“How can a loving God send people to hell?” This is a common question, sometimes said in genuine enquiry, sometimes more as an accusation. It is however a wrong question. That’s because it ignores the reality which this quote nicely sums up:
“Jesus does not offer to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.”
Ravi Zacharias
Romans 3:23
Our reality is this – we start off as dead enemies of God.
God doesn’t condemn us but He does convict us. It doesn’t take much insight to see that in a form, hell is all around and within us. In the conditions we labour under with the fallen state of our world, our bodies and our hearts.
Romans 5:8
God is love and love doesn’t send anyone to hell, we’re already there. He’s rescuing us from it. It is that most fearful and awesome gift that God has given us that determines our ultimate destiny – free will. That’s what keeps us in or rescues us from hell.
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it.”
C.S. Lewis
Barry
The question “how can a loving God send people to Hell” simply confirms something which should be very obvious to all – that the person asking the question has heard of God that He is first and foremost loving. I have never, not even one time, met a person who claimed to believe in God, who, when I asked them what they know or believe about God, failed to tell me that “He loves us.” I challenge anyone reading this to test this for themselves…ask 10 people who profess a belief in God (but who are not born-again Christians) to tell you what they know about Him and they will all respond the same way.
Sure, He loves us and it is because of His great love that He reached out to us to offer forgiveness and salvation through faith in Jesus. However, if you only tell people that God loves them, there will be no motivation to repent before a Holy God. If we preach but love without repentance, without the justice of God, without the judgment of God, , without the wrath of God, without the righteousness of God, we are deceiving the listener.
This problem, and it’s very serious, is the result of preaching a diluted Gospel and not the full counsel of scripture. John 3:16 has been used to perpetuate this thinking more than any other scripture. “For God so loves the world, that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him may not die but have eternal life.” If one looks closely, it’s not about the love of God but rather it’s about faith in what He accomplished for us on the cross. Knowing that God loves us doesn’t save anybody…it’s believing in the sacrifice that He made for us in His own Son.
Here is a good illustration…If I murder someone and I’m caught, brought before the courts and the evidence presented…I’m clearly guilty. I even admit my guilt. Can I say to the judge “well, your honour, I know I did it but I heard about you that you are loving and merciful and I hope you’re going to overlook my crime and let me go.” How likely is that? No, the judge must punish the crime and we have to serve the sentence. Similarly, when I stand before God I cannot say to Him “well, Lord, I know I murdered, I know I lied and cheated and stole and blasphemed your name, I know I lusted and all the rest of it…but I heard that you are loving and merciful..please overlook my transgression and let me in to heaven.” Are you serious??
The very thing which many deceived people think will save them, the love of God, is the very thing which will condemn them to hell. A loving and just God cannot allow any form of sin into His eternal kingdom because if He did, it would not take long that corruption to spread as it did after the fall in Eden.
So, then, what hope is there for anyone before a Holy God on the day of judgment? The answer is simple…”whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not have the Son will not see life because God’s wrath remains on him.” So, on that day, when I stand before God, it is clear that I have offended God by transgressing His law thousands and thousands of times. Yet He will say to me “I find you not guilty because you believed in My Son…you put your trust and faith in what He accomplished on the cross and you followed Him.” “When I look at you now, I see not your sin but I see the blood of My Son which has covered your sin and washed them away.” “I see the righteousness of My Son as a cloak over you – which you received by faith.”
What an amazing love that is. Yet, it must be understood that it is our response to the offer of forgiveness which determines our eternal destiny.