way of teaching. Same thing here with hatred. What he is doing is causing us to reconsider our priorities. Is Jesus first in our lives? Is he more important than other things? “Intense love for Jesus and desire to follow him at all costs could look like hatred to friends and family who don’t share this commitment” (Lamb 36). Here’s the thing: God sees everything and understands everything from motives to secret agendas and everything in between. He knows us better than we know ourselves. Our viewpoint is not perfect, so hatred is not really an option for us because we don’t see perfectly the way God sees. This may come as a surprise but you are not God and neither am I.

One of the questions we ask in our baptismal vows is this: “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” (United Methodist Hymnal, pg. 40). We ask that because we know growing into that mindset aligns us with God’s purposes. As I said, God hates those things because of what they do to his children. We resist them. We refuse to participate in them. We don’t do anything to allow evil, injustice and oppression to flourish. So racism, sexism, ageism, all the isms—these are evil beliefs and practices that result in oppression and injustice. When others are seen as and treated as “less than” simply because of who they are—God hates that. God hates poverty because of what it does to his children, so what do we do to fight against all of God’s children having enough? There is much in the political world and discussions of today which creates injustice and oppression. Social media, which was supposed to be the great equalizer, has become a place of bullying and unkindness. I could go on and on. Sin has created untold amounts of evil, injustice and oppression—and that is what God hates. He does not hate you. He does not hate people. He hates what sin does to people and the ways we perpetuate sin and brokenness. God stand opposed to everything evil and calls us to do the same.

And because he hates evil, he gave his very son so that evil would not win the day. Jesus came to teach us how to live holy lives, to teach us how to live the way God wants us to live, to teach us how to love one another. And how did we respond? We arrested him, beat him, and nailed him to a Roman cross. We gave him one of the worst deaths imaginable. Jesus died in agony, not because he had to but because we are so enamored with sin and evil that we would rather kill the Son of God than give up our way of life. Of course, we also know the rest of the story, that Jesus was not just murdered by sinful humanity but he came out on the other side. He rose again, defeated death and lives forever, seated at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus took the worst evil we could do to him and he redeemed it, and he can do the same to your evil and my evil. He can make us right with God if we put our trust in him.

The night before the crucifixion, however, Jesus gathered his closest friends in an upper room on the edge of Jerusalem and he gave them a meal. Actually, he adapted an old, traditional meal called Passover. But he flipped the normal script and gave new meaning to it. He said the bread was his body and the wine was his blood. My guess is that his friends left the room that night still scratching their heads about all that. It wasn’t until Jesus willingly gave up his life on the cross the next day that they would begin to understand. Honestly, we still don’t completely understand it, two thousand years later. But we do what Jesus told us to do; we practice this sacrament of Holy Communion in obedience because he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” This meal reminds us, among other things, that God hates evil, injustice and oppression so much that he would rather die than for us to live surrounded by it, immersed in it. Jesus gave his life to provide us a way out of the evil ways of the world. This morning, as we come to the table, let us come with grateful hearts that sin and evil no longer have the final word in our lives.

Will you join me in prayer as we prepare our hearts for Holy Communion?