Hate - A Feature of True Christians
“With a complete hatred I do hate them” – Psalm 139:22
The Watchtower leaves no doubt that Christians must hate apostates. “The obligation to hate lawlessness … applies to all activity by apostates. Our attitude toward apostates should be that of David, who declared: … ‘With a complete hatred I do hate them.’” (The Watchtower, July 15, 1992, page 12) But “Jesus obviously did not mean that his followers should literally hate … [apostates], since he commanded people to love even their enemies.” (The Watchtower, October 1, 1995, page 8). “In the Bible, ‘hate’ can refer to loving a person or an object to a lesser degree.” (The Watchtower, March 15, 2008, page 32). “In keeping with that understanding, the Bible says that Jacob ‘hated’ Leah and loved Rachel, which meant that he did not love Leah as much as he loved her sister, Rachel.” – The Watchtower, October 1, 1995, page 8.
So it is obvious that Christians should simply ‘love apostates to a lesser degree.’ Normally, love for others raises in God’s servants “a strong desire to tell them about God’s Kingdom.” (Awake!, August 22, 1985, page 11). By ceasing to ‘tell apostates about God’s Kingdom’, Christians can show that they ‘love them to a lesser degree’.
But apostates are not the only thing that a Christian must hate. Servants of God are obliged “to hate things that God condemns, such as lying, greediness, stealing, homosexuality and fornication.” 
(Happiness – How to Find It?, page 95) The same principle applies here – we should ‘love the lie to a lesser degree’ than the truth, ‘love homosexuality to a lesser degree’ then heterosexuality and ‘love fornication to a lesser degree’ than conjugal fidelity, just as Jacob ‘hated’ Leah and still fathered seven children with her. (Genesis 29:32-35; 30:16-21) Christians must also be “hating unjust profit,” that is, loving unjust profit to a lesser degree than just profit. – Exodus 18:21.
But Jesus Christ said: “If any man comes to me, he must hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sister. Yes, he must hate himself too.” (Luke 14:26, WE) Did he mean that one should simply ‘love himself and his relatives to a lesser degree’ when he wants to become a Christian? No, because “in the Scriptures, the word ‘hate’ has several shades of meaning. … The word ‘hate’ may also denote intense hostility, sustained ill will often accompanied by malice. It is this sense of the word that is discussed” here. (The Watchtower, August 15, 2004, page 12) “Such hate
may become a consuming emotion seeking to bring harm to its object.” – Insight on the Scriptures, volume I, page 1042.
Accordingly Christians need to develop “intense hostility” towards themselves and their relatives. Like Paul they should consider themselves and their family members ‘miserable men’ and ‘hate [them] in the truest sense, which is to regard with extreme and active aversion, to consider as loathsome, odious, filthy, to detest.” (Romans 7:24; The Watchtower, October 1, 1952, page 599). Godly hate will cause them to keep looking for occasions for ‘bringing harm’ to themselves and their relatives.
