A number of people have great difficulty believing that a loving God would send people to a place called “hell,” where they would have to suffer forever, just because they did not live a life without any sin. 

J. P. Moreland, Ph.D., on page 174 of Lee Strobel’s book entitled The Case For Faith, says, “[I]t’s wrong to think God is simply a loving being, especially if you mean ‘loving’ in the sense that most Americans use that word today.  Yes, God is a compassionate being, but he’s also a just, moral, and pure being.”

Similarly, Josh McDowell, a well-known Christian apologist, states on pages 112 and 113 of his book entitled More Than A Carpenter,

A misunderstanding of the basic nature and character of God has been the cause of so many theological and ethical problems.  Most people understand God to be a loving God and they don’t go any further.  The problem is that God is not only a God of love.  He is also a righteous, just and holy God.

[B]ecause he is not only a loving God, but a holy, just, righteous God, his very nature would destroy any sinful individual.  The Bible [Romans 6:23a] says, “For the wages of sin is death.”

Ravi Zacharias, D.D., LL.D., on page 158 of Strobel’s book, sheds further light on the matter with the following statements:

If God were to truly give what every one of us deserved, none of us would get to heaven.

We try . . . to claim goodness by comparing ourselves to others. . . . We tend to do the kind of comparisons by which we always emerge better than someone else, and so we think we’re good.  But by the perfect moral standard of God, we all fail.

Furthermore, it is not accurate to say that God sends people to hell. On page 85 of his book entitled Know Why You Believe, Paul Little states, “God sends no one to hell.  Each person sends himself.  God has done all that is necessary for us to be forgiven, redeemed, cleansed, and made fit for heaven.  All that remains is for us to receive this gift.”

The gift to which Little is referring is the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus Christ’s death atones for the sins of every person who genuinely accepts it as the payment that God requires for their sins.  By accepting this gift, a person is redeemed, which Webster’s Dictionary defines as “freed from the consequences of sin.”  As McDowell explains it on page 114 of his book, “[W]hen Jesus died on the cross, he not only died for us but he died to meet the holy and just requirements of the basic nature of God.”

[For further discussion of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ as the ultimate payment for sin, please see ADDENDUM at the end of this article.]

Charles Anderson, Ph.D., on page 251 of his book entitled The Historical Jesus: A Continuing Quest, says, “No theory of the atonement . . . is adequate which does not hold a delicate balance between the love and justice of God.”

But, why would God eternally punish anyone other than perhaps the very worst people?  Do most people deserve to be punished forever for the wrongs that they have done?  Strobel asks J.P. Moreland, Ph.D., on page 181 of The Case For Faith, “Wouldn’t a loving God make the punishment fit the crime by not making hell last forever?  How can we do anything in this life that would warrant eternal torture?” Moreland’s responds by saying, “It’s not eternal conscious torture; it’s eternal conscious suffering due to being sentenced away from God.”  In other words, according to Moreland, hell is “the ultimate punishment, which is everlasting separation from God.”  This perspective is shared by a number of other prominent Christians.

On page 174 of his book, Strobel asks Moreland if hell is “a punishment for having broken God’s standards” or “the natural consequence of people living a life where they say, ‘I don’t care if I’m separate from God, I want to do things my way,’ and then they are given their desire for all eternity by being separated from God forever.”  Moreland’s answer is that hell is both.  He goes on to explain that “the pain that’s suffered will be due to the sorrow from the final, ultimate, unending banishment from God. . . .”   

[For a more in depth discussion of the nature of hell, see our article entitled “What Is Hell Really Like?”]

What about people who attempt to live a righteous life, but who don’t accept Jesus Christ as their Redeemer?  Will they have to spend eternity in hell?  According to the Bible, there are not any truly “righteous” people, other than Jesus Christ.  [Note:  When we quote Scripture in this article, we use the wording in the New King James Version of the Bible.]

Isaiah 64:6a says, “[W]e are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. . . .”  And, Ecclesiastes 7:20 declares, “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.”  And Romans 3:23 states, “[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Does God not make any exceptions, especially for people who have never had the opportunity to trust in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior?  The Bible does not indicate that God will make any exceptions, but from all that we know about the nature of God, we can be confident that He will do what is right.  Ravi Zacharias, on page 157 of Strobel’s book, offers the following perspective, based upon Genesis 18:23-25:

Abraham asked God in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah whether he was going to let the righteous die with the unrighteous, and . . . Abraham answered his own question.  He said, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”  This means we can be absolutely confident that whatever God does in the case of [any] person, he will do what is right.

Finally, on page 165 of his book, Strobel declares,

[A]t the time of judgment there is nobody in the world who will walk away from that experience saying that they have been treated unfairly by God.  Everyone will recognize the fundamental justice in the way God judges them and the world.

                                  ADDENDUM

THE SACRIFICIAL DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST AS PAYMENT FOR SIN

Was it necessary for Jesus Christ to die on the cross?  According the Bible, the answer is a very definite “yes.” 

Before Jesus Christ came into our world, mankind had little hope for salvation, and there was essentially no way for anyone to be certain that he or she would have eternal life.  The Bible infers that people could have earned eternal life if they had been able to keep all of the Ten Commandments (i.e., live a sinless life), but no one could do so.  People had to hope that their good deeds were sufficient to justify themselves in God’s sight, so He would grant them eternal salvation. 

Throughout the centuries before Jesus Christ came, men who acknowledged God made animal sacrifices to Him, as He had instructed them.  These burnt offerings of what were supposed to be unblemished animals represented the price that God required as payment for sins.  (Hebrews 9:22b states, “[W]ithout shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins].”)    Also, these sacrificial offerings were supposed to done with an attitude of sincere repentance for their sins by those for whom the offerings were being made.  However, people still could not be certain that their sacrificial offerings and/or their good deeds were sufficient to justify themselves in God’s sight, so that He would grant them eternal salvation.

However, God had a better plan.  In His love and mercy, God sent Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, to become the ultimate sacrifice.  John the Baptist, in John 1:29, refers to Jesus Christ as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  And, in 1 Peter 1:19, Peter indicates that Jesus Christ is “a lamb without blemish and without spot,” which signifies that Jesus Christ is the perfect sacrifice.

The Bible tells us in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  And, Romans 5:8 states, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  As a result, anyone who genuinely accepts Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross as the payment for his (or her) sins is assured of eternal life, rather than having to contemplate spending eternity in hell.

[Also, see our articles entitled “What Must a Person Do to Be Assured of Eternal Salvation?” and “Does It Really Matter What You Believe?”]