Hatred of evil
I. RELIGION INCLUDES MORALS. This is the broad lesson of the text. It should be accepted as a self-evident truism. Yet it has been often obscured by dangerous sophisms. Thus some have regarded religion as consisting in correctness of creed or in assiduity of devotion—things treated by God as worthless unless accompanied by righteousness of conduct (Isaiah 1:10-17). There is a common impression that religious merits may be pleaded as a set off against moral deficiencies. No assumption can be more false, nor can any be more degrading or more injurious. The reverse is true. Religiousness increases the guilt of unrighteousness of life by raising the standard up to which one is supposed to live, and also adds the sin of hypocrisy. True religion is impossible without a proportionate devotion to righteousness. because it consists in the fear of God. But God is holy; to reverence him must involve the adoration of his character—the love of goodness and the corresponding detestation of its opposite.
II. RELIGION INSPIRES MORALS WITH STRONG EMOTION. Morality is to obey the law. Religion goes further, and hates evil. It is not a matter of outward conduct only. It goes down to the secret springs of action. It rouses the deepest passions of the soul. We cannot accept Mr. M. Arnold's definition of religion as "morality touched with emotion," because it ignores the foundation of religion in "the fear of the Lord," in devotion to a personal God; but the phrase may serve as an apt description of an essential characteristic of religion. The difficulty we all feel is that, while we know the better way we are often so weak as to choose the worse. A cold, bare exposition of morality will be of little use with this difficulty. What we want is a powerful impulse, and that impulse it is the function of religion to supply. It makes goodness not only visible but beautiful and attractive, and it inspires a hunger and thirst after righteousness, a passion for a God-like life in the love of God, a yearning after the likeness of Christ in devotion of heart to him. It also makes evil appear hideous, detestable, by its horrible opposition to these affections.
III. AMONG RELIGIOUS EMOTIONS IS THE PASSION OF HATRED. Religion is not based upon hatred. It begins with" the fear of the Lord," with reverence for God rising up to love. No strong thing can rest on a mere negation. Neither morality nor religion starts from an attitude in regard to evil. But they lead on to this, and they are not perfect without it. The passion of hatred is natural; it has a useful, though a low, place in the array of spiritual forces. It is abused when it is spent upon persons, but it is rightly indulged against evil principles and practices. We are morally defective unless we can feel "the hate of hate, and scorn of scorn." One of the means by which we are helped to resist sin is found in this hatred of it. It is not enough that we disapprove of it. We must loathe and abhor it from the very bottom of our hearts.
IV. RELIGIOUS HATRED IS DETESTATION OF EVIL ITSELF, NOT THE MERE DISLIKE OF ITS CONSEQUENCES. When Paley, in his 'Moral Philosophy,' described the function of religion in aiding morality as the addition of the prospect of future rewards and promises, he expressed a common sense truth, but a very low truth detached from more spiritual ideas and a very partial representation of the case. Religious morality is not simply nor chiefly the fear of God as a Judge who will punish us if we do wrong. It is reverence for a holy Father leading to hatred of all that is displeasing to him. We have no religion till we go beyond the instinctive dislike for pain that follows sin to hatred of sin itself. This is the test of true religion—that we love goodness and hate evil for their own sakes. It is interesting to observe that the sin selected for special abhorrence on the part of those who are inspired by "the fear of the Lord" is pride. This is spiritual wickedness of the most fatal character, In its feeling of personal merit and self-sufficiency it excludes both repentance and faith—the two fundamental conditions of spiritual religion. Therefore the spirit of the Pharisee and all pride must be hated above all things, and will be hated by those who have true reverence for the great and holy God, and true love for the lowly Christ who promised the kingdom of heaven to the "poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3).