Sorry, not buying the figures of speech thing. If God is love then He must hate evil. Not only this but the scripture say in the same breath that He hates evil doers. The same word for hate is used. If He destroys sin with His fiery indignation in the cup of wrath He also destroys evil doers. But after destruction comes restoration.
Nobody denies that.
Psalm 5:5 - âThe foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.â
And yet God loves the workers of iniquity:
Rom.5:8 But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 Jn.4:10)
1 John 2:2 He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours alone, but also for the sins of the whole world.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten SonâŚ(Jn.3:16a).
All men have been Godâs enemies, yet He loved & loves them:
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. (Col.1:21)
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. (Eph.2:3)
4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for allâthe testimony that was given at just the right time. (1 Tim.2:4-6)
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom.3:23-24)
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Rom.5:10)
From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of Godâs choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; (Rom.11:28)
For God so loved the WORLD that He gave His only-begotten SonâŚ
God loved the WORLD. The world contains many evil doers. Therefore God loves evil doers.
Paidion,
Iâve already showed that the word world doesnât mean every individual but humanity. So, I agree that God loves some evil doers but hates others. This is consistent with the other scriptures speaking of Godâs hatred of not only sin but sinners. The reprobate are cut off (Kolasis) from the whole world in the new heavens and earth. Theyâre not part of all humanity. They must be grafted in.
he also will drink the wine of Godâs wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. ~~ Rev. 14:10
Full strength literally means unmixed. Itâs without mercy.
Romans 9:13 - âAs it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.â
Heaven and hell
Your quote of Zech.11:8, KJV, for example, was misleading:
You should compare other translations, the vast majority disagreeing with the KJV clones, e.g.
New International Version
In one month I got rid of the three shepherds. The flock detested me, and I grew weary of them
English Standard Version
In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me.
New American Standard Bible
Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was weary of me.
JPS Tanakh 1917
And I cut off the three shepherds in one month; âfor My soul became impatient of them, and their soul also loathed Me.â
The only Bible book that speaks of the lake of fire is Revelation. Nowhere in Revelation does it say God hates those in the lake of fire or doesnât love them. It does speak of some being tormented, not destroyed, there.
âConsider again, âI loved Jacob and I hated Esauâ (Malachi 1:2-3). How is the thing called Godâs âhatredâ of Esau displayed in the actual story? Not at all as we might expect. There is of course no ground for assuming that Esau made a bad end and was a lost soul; the Old Testament, here as elsewhere, has nothing to say about such matters. And, from all we are told, Esauâs earthly life was, in every ordinary sense, a good deal more blessed than Jacobâs. It is Jacob who has all the disappointments, humiliations, terrors, and bereavements. But he has something which Esau has not. He is a patriarch. He hands on the Hebraic tradition, transmits the vocation and the blessing, becomes an ancestor of Our Lord. The âlovingâ of Jacob seems to mean the acceptance of Jacob for a high (and painful) vocation; the âhatingâ of Esau, his rejection. He is âturned down,â fails to âmake the grade,â is found useless for the purpose. So, in the last resort, we must turn down or disqualify our nearest and dearest when they come between us and our obedience to God. Heaven knows, it will seem to them sufficiently like hatred. We must not act on the pity we feel; we must be blind to tears and deaf to pleadings.â
C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (1960; Harcourt Brace: 1991) 129.
These quotes arenât speaking of the lake of fire or the new creation:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten SonâŚ(Jn.3:16a).
