The Burr in the Burgh

My blogging buddy, Pastor Tom Chryst, over at Preachrblog, has a good insight that he posted yesterday.

We commonly hear that God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. And I have often thought that that could be a bit misleading. Pastor Chryst does a good job explaining why.

It has always seemed a bit gnostic to me (as long as I have known what gnosticism is), to separate the sin from the sinner. You see, there is no such thing as sin in the abstract. Evil is not some platonic idea in the mind of God. There is only sin insofar as there are sinners. It is not, after all, abstract sins that God condemns to hell. Sins don't go to hell. People do.

At the same time, we preach the cross of Jesus. And there we see that God also, paradoxically, loves sinners and chose to redeem them. Jesus didn't die for abstract principles or ideals. He was no martry. And no one took His life from Him. He freely gave it. Jesus died for real flesh-and-bone people, sinners like me.