Heresies in the church 7 - God loves the sinner but hates his sin

I've heard this said so many times by people who try and make the gospel more attractive to non-Christians.

This is what I classify as a Christian cliché. The church is full of these. "Once saved always saved", "Don't look at anyone except Christ", "God has a wonderful plan for your life", just to name a few.  The dangers with these cliché is that they become a substitute for scripture. They are regarded as unchallengeable as inspired scripture.  They often contain an aspect of truth, usually in a very specific context, but the real danger is that they are taken to be absolute truth in all circumstances. This is where this half-truth becomes a total falsehood.  

I'd like to focus on one today "God loves the sinner but hates his sin".

Here is an obvious question - where does it say in the bible that God love the sinner?  

Are you surprised if I were to tell you that no such scripture exist? What we actually find in scripture are verses like John 3:16 “...God so loved the world...”, and Romans 5:8 "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". Now, these are very different from 'God loves sinners'... There is no doubt that God loves the world, in which sinners are included (in fact every person who ever lived except Jesus falls into the category of 'sinner'). But 'God loves the world' and 'God loves sinners' are two different statements, although a very subtle one.  

When we say that 'God loves sinners', we are saying a few things that we do not mean to say. It implies that God loves the person who is still indulging in his sin. So for the sinner, it's great, God loves me although He hates my adultery. So I'm alright. I don't have to worry about God's judgment because He loves me.  I can still continue practicing my adultery.   It's only my actions he hates, but He loves me yessss!  

The bible actually says God hates the sinner.  Take  Psalm 5:5 which reads, "The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity".  I can almost bet that your preacher never mentioned this in all his sermons.  God hates the workers of iniquity - the sinner.  

But God also loves the world which by implications comprises sinners.  We have to reconcile these two aspects of truth. When we can't reconcile, it's not that scripture is wrong, it’s our lack of understanding.  It is my opinion that the bible does not explicitly state that God loves the sinner because of its implications i.e. God loves the person who is continuing in his sin, therefore endorsing the sin.

So when we say that "God loves the sinner but hates the sin', we really need to be aware of its implications and not risk saying more than what the bible is saying.  We can say that God loves people so much that He gave His only Son Jesus to die on the cross for sinners. But we should not tell an adulterer that God loves him as an adulterer.  It sends the wrong message.

So what attitude should we have?  

 Jude 1:22–23: “Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”