Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
-Psalm 97:10, NIV
Like anger, hate often is treated as always wrong among Christians. It is not!
Here in Psalm 97, we have a command to hate. In fact, it is arguable that not to hate is sin.
Let that sink in.
To be fair, this hatred is not a personalized hatred. The psalmist here does not command us to direct our hatred at a particular individual or group of people.
It is a hatred directed at the enemy of godliness and spiritual wholeness:
EVIL
Adultery is evil (see Deuteronomy 22:22).
Anyone who has encountered adultery’s destruction in an intimate way understands this spiritual truth. And they likely understand from a gut-level the psalmist command here to hate said evil.
God’s heart is attuned to hate evil for evil destroys the good of His creation.
In fact,
I question the maturity of any Christian who does not hate adultery for such evil is certainly hated by God.
A Christian indifferent to adultery is a Christian who fails to have or understand God’s heart on the matter.
So, when is hating godly?
Answer: Hating is godly when we are hating evil like the evil known as adultery.
My ex-husband has an evil heart. How do I know? Because he tics off each five of these indicators of an evil heart by noted therapist and author Leslie Vernick. http://www.leslievernick.com/five-indicators-of-a-evil-heart/
Do I hate my ex-husband. I certainly don’t love him anymore. What he did to me for over 25 years (lying, cheating, gaslighting me, triangulating me with women our entire 25 year relationship, etc) was pure evil. And then in the end, he blamed everything on me. Is he evil? Well, he has an evil heart. And he’s unrepentant as he won’t admit to a lot of the stuff he’s done over the years and he blamed his cheating on me. Sounds evil to me, so I hate his evil heart.