Romans 12:9 – Abhor What Is Evil; Hold Fast to What Is Good
Paul’s next proverb about sacrificial living centers on good and evil. He calls the Roman Christians to hate evil. The ESV translation uses the word abhor, which is not commonly used in everyday conversation, but it powerfully drives home the seriousness of Paul’s point. Christians should, as strongly as it can be stated, hate evil.
To abhor something means to do everything within your power to avoid it. It implies extreme disgust and hatred—so much so that you will do whatever it takes to stay away from it. This is often where many Christians struggle. Sin has sometimes been described as a line that Christians should not cross, yet many believers see how close they can get to that line without technically crossing it. They play around with temptation, and often it ends up in defeat. Getting close to the line increases the chances that you will eventually step over it. Christians, instead, need to run as far away from sin as they possibly can.
Why is this so important? Because God takes our sin far more seriously than we often realize—more seriously than we can even imagine.
Throughout the Old Testament, we see God’s judgment come swiftly many times. Because we do not experience judgment in the same immediate way today, it is easy to assume that God has eased up. However, Scripture reminds us that God’s wrath is being stored up (Romans 2:5), and for those who do not profess Christ, the coming judgment will be worse than anything experienced in the Old Testament. Evil deeds matter deeply to God and must be avoided at all costs by Christians.
Paul does not stop with a negative command. He follows it with a positive one—the opposite of evil is goodness. Christians are told to cling to what is good. This word implies a strong bond or a firm grip. I picture a child clinging to their parent with all their might, or the way I cling tightly to the safety bar when riding a roller coaster. Just as forcefully as we are to hate evil, we are to love what is good.
The larger point of this command is that the Christian life should look different. There will be times when the world calls something “good” even though God’s Word clearly calls it evil. So what should Christians do? We must always side with the Lord. He is the author of righteousness, and His truth is always good. This would have been an especially difficult challenge for the Roman Christians, given their cultural context of polytheism, loose morals, and promiscuity. Paul challenged them to be different—to live by what God called good, not what Roman culture celebrated as good.
Though Roman culture is long gone, however, the sinful heart of the world remains. We face the same challenge today. We must resist doing what the world calls good and instead do only what God calls good. Likewise, we must avoid what God calls evil. When this is done properly, our lives will look noticeably different from those of unbelievers. If a believer’s life is indistinguishable from that of a non-believer, why would anyone want what the salvation we possess through the gospel? It would seem as though He makes very little difference.
That is the message we unintentionally broadcast when we live in sin rather than in God’s goodness. The challenge for all believers, then, is clear: hold tightly to what is good—goodness as defined by God’s Word—and avoid evil at all costs, also as defined by God’s Word. When we do this, God is glorified, we grow in our faith, and people see Christ in us—something we all long to see in our lives.
