Today, I take up in the second part of this series. Make sure you go back and read part one to get the context. You can find part one HERE. The excerpt below is a continuation of the chapter, “Does a Loving God Send People to Hell?” found in Evangelism: A Biblical Response to Today’s Questions.
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We must remember the Bible teaches that…
God Is a Just Judge
God is also infinitely just. He does not play favorites in his judgments (Psalm 9:4). And a single sin against an infinitely holy and just God demands eternal payment. He does not weigh our deeds in a balance to see if our good deeds outweigh our bad deed so that we can get into heaven. Even the very best we can do is like filthy rags in his sight (Isaiah 64:6). And with sin comes judgment. And the verdict is that we are all guilty (Romans 3:23).
The loving, yet holy, God and impartial judge must bring judgment and sentence to the one who has trespassed against his standard. He has drawn a line the in sand, and we have stepped over it. We have disobeyed his commands. He is not a judge that can be bribed. He does not look the other way because we were having a bad day when we broke his universal laws. We can plead insanity. We can argue, “I’m only human; I’m not god!” We can rightly state, “I’m not perfect!” But the verdict is that we are guilty and the payment is eternal death. For an infinitely loving and holy God to overlook one single sin in the history of humanity would contradict his love, holiness, and justice; and he would then cease to be God.
And we must remember the Bible teaches that…
God Is Gracious
God is also infinitely gracious. He knew that there was no hope for us, apart from his intervention. While he could not contradict himself and his perfect standard, only he could take the eternal punishment for our infinite offense. Someone had to pay for our crimes—Jesus was that someone. He took our punishment so that we could have peace with him (Isaiah 53:5). He saved us from his own wrath. Jesus took our wickedness so that we could become righteous before God (2 Corinthians 5:21). “For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). The person who places faith in Jesus for forgiveness is not condemned to hell. However, the person who does not place faith in him is judged already because God’s wrath stays on him and is not removed (John 3:35-36).
So, from the Scriptures we see that the all-loving God does not send anyone to hell because he is a diabolical, megalomaniacal, dictator. People walk themselves to hell by staying on the road to hell until they die. They refuse to take advantage of God’s only provision for escaping hell—Jesus. People go to hell because they refuse to trust in Jesus as the payment for their eternal offenses against an all-holy, all-loving, all-just, all-gracious God. We love the darkness more than the light for our deeds are evil; we choose darkness over the light for the light of God exposes our evil (John 3:19-20). Why are we willingly driving on the highway to hell? Because we want to be God over our own world. It is the ultimate idolatry. We love our evil over God’s goodness.
Rather than casting ourselves on the God who loves us, we refuse his gift of forgiveness, follow our own desires, and receive the just punishment for sinning against the holy Creator of the universe. God does not delight when the wicked suffer (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11), but desires that all people come to repentance and find forgiveness for their sins (2 Peter 3:9). Yet, we refuse to do things his way and come to him for life (John 5:40). As a result, people spend eternity separated from him in hell.
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If you are interested in finding out more about God’s love and grace and avoiding hell, check out this pdf HERE.
Pastors, are you taking advantage of the media hype to teach your people about what the Bible teaches about hell? If not, why not? If you need a few suggestions, here is a post that I wrote for Church Central this week. I hope it helps.
