My friend Rebecca asked me this question:
DOES GOD TOLERATE SIN OR HE TOLERATES SINNERS?
Response: Praise God and thank you for the question. Am going to assume that you have paraphrased the famous Christian cliché of Love the Sinner and Hate the sin in this question. And if this so, then I would like to congratulate you on the fact that you have used the right word of TOLERANCE as opposed to LOVE.
First, we all must understand that God does not LOVE sinners for he has never created one. When you love someone, it is because you appreciate them for who they are and in most cases, all you can do is to actually improve who they are.
If God loved sinners he wouldn’t have sacrificed himself to make us different people from who we are. If God loved sinners he would have made us better sinners or improved sinners, but God died and resurrected to make us different people altogether.
It is important that I begin from this note to ensure that sinners (like me) out there are not comfortable and confident in this identity (sinners). God does not love sinners, he only tolerates them.
It matters that we define what tolerance is:
Tolerance is an ability to endure what you do not agree with on the road to what you agree with. It is a circumstantial permissive attitude to what is wrong in pursuit of what is right.
God’s love, which is the source of his tolerance, is not like our love, we love wrong things and often we find ourselves in love with wrong characters. God never does that. What we consider to be the love of God to the world in John 3:16-17 is actually his tolerance to this fallen world. If he loved it, he wouldn’t replace it as he intends to do (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1).
Love is an approval, an authentication and a legitimization.
A sinner and a fallen world are not elements God approves of (loves) but elements that have a leverage on him (God). The leverage that the fallen and cursed world (Genesis 3:17) has on God is that it contains Man, and the leverage that the fallen man (sinner) has on God is that he bears God’s image (Genesis 1:26) he tolerates, not loves, both until what he loves turns to him.
This question is more on God than it is on sin and the sinner. The way we understand God and who we think or know he determines all other relational details that follow.
God is the absolute uncaused CAUSE of everything in the universe. He is the creator and origin of everything. He is eternal and most of all the absolute good and right. He is the beginning of everything except SIN, SINNING and SINNERS (sinfulness/fallenness).
So right here, I have just answered your question: God tolerates SINNERS and tolerates their SINNING but hates and fights SIN. Sinners and sinning are products of SIN.
Here is the difference: the sinner is a victim or sometimes an agent of the value-system of SIN. Their sinning is what they do under the influence of SIN. According to the Bible, we are sinners whether actively involved in sinning or not.
But SIN, on the other-hand is a power, a power antagonistic not only to what God does (creation) and God’s value system (what he believes is right by design and ordination) but absolutely antagonistic to who God is and his existence. While God creates life and material out of nothing, sin takes the entire creation of God back into nothingness (Death).
God forgives sinners and their sinning but not sin (cause). God does not forgive sin, he fights it. God does not tolerate sin for it is not subject to change. The tolerance of God to sinners and their sinning is the truth that they can change and become different people. But the SIN cannot so that he fights and will eventually eliminate.
As I conclude, I have to mention two important things for this subject matter:
1. The conclusions of SINNER, SINNING and SIN are exclusively made by God and not by us. When we say that; it is sin, and so and so is sinning, therefore, he is a sinner. This conclusion is not (ought not to be) made in our councils and laboratories, it is rather a conclusion only possible by the standard of God and his word.
People are not sinners because they have hurt us or actually not in line with our cultural-moral norms, institutional policies or even religious doctrines. People are sinners according to God (Romans 3:12, Mathew 7:1-3). This liberates and protects us from becoming judgemental to others. We esteem one a sinner in reference to God’s word and standards not to any other thing, not even the law. I don’t tolerate the sinner of my definition and hate the sin of my definition, it is the definition and conclusion of God that I (ought to) operate within as I tolerate sinners and sinning.
2. The Tolerance of God to sinners and sinning is limited to three factors:
The Mission of the Tolerant: God tolerates us because he wants to save us and he hopes we will change our mind (2Peter 3:9). He is tolerant because due to that mission
The Will of the Tolerated: Tolerance does not make sense and neither will it last where it is not appreciated. God tolerates the genuinely WEAK but with a WILL to do otherwise. He does not tolerate the WICKED, who are bent to rebellion and defensive in nature (2Corinthians 4:3-4, 1John 1:8-10)
The Time that both parties have: However much God is tolerant, we sinners that he is tolerant with are not as timeless as God is. The tolerance of God makes sense to the living sinners today and not the dead. (2Corinthians 6:2, Isaiah 63:4)
Friends, I want you to understand that God loves you, and the YOU he loves is the one he knew before he formed you into the womb of your mother (Jeremiah 1:5). You and I ceased to be that person and now God tolerates us as he works us back to our originality. That is why the word of God says:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. (2Corinthians 5:17)
God bless you, I Invoke, TRUTH, REASON and FAITH.
Pr White
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Ministries (John 4:24)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 