What does Proverbs 8:13 mean, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate?
What is the meaning of Proverbs 8:13?
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate (Proverbs 8:13).
If you walk in the fear of the Lord, you shall hate evil and turn away from it instead of doing evil. When you become born again, you become a new creation and are no longer a sinner (old creation) anymore. You have received the Holy Spirit and have His nature. Because of this new nature, you shall turn away from evil; sin, and iniquity, because God can’t have communion with sin.
Therefore, when you become a new creation, you will change and remove the residues from your old life as a sinner.
You can only remove these residues with the help and power of the Holy Spirit and the renewing of your mind with the Word.
As soon as you renew your mind with the Word of God and walk in obedience to the Word after the Spirit, you’ll experience an aversion against certain habits, carnal desires, and lusts that oppose the will of God.
The more you renew your mind, and obey and do His words, and transform into the image of Jesus Christ, the more you hate these evil habits, ways of thinking, etc.
How fast this transformation will go depends upon you.
The transformation in the life of the new creation
Some people change overnight and others change slowly. But when you become a new creation you will change and you shall turn from evil. Because you love the Lord Jesus and you fear the Lord God. (Read also: Do you love God with all your heart?).
The old man with his sinful nature has been crucified with Christ. That’s why you are delivered from the power of darkness and the law of sin and death. Because your flesh died in Christ, sin will no longer have dominion over you and be part of your life.
If you believe and accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour, but you remain the same person with the same habits, behavior, and way of thinking, and keep walking in sin, you might ask yourselves if you are really born again and have become a new creation.
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil
You saw what happened at the cross when Jesus took all humanity’s sin upon Him. When the Father laid the sins of the world upon Jesus, Jesus was separated from God. Sin separates people from God. God is a holy God and can’t have communion with sin.
If God’s nature; the Holy Spirit, lives inside of you, then it’s impossible to keep walking in sin. That’s because His nature can’t have communion with sin.
We know absolutely that everyone who has been born of God and as a result is a regenerated individual (a new creation) does not keep on habitually sinning (1 John 5:18)
The blood of Jesus doesn’t give a license to keep sinning. You can’t use the grace of God to keep sinning.
Do you think that Jesus approves if you keep walking after the flesh in obedience to the will of your previous father the devil?
Did Jesus die for you, so that you would remain living in the bondage of sin again?
If you keep walking in sin and do evil, you show through your life and your works that you don’t love Jesus or the Father. It shows that you don’t want to serve and obey Jesus Christ at all. Because the fear of the Lord begins with hating evil and turning away from evil as is written in Proverbs 8:13.
Jesus hates evil and those who follow Him hate it too
Jesus hates evil. He hates pride, arrogance, and the evil way (walking after the flesh in sin). He hates a froward mouth, which is a mouth full of lies, and hypocrisy. A mouth that is not managed well by the owner.
The Word is very clear about evil. Let us, therefore, obey His instructions, turn away from evil, and walk in righteousness.
‘Be the salt of the earth’
