What does it mean that there is a time to love and a time to hate (Ecclesiastes 3:8)?

224 Verses 12, 13. Everything not heavenly is mixed up with her: "Souls of men." "Through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you," 2 Peter 2:3. There is a time "to love, and a time to hate," and there are certain things which if a person does not hate, he has no right estimate of God. Some things ought to be hated - not the persons of course - "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." We must not confound natural kindness with grace; but it is easy to do it, and to be indifferent to God's honour. The popish hierarchy has been guilty of shedding all the blood that has been shed upon earth. It is the centralisation of all the wickedness that has been done on the earth from the time of Abel downwards, and Rome will be judged for it (v. 24).

Ask the question of most people, What is the opposite of love? the very general answer would be hate. It is true that this is so, but it is not the whole answer. There is however a right hate accompanying right love.

Our Lord exemplified this. We read of Him prophetically, “Thou lovest righteousness and hatest iniquity” (Ps. 15:7). This scripture is quoted, and applied to the Lord in Hebrews 1:9. To love righteousness is to hate its opposite, iniquity. The more intense the love of righteousness, the more intense the hatred of iniquity.

It says of the Lord Jesus that He "loved righteousness, and hated iniquity" (Heb.1:9). It is very difficult for us to hate as Christians, and hate in a righteous spiritual matter. The Lord could hate as perfectly as He loved. He loved with perfection, and He hated with perfection. It is often very difficult for us to do this, because of some personal matter involved that may arouse our hatred and our anger, but the Lord Jesus hated things because they were in opposition to His God and we also have to have those features. In the Proverbs there are seven things the Lord hates: "These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren" (Prov.6:16-19). God expects His people to hate them too, and to make sure that first of all they are eradicated from our own lives, and to make sure that we do not give any permissiveness in relation to them in others.

What is most important to notice is that the Lord commended Ephesus for hating the deeds of the Nicolaitanes which He also hated. He speaks of this after the necessary censure and warning of verses 4 and 5, which is the more touching as an added appreciation of His wounded heart. We are to hate what the Lord hates, not the persons, but the deeds. The Psalmist could say he hated "every false way," "vain thoughts," and "lying" (Ps.119:104,113,163). Everything not according to Holy Scripture is a false way, vain, a lie and to be hated, even though it may boast of antiquity as from the church fathers.

Love and abhorrence of evil will ever be found together. Says the Psalmist, "Ye that love the LORD, hate evil" (Ps. 97:10). A false charity may ignore evil under the plea of love, and even treat evil doctrine as to the Lord of little account. Unfeigned love will lead us to abhor evil without ignoring the good. In our abhorrence of evil we may overlook much good; or, in seeking to cleave to the good we may compromise with evil.

All this requires spirituality and waiting upon God. This is the truth of the matter. Nothing is more easy than to get into a certain settled plan - very rigid in one way, or lax in the other; whereas the Lord would never have us to be either, but to have an exercised soul, and a conscience informed by the word of God, looking at each case according to its own peculiar features and circumstances. "Of some have compassion, making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire." It is remarkable that in both cases it is the activity of divine love seeking the deliverance of that which had got into evil. The Holy Ghost is not telling us here how to deal with a case where there is no hope, but where there is less or more evil. He supposes that these saints were building themselves up on their most holy faith, and that this was not all they were doing. They are thinking of those who are in an evil state, who have gone back; and this is their object - to have them with God, and so thoroughly right. This is not always the case with our souls. Supposing you take a person who, perhaps, has dishonoured the Lord; do we not feel so much the disgrace done to us as to be rather glad to get rid of him? If it be one who has been disagreeable in his manners, and not pleasant in his conversation, perhaps great patience and forbearance have been shewn towards him by the saints, and then something occurs which gives them a ground for dealing with him. The danger is, that the poor soul may be left to himself, and left, perhaps, as far as we are concerned, for ever. That is not what we have here: "Of some have compassion, making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire." Here there is much greater anxiety of soul expressed; but still it is always the thought of saving - of tenderness in one case, and earnest effort in the other. The person himself might not thank you for acting towards him with so much vigour, but still it is the way of love, though with it the strongest feeling as to the evil itself - "hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." Love is intolerant of evil, and the clean contrary of indifference.

