The Tragedy of Tom Araya
“God both Hates and Loves”
Slayer, the extreme heavy metal band of early 2000, mixed punk, hardcore metal, and pop styles. One of their more well-known albums was “God Hates Us All”. Lyrics from the first song in the album goes like this — “God hates us all, God hates us all, You know it’s true God hates this place. You know it’s true he hates this race, We hold these truths to be painfully self-evident, All men are not created equal, God hates us all.”
They stopped doing concerts after the album Repentless was released. The lyrics of the first song were — “Arrogance, violence, world in disarray Dealing with insanity every day I hate the life, hate the fame, hate the scene… Can’t take society any more- intensity, anarchy, hatred amplified”. In 2019, their lead singer Tom Araya had to retire due to neck injuries from head banging on the floor during their concerts.
Is it true? Does God hate everyone? In one respect he does. Romans 1:18, “The wrath of God [not just upset, unhappy, angry, or frustrated, but more like livid, furious, irate, and incensed] is being revealed against all the godlessness and wickedness [not just some] of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness”. And Psalm 5:5–6, “The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong… The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, Lord, detest.” God doesn’t just hate sinful behavior but everyone whose life pattern is characterized by continuous sin. It is hard for people in our times to take these statements seriously. However, Tom Araya was right in his observation of one side of God.
However, nowhere in Scripture does it say, “God is hate”. Rather, throughout is the theme, “God is love”. He doesn’t love just some people but everyone he also hates. John 3:16 states, “God so loved the world [all humanity].” He unconditionally showed that love by dying on the cross for the sins and the sinful people he hates. As John the Baptist declared of Jesus in John 1:29, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world [everyone].” That’s the unconditional part which shows God expressed his love for all by sending Jesus to pay the penalty we all deserved for our sins.
The challenge for mankind is that God doesn’t allow access to his love unconditionally. Universalists believe everyone is forgiven of their violations of God’s holiness, righteousness, and justice because he took away their sins unconditionally by paying the penalty for sin by dying on the cross. That view is contradicted by immense amounts of Scripture that state repentance for sin and personal faith in Jesus Christ are essential for anyone to have access to and experience his love. As the rest of John 3:16 notes, “whoever believes in him [his only Son Jesus] shall not perish but have eternal life.” As Jesus went on to say as recorded in John 3:18, “Whoever believes in him [Jesus’ death as the only payment for the judgment due them for their sin] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned [to eternal separation from God in hell] already.”
Therefore, no one Jesus died for will be unconditionally accepted by him without meeting the condition of faith in his provision for their sins. Most of the people in the world that Tom Araya refers to as those God hates are not experiencing His love because they choose to live evil lives without faith in Jesus. They choose to disregard God’s righteous and just standards which causes the horrendous conditions that exist in the world today. As Paul said as recorded in Acts 14:16 about idolatrous, sinful people, “In the past he [God] let all the nations go their own way.” And later in Romans 1:28–31, “just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.” This is a comprehensive list of all the ugliness in the world Tom Araya wrote and sang about.
The questions some raise is- Why did God give people over to their own terrible ways? Why didn’t he place a behavior governor within humans to allow only some less heinous, more acceptable, patterns of conduct than we see? His monumental decision to create humans with the freedom to choose how they would live is the foundation of all the evil and the good in the world. His decision created a monumental responsibility for humanity to choose the best way of life for everyone or do what pleases only themselves individually. The Psalmist declared in Psalm 115:16, “The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to mankind.”
The tragedy of Tom Araya’s life is that apparently either no one introduced him to the love of God from the Bible or he heard and rejected it in favor of the hatred of God only. Had he chosen to spread the message of the love of God through Jesus Christ and help liberate many from the tragedy of their self-centered lives, he could have rescued himself from his head-banging life of despair.
