A number of people have great difficulty believing that a loving God would send people, other than those who are wicked, to a place called “hell” where they will suffer punishment forever.
In this regard, 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 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.”
The following statements by Ravi Zacharias, D.D., LL.D., on page 158 of Strobel’s previously- mentioned book, shed further light on the matter:
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.
There is, however, some disagreement as to whether or not it is accurate to say that God sends people to hell.
On page 219 of his book entitled Facing Death and the Life After, Billy Graham states, “The Bible teaches there is hell for every person who willingly and knowingly rejects Christ as Lord and Savior. Many passages could be quoted to support that fact.” Then on page 220, he says,
Will a loving God send a man to hell? The answer from Jesus and His teachings of the Bible is, clearly, “Yes!” He does not send man willingly, but man condemns himself to eternal hell because . . . he refuses God’s way of salvation and the hope of eternal life with Him.
Although Paul Little has a somewhat different response to the question of whether or not God sends people to hell, his basic thinking is similar to that of Graham. On page 85 of his book entitled Know Why You Believe, 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 a cross. 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.”
In this regard, Graham says on page 22 of his book entitled The Journey, “God’s holiness demands that sin be punished – but God’s love has provided the way of redemption through Christ.”
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? In this regard, 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, eternal 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 aforementioned 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 further discussion of the nature of hell, click on “What Is Hell Really Like?”]
What about people who attempt to live a righteous life, but who do not accept Jesus Christ as their Redeemer? Will they need to spend eternity in hell? According to the Bible, there are not any truly “righteous” people, other than Jesus Christ. The following are several scriptures that support this point of view.
Isaiah 64:6a says, “[W]e are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses [sic] 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.” Furthermore, Romans 3:23 states, “[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In addition, John 3:18 declares, “He who believes in Him [i.e., the Son of God] is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
[Note: When we quote Scripture in this article, we use the wording in the New King James Version of the Bible.]
Do these last several scriptures imply that everyone who has sinned, except those who have trusted in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation, is condemned to go to hell when they die? The answer is that the Bible does not provide assurance that there is an alternative way to avoid being condemned to hell.
Does this mean that people who have not trusted in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation are condemned before they are judged at the final judgment (i.e., the Great White Throne Judgment discussed in Revelation 20:11-15)? With specific regard to whether a person goes to heaven or to hell, the answer is that John 3:18 implies that the final judgment will be essentially a confirmation of what has already been determined. [For further discussion of the Great White Throne Judgment, click on What Will Occur at the Great White Throne Judgment?”]
Does God make any exceptions, even for people who have never had the opportunity to trust in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation? Although a reasonable case can be made that God may make exceptions in certain circumstances, the Bible – particularly, the New Testament – does not support such a belief. However, from what we know about the nature of God, we can be confident that He will do what is right.
In this regard, Ravi Zacharias, on page 157 of Strobel’s previously cited 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.
On page 165 of the same 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.
Conclusion
Many people prefer to think of God strictly as a loving Supreme Being. A number of these people do not want to think of God as also just (i.e., administering justice). As a result, they tend to not seriously consider Romans 6:23, which asserts, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The Bible does not support the belief that a person who can distinguish right from wrong, but is not regarded as righteous by God, will have eternal salvation. Romans 3:23 states, “[F]or all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” And, Romans 3:10 declares, “[I]t is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one. . . .”
Thus, if a person fails to trust in Jesus Christ as his (or her) Savior, that person has no assurance of eternal salvation and, therefore, that person can expect to be condemned to a place of eternal punishment referred to as hell. In contrast, God offers the gift of eternal salvation to everyone who genuinely trusts in His Son Jesus Christ as their Savior. [For discussions pertaining to how to be assured of eternal salvation, click on “What Must a Person Do to Be Assured of Eternal