"You have been told that God is loving, gracious, merciful, kind, compassionate, wonderful, and good sky fairy who runs a day care in the sky and has a bucket of suckers for everyone because we're all good people. That is a lie... God looks down and says 'I hate you, you are my enemy, and I will crush you,' and we say that is deserved, right and just, and then God says 'Because of Jesus I will love you and forgive you."
This is a quote by Marc Driscoll, a well-known Christian leader, theologan and pastor in the US. Now he says that God looks down on us and sees us as His enemy and hates us. Sorry Marc, but that is not the God of the Bible.
Some of what he says is on the right lines. God isn't an old man on a cloud who's nice to everyone. He challenges us and tests us to help us grow in our faith. He asks us to take risks. But to say God hates us is fundamentally wrong. God hates our sin, He doesn't hate us. He loves us. That's why He sent Jesus. If He hated us as Driscoll alleges, then He wouldn't have sent Jesus in the first place.
What Driscoll believes is a complete misinterpretation of scriputre. It is very dangerous to go around preaching that. It's that sort of preaching which inspires people to go around with placards at Gay marches saying that 'God hates you' and 'You Will Burn in Hell', forgetting the passage saying 'He who is without sin cast the first stone' .
The Lord is not someone who is always nice to us and always gives us what we want and makes it easy for us, but He is a God who always acts out of love. 'God is love, he who lives in love lives in God'. The phrase goes 'He hates the sin, not the sinner' and that is the truth. Marc Driscoll, hang your head in shame. Congratulations on completely missing the message of the gospel.
