Through thy precepts I get understanding:
Therefore I hate every false way (Psa 119.104).
“Christians are not supposed to hate anything or anyone. The epitome of Christian virtue is unconditional, universal love.”1 Such are the widespread misguided beliefs of masses, both within and outside the ranks of professing believers. They think hate per se is evil, no matter what its object. If only the world could be completely rid of hatred, it would become a utopia.
Dear friends, heaven itself would be marred if this were the case. “These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination to him,” Scripture says, and a list of seven deadly vices follows, and it includes the perpetrators themselves (Prov 6.16-19). The Lord hates sin not only in the abstract, but also as it takes concrete form in particular individuals. “The froward [devious, perverse person] is abomination [detestable, loathsome, abhorrent] to the Lord” (Prov 3.32), as well as a false balance (Prov 11.1; 20.10, 23), the sacrifice and the way of the wicked (Prov 15.8-9), one who justifies the wicked and condemns the righteous (Prov 17.15), people who offer child sacrifice or practice divination, witches, sorcerers, mediums, and fortune tellers (Deut 18.9-14). All these are utterly despised, to a degree we cannot fathom, from the depths of Jehovah’s holy soul.
“Well, that was the Lord in the Old Testament,” some cavil. “Jesus is different than that.” No, to say so amounts to heresy. Jesus is the very revelation of God to us, for Jesus is God in the flesh, and he can never, ever change (Mal 3.6; Heb 13.8). Besides, even if we were restricted to the NT and its characterization of Jesus, we could easily discover that he also hates evil and evildoers. How else could we account for his fearful denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees? Was he not righteously indignant, with a holy zeal against wicked men, when he said to them, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” (Matt 23.13-33). The epistles also reveal the fierceness of Jesus’ hatred for his enemies, for “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance [just revenge] on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel” (2 Thess 1.8-9). It must be startling, for anyone under the modern delusion of the false Jesus who cannot hate, to read, in John’s apocalypse, that the wicked will “be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb” (i.e., the glorified Lord Jesus; Rev 14.10). Not Satan, but Jesus will be the tormentor of the wicked in hell.
That the torment takes place not only “before the Lamb” but also before “holy angels” suggests that the angels are not merely present when the judgment occurs but also [i.e., along with the Lamb—DSM] take part in the execution of it, though their presence may only be intended to call attention to the Lamb (emphasis mine—DSM).2
Indeed, along with every other part of Psalm 119, verse 104 expresses the sentiments of Jesus Christ himself. As the righteous One and perfect man, he expresses himself in these very words, “Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way,” and Christ is the pattern for all Christians. It was the spirit of Christ in David the prophet prompting him to write this.
There certainly is such a thing as sacred hatred. Contrary to popular opinion, it is a great virtue and blessing. Without this people are morally and tragically defective, for God’s image in them is only that much more warped. Well might we aspire to sacred hatred in an ever-greater measure. We should pray for its increase, as the waters cover the sea, because the more we and our neighbors become like Jesus in holy hatred and all his other excellent qualities, the more blessed we all will be.
COMES FROM KNOWING SCRIPTURE
The first line is a setup for the second. In it he speaks of a spiritual blessing, “understanding,” and its channel, “Thy precepts.” The instrumentality of precepts for understanding is conveyed by the word “through.” That the blessing is derived and not innate is suggested by the psalmist’s testimony, “I get [or gain] understanding.” It is not something I already had—at least not to the same degree.
The particular Hebrew word for understanding focuses on the idea of “discernment,” the ability to distinguish things that differ. We have a relatively limited and fallible inherent ability to tell the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil, and that native ability is called conscience. Even without Scripture, the heathen have an awareness that they are sinners and do things that are morally bad (Rom 2.14-15), but in the moral realm, they are, as it were, groping in dimness.
