God hates sinners?

I listened to two talks recently while driving on a long journey. Both downloaded from the Resurgence website. One by Andy Davis on biblical meditation which I found very helpful. The other by Driscoll on the gospel we preach. (by the way this is Death by love in one long talk if you don't have time to read it) 

One statement he made stayed with me 'God hates sinners'. This is in contrast to the smiley-faced platitude 'God loves the person and hates the sin'. By the way, he informed me this was said by Mahatma Ghandi and he humorously bellowed 'he's not on our team'!

So imagine me this morning while holding this thought and working out what I think and trying to understand it. I read in one of my McCheyne chapters '....God....hated Esau' which can be found in Romans 9.  

I am embarking on a word study on the use off 'hate' in the Scripture to find out more for myself.