I fully admit that love towards the saints cannot, and ought not, to take the same shape towards all. It must be in the energy and intelligence of the Spirit, varied according to the call upon love. While one ought to love even a person who is under discipline, it would be a very great mistake to suppose that your love must be shown in the same way as if he were not. You do not cease to love him; indeed you never are in a position and spirit to exercise discipline with the Lord where there is not love — righteous hatred of the sin, indignation it may be, but real charity to the person. It would be better to wait upon God if it be not so in our hearts, till we can take it up in the spirit of divine grace. There must be, of course, a dealing in righteousness; but even in dealing with one's child there ought not to be such a thing as chastening it in a passion. Anything that merely arises out of a sudden impulse, is not a feeling that glorifies God about evil. Therefore, in cases of discipline, there ought to be self-judgment, and great patience, too, unless it be something so flagrant that to hesitate about it would be culpable weakness, or want of decision and jealousy for God, for there are some sins so offensive to God and to man that they ought, if we are sensitive to His holiness and obedient, to be met with grave energy and as it were on the very spot. The arena of the sin, God would have to be the scene of its judgment according to His will.

When Christ was here, the world was against Him. A few were gathered to Him in true-hearted love. Great multitudes were attracted by His gracious words; they would be disciples, but had not counted the cost; they had not reckoned on the opposing forces of nature and the world. It was only natural feeling which moved them: how could they oppose nature? What a proof this necessity of denying nature affords of the havoc sin has made with the affections implanted by the Creator, and therefore excellent as given by God, that when it is a question of following Christ, the affections are all found perverted and become hindrances, insomuch that the Lord says the dearest objects must be hated. "Hate" in this scripture is not to be understood in its common acceptation of intense dislike; the true disciple does not at all dislike his unconverted relatives, but he seeks their blessing. He may be intensely disliked by them, for he cannot join in their worldly pleasures, and his joys are beyond their apprehension. They are outside and opposed to all that he loves and follows. Hence to the world he has the appearance of hating them. This is a trial to the disciple who longs to see them brought to God, but he will not cease to follow Christ. The separation on the disciples' part and the hatred on the world's part had a very acute form when the Lord was here. To break away from every thing, to be in open separation from all that had hitherto been accounted of God and highly esteemed, and as a consequence to be scorned by the religious of that day, was what the disciples of Christ had then to endure.

It would probably not be difficult to furnish other examples of merely relative force in Biblical statements, which, taken with the proper safeguards, convey important and undeniable truth. The Lord Jesus told His disciples on one occasion that, if a man did not hate his father and mother, he could not be His disciple. None of course but a very literal mind (such are generally the most inaccurate) would be stumbled by this. To be "without natural affection" (2 Tim. 3:3) is one of the signs that characterise the difficult times of the last days. We know that "hate" is simply used in a forcible, as some say oriental, way to press home the fact that Christ must and will have supreme place in the renewed heart. And so with several other statements, on which it is unnecessary now to dwell. There are many dangers to beware of in interpreting scripture, but perhaps a bald literalness of mind is not the least. R. B.

"T." We believe the key to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, and indeed to the entire book, will be found in the expression, "under the sun." The Spirit of God has furnished us, in this interesting book, with a commentary upon all under the sun — a glowing picture of the old creation, and of man in the midst of it. "Under the sun" there is time for everything. God has set one thing over against another. If there is a birth, there is a death; if there is a smile, there is a tear; the sorrow stands over against the joy. Thus it is "under the sun." This is the law of the old creation. But look at Paul in Phil. 3. Had he "a time for everything?" No. "One thing I do," he says. And why? Because he had found his life, his sphere, and his object, "above the sun" — in that "new creation" of which Christ is the Head and the Centre, and wherein "all things are of God." We have frequently heard Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 abused in the way you allude to; but it has invariably been by those whose hearts are in this present evil world, and who are bold enough to quote Scripture in defence of their worldliness. Alas, for all such!