There can hardly be goodness in a man if he be not angry at sin; he who loves truth must hate every false way. How our Lord Jesus hated it when the temptation came! Thrice it assailed him in different forms, but ever it was, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”
How he hated it when he saw it in others; none the less fervently because he showed his hate oftener in tears of pity than in words of rebuke; yet what language could be more stern, more Elijah-like, than the words, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer.”
He hated wickedness, so much that he bled that he might wound it to the heart; he died that it might die; he was buried that he might bury in his tomb; and he rose that he might for ever trample it beneath his feet. Christ is in the Gospel, my brethren, and you all know how utterly that Gospel is opposed to wickedness in every shape. No matter how wickedness may array itself in fair garments, and imitate the language of holiness, the precepts of Jesus, like his famous scourge of small cords, chase wickedness out of the temple, and will not let it have peaceful lodging in the Church.
So too, in the heart where Jesus reigns, what war there is between Christ and Belial? And when our Redeemer shall come to be our judge, in those thundering words, “Depart, ye cursed,” which are, indeed, but a prolongation of his life-teaching concerning sin, then shall it be seen, I say, that he hated wickedness.
As warm as is his love to sinners, so hot is his hatred of sin; as perfect as is the righteousness which he completed, so perfect shall be the destruction of every form of wickedness. Oh thou glorious champion of right, and destroyer of wrong, for this cause hath God, even thy God, anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
Spurgeon, C. H. (1863), The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 9, (Passmore & Alabaster, 1863), pg. 138 [Some Paragraphing Added]