How humbling to our proud hearts! Yet this realization opens the door to greater understanding. Solomon’s renown for wisdom began with this prayer, “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad” (1 Kgs 3.9). This humble posture leads us to God’s Word, the revelatory storehouse of verbal truth, the means by which he answers our prayers for wisdom. We must soak our minds and spirits in the words of the Bible, with unreserved commitment to carry out all the righteousness it commends to us, and as God graciously blesses us, we will be more and more renewed and our spiritual understanding will grow. “Through thy precepts I get understanding.”
DIRECTED TOWARD EVERY FALSE WAY
The second line carefully credits God for the virtue experienced by the psalmist. “Therefore,” since you, O Lord, have granted me discernment through your blessed precepts, I also have this most excellent aspect of my good character: “I hate every false way.”
It logically follows that people who remain in ignorance of Scripture, whether because they have no access to it or neglect it through apathy or laziness, do not hate every false way. This conclusion is sound, for that is, in fact, exactly the case with them. It also follows that one cannot expect to know the heights of sacred hatred with only a little spiritual understanding through God’s Word. We must be obsessed with Scripture’s teaching to have great discernment and great antipathy for everything Scripture condemns.
The Hebrew word for “hate” is not at all mistranslated here. If anything, the original is more intense: “detest, loathe, be hostile, have a feeling of open hostility and intense dislike.”3 It is “the opposite of love. Whereas love draws and unites, hate separates and keeps distant.”4 The psalmist has a deep-seated desire to have nothing to do with, and to live apart from, “every false way.” Is this not an absolutely essential virtue? How could God or anyone else be truly good without it? Further, the more holy anyone is, the stronger his aversion to the unholy. God’s holy hatred of evil is infinite, like all the rest of his infinite attributes.
“Every false way” is contrasted with the way embodied in God’s precepts, so it amounts to any deviation from biblical righteousness. Such ways are necessarily “false,” deceptive, in that they lure men unwittingly away from their own self-interests and into eternal ruin. Wisdom personified says, “he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death” (Prov 8.36).
The psalmist testifies to hating every false way. He loathed any and all sin, and this is a trait of all people with spiritual integrity. The hypocritical thief despises the drunkard for his lack of self control, and the drunk looks down on the thief for his mistreatment of others, but a truly pious soul hates every kind of sin, even (and perhaps especially) those of which he has been the most guilty, and which have plagued him more than others. As Joseph Alleine so memorably wrote,
If you yield yourself to the practice of any sin, you are undone. In vain do you hope for life by Christ, except you depart from iniquity. Forsake your sins—or you cannot find mercy. You cannot be married to Christ except you be divorced from sin. Give up the traitor—or you can have no peace with heaven. Keep not Delilah in your lap. You must part with your sins—or with your soul: spare but one sin and God will not spare you. Your sins must die—or you must die for them. If you allow one sin, though but a little, a secret one, though you may plead necessity, and have a hundred shifts and excuses for it, the life of your soul must go for the life of that sin. And will it not be dearly bought?5
A new biography of John Calvin called him “an outstanding hater,”6 listing the ones he found offensive, all he judged as unfaithful to Scripture—heretics and compromisers. Perhaps most count this a fault in him, but is it not unsurprising and rather a great commendation, since Calvin was so devoted to God’s Word? In hating sin and heresy, he truly if dimly reflected the glory of his Savior Jesus Christ.
Notes:
1. As with any presentation, this message is not the whole truth about this subject and could be easily abused or misunderstood. However, it is an important aspect of the whole counsel of God about these things, and one which seems little understood and appreciated, so we stress it.
Because of sacred hatred, sacred love is rendered even more astounding and wonderful, both in God and in his people. God loves whom he hates, and so should we. It is important to realize that in the perfectly sanctified, both sacred hatred and sacred love coexist harmoniously and produce the very highest moral and ethical behavior.
2. G. K. Beale, NIGTC, in loc.
3. DBLSD #8533.
4. TWOT #2272.
5. Alarm to the Unconverted, ch. 7 (c. 1671).
6. Bruce Gordon, Calvin, p. vii. (2009).