Intro
It is common to see Christians ascribe the property of 'Omnibenevolence' to Yahweh. It gets taught by priests to their congregants, parents to their children, and even theologians to their audiences/students. It is nice to think that there is a powerful force out there that has an unconditional love for all things, including you, but the problem is that this just is not Biblical. This does not mean that a Christian cannot subscribe to the idea that Yahweh is all-loving, but that just means that they have to, on some level, reject the Biblical depiction of him.
And I know, many people are probably getting ready with the common argument that 'god hates the sin and not the sinner', but I have to tell you that the Bible disagrees.
Why the Biblical Yahweh is not 'Omnibenevolent'
It isn't hard to see why the idea that Yahweh is all-loving is sometimes seen as Biblical, after all we have verse like John 3:16 and 1 John 4:8.
- John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
- 1 John 4:8 - "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
The problem is that using just these verses is very much cherry picking the Bible to get as good a look at who Yahweh is as possible. When we look at more scripture this idea of Yahweh being all-loving falls apart.
John 3:16 is shown to not mean Yahweh is all-loving in John 15:18-19, so in this case we don't even need to go to a different book of the Bible.
- John 15:18-19 - "“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world*, but* I have chosen you out of the world*. That is why the world hates you."*
God so loves the world, but not everyone belongs to the world. In fact people can be 'chosen out' of the world. This is not all-loving, this is loving only those 'of the world' and not all are 'of the world.
We also see in Proverbs that Yahweh's love is conditional, Yahweh loves those that love him:
- Proverbs 8:17 - "I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me."
We even have verses where Yahweh explicitly hates people. It is not Yahweh 'hating the sin not the sinner' but explicitly hating the 'sinner'.
- Proverbs 6:16-19 - "These six things the Lord hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, A lying tongue, Hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that are swift in running to evil, A false witness who speaks lies, And one who sows discord among brethren."
- Leviticus 26:27-30 - "'And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you secen times for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down you incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you."
- Hosea 9:15 - ""All their wickedness is in Gilgal, For there I hated them. Because of the ebil of their deeds I will drive them from My house; I will love them no more."
- Malachi 1:2-3 - "Says the Lord. "Yet Jacob I have loved; But Esau I have hated, and laid waste he mountains and his heritage For the jackals of the wilderness.""
- Leviticus 20:23 - "And you shall not walk in the statues of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they commit all these things, and therefore I abhor them."
- Romans 9:13 - "As it is written, "Jacob I have loved, but Easu I have hated.""
Of course there still is a question about 1 John 4:8. Even with all this evidence that Yahweh hates, that not all get Yahweh's love there is a verse that says that Yahweh is love. This is the greatest issue with the Biblical Yahweh is that not all verses are consistent, but I think that Biblically there is more reason to reject the idea that Yahweh is love than accept it. Not only all the verses already provided which shows not all get Yahweh's love and that some even get Yahweh's hate, but two other verses together explicitly contradict the idea that Yahweh is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:4 - "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud."
- Exodus 34:14 - "Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."
Yahweh himself says he is a jealous god, and if we take the understanding of what love is from Paul then it is clear that if Yahweh is a jealous god that Yahweh cannot be love. Only one verse from one book of the Bible makes a clear case that Yahweh might be all-loving but so many books from across the Old and New Testaments show, in some cases quite explicitly, that Yahweh is not all-loving.
The above verses don't aren't even all of them that show Yahweh isn't all-loving, but considering how the majority of the rest come from Psalms, a book that is meant to be more poetic and thus not necessarily accurate in portrayal, I decided to omit mention of them.
Conclusion
I think that it is quite conclusive, if you believe in the Biblical Yahweh then you do not believe in an all-loving god. It isn't enough to say Yahweh 'hates the sin' because it is explicit in places that Yahweh does sometimes hate the sinner. If you wish to believe in an all-loving Yahweh you must go outside of the Biblical portrayal, you must abandon, on some level, the Biblical texts. The question I have is how much of the Bible must one reject before what they believe is no longer Christianity?