Who were sinners & enemies of God:
Rom.5:8 But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Jesus said to âlove your enemiesâ. Do you suppose God, Who IS love [not hate], hates those He tells us to love?
hollytree, are you practicing this:
Luke 14:26
If any man come to me (Jesus), and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
or these:
Mat 19:19
Honor thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Mt.5:44
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
""Critics may complain, but they do so without knowledge of the ancient principles of rhetoric (as expressed by writers like Quintillion) and exaggeration (as is found typically on Ancient Near Eastern war inscriptions and elsewhere; see below)âŚ
"And in fact, such rhetorical emphasis typifies ancient and even modern Semitic cultures. G. B. Caird, in The Language and Imagery of the Bible, notes the frequent use of hyperbole among Semitic peoples, and notes that âits frequent use arises out of a habitual cast of mindâ which tends to view matters in extremes, or as we would say, âblack and white.â The Semitic mindset is dogmatic, and despises doubt; things are either one way or another, and there is no room for introspectionâŚ
"Abraham Rihbany (The Syrian Christ, 98f) points to the use of âhateâ in the Bible as an example of linguistic extreme in an Eastern culture. There is no word, he notes, for âlikeâ in the Arabic tongue. ââŚ[T]o us Orientals the only word which can express and cordial inclination of approval is âloveâ.â The word is used even of casual acquaintances. Extreme language is used to express even moderate relationships.
"Luke 14:26 falls into a category of âextreme language,â the language of absoluteness used to express a preference, and may refer to disattachment, indifference, or nonattachment without any feelings of revulsion involved. To seal this matter completely, letâs look at some parallel materials which prove our point. The closest example comes from:
Genesis 29:30-1
And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.
Here, âhatedâ is clearly used synonymously with one who is loved less. Let it be added that if Jacob hated Leah in a literal way, it is hardly believable that he would consent to take her as his wife at all! (See also Judges 14:16 and Deut. 21:15-17.)"
ââŚBottom line â skeptics who think that Jesus is preaching literal and misogynist hate in this verse are doing no more than the usual â thinking out of time, out of mind with the text, and in some cases (like Barker and C. Dennis McKinsey) letting their own âhateâ get in the way of reading the text any way other than with wooden literalism.â
I would venture to propose that the Holy Spirit moreso (than Yahweh the Father or Yeshua the Son) personally takes it upon Herself, to interdependently fill the feminine role of the Godhead. Also, I think the term âcontradictionâ is the inverse of âparadoxâ however, they are at times used interchangeably to a fault. In passing, I think folks at times unwittingly make the âmysteryâ of the Godhead just a tad more complicated than it inherently is (with God being an otherworldly idea to start with). I say this especially because of the limitations of Christianese or theological jargon (used by any religion-specific descriptions of what we know as âGodâ).
You, I, and this link stand in impeccably harmonious agreement based on statements youâve made throughout this post which bond in the spirit of familiarity and resonance: https://jorgeschulz.wordpress.com/tag/sappy-spirituaity/
I definitely have more thoughts to offer on this rich set of musings youâve posed about theodicy and the supernatural. Thanks again for keeping us thinking with our brains and hearts, @St_Michael. 
âKolasisâ means âcut offâ in a very special way. It was originally used for âcutting offâ or pruning the branches of trees in order to correct their growth. Later, the word was used figuratively with respect to correcting children.
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Even if you are correct about âsinners in the hands of an angry Godâ and even if you can âprove itâ, I canât buy it. I donât feel like Iâm âexaltingâ myself, or taking sin too lightly. I think the worst blasphemy I ever read was Jonathan Edwardsâ sermon on this topic.
As I understand it, Godâs wrath is part of his love; it is for our own benefit. All comes within the framework of Love. âGod is Loveâ is not an attribute to be added to âjusticeâ, âholinessâ etc; it is what God IS. Seeing him as being angry in the way you suggest seems to me to be too anthropomorphic and certainly doesnât sound much like love as I understand and experience it, nor as our Lord exemplified it, for example in his words âFather, forgive themâŚâ there is in this (and, for example in the story of the Prodigal Son) a sadness and longing, shown in the way Christ wept over Jerusalem.
God bless
Chris
Hi qaz. I looked the word up in the Septuagint, and it doesnât seem clear that it merely means âpunishment.â
Itâs my bedtime now, but I will add to this post tomorrow (May 29) to provide the information.