What is God like? In Psalm 5 David gives a direct statement about God’s character:
For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness;
with you, evil people are not welcome.
5 The arrogant cannot stand
in your presence.
You hate all who do wrong;
6 you destroy those who tell lies.
The bloodthirsty and deceitful
you, Lord, detest.
7 But I, by your great love,
can come into your house;
in reverence I bow down
toward your holy temple.
Here’s a list of what these verses say about God:
- Displeased with wickedness
- Does not welcome evil people
- Hates all who do wrong
- Drives away the arrogant
- Destroys those who tell lies
- Detests the violent and deceitful
In sum, this is a God who cares about how humans live. The Ten Commandments, the writings of the prophets, stories of judgment, threats of judgment, and the command to repent, all attest to this theme. It’s not okay to tell lies or harm others. Why not? Because God hates “all who do wrong.” But doesn’t God love the world? We’ll get to that, but let this sink in: God expects us to live a certain way. And “God hates all who do wrong.” But don’t we all do wrong? Does that mean God hates everyone?
After highlighting God’s sternness, David introduces another idea—God’s love. He writes, “But I, by your great love, can come into your house.” Notice that David doesn’t say, “But I, by my own purity, can come into your house.” He does not compare his actions with the actions of others. David’s moral purity does not give him access to God’s presence. The door to God’s house is opened by God’s great love.
A Closed Door
The idea that God does not welcome evil people is repeatedly mentioned throughout the Bible. For example, Paul writes,
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Why won’t wrongdoers inherit God’s kingdom? Because with God, “evil people are not welcome.” What would happen if God let everyone into heaven without addressing their wicked lifestyles? Heaven would become just as corrupt as earth.
A similar warning is given in Ephesians 5:
5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
The no entrance idea is also mentioned in Christ’s teachings:
10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ (Matt 25:10-12)
And in Revelation:
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” (21:6-8)
And,
27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. (21:27)
An Open Door
In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul expresses the same idea but provides hope:
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
While it’s common to focus on certain sins in Paul’s list, not many highlight greed or slander. Slander, once again, brings us back to the idea of telling lies, which corresponds with David’s comments. Slander, too, will keep people out of God’s kingdom.
Note especially that Paul’s audience used to be sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, etc. They used to be those who were not welcome in God’s house. But they were changed. They were washed, sanctified, and justified. And this is where God’s love comes flooding back into the picture because “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).
We weren’t clean and pure when God reached out to us. We were sinners, who had no access to God’s house. Just like Adam and Eve who were barred from returning to Eden, we were barred from God’s kingdom. We were standing on the outside. We were unwelcome.
But then God sent his Son, who is the way, the truth, and the life and the door opened to us. During his ministry, Jesus was called “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Lk 7:34) because he ate with the outcasts of society. If evil people are not welcome with God, why did Jesus spend time with “sinners”? When confronted for this unusual behavior, Jesus responded, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (5:31-32). In Christ, God reached out to sinners, to the unwelcome, to us, in order to make us welcome.
So after coming to repentance, we shouldn’t turn around and begin to trust in our own goodness. That was not the key that unlocked the door for us. We were dirty and impoverished standing outside with no way in, then out of love—a divine love that overcame a divine hatred, if we can speak of it that way—God opened the door.
The Final Judge
Finally, while all of this conveys the basic idea of how to enter God’s kingdom, we should refrain from playing the role of the final judge on an individual level. First, we know that trusting in God’s love opens the door, but we can’t access anyone’s heart to see where their trust lies, especially in their dying moments. Jesus was crucified between two criminals. By human standards, it would seem that both criminals were barred from God’s kingdom. But before he died, one of the criminals turned to Jesus in faith and Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:43). Significant things can happen in our final minutes. Moreover, many who have had near-death experiences say that time seems to slow down in some ways and they were even able to see scenes from their whole life. Who knows what can happen in that kind of experience.
Second, since we can’t see the whole picture our calculations are bound to be wrong. In Jesus’ time, the Pharisees were esteemed for their strict religious observances, but Christ denounced them for their hypocrisy: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to” (Matt 23:13). Christ also told the priests and elders in Jerusalem, who were Sadducees: “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matt 21:31). This is the complete opposite of how most people would have judged the situation—tax collectors and prostitutes didn’t have a chance of entering God’s kingdom while the religious elites were definitely in.
This idea of God’s judgment overturning our expectations is powerfully expressed in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15). The son who kept all the rules ends up outside the home, while the son who lived a wild life but returned and trusted in his Father’s love enjoys the party inside the home. Essentially, then, we should avoid sitting on the judge’s seat because we don’t know people’s hearts, and in the end, there will be surprises:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Our job is not to trust in our goodness or judge others but to be like David and trust in God’s love: “But I, by your great love, can come into your house.”
After graduating from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I served as a high school Bible teacher in Asia. I enjoy traveling, writing, and playing the drums. For a deep dive into church history and the character of God, see my book Surprised by Hell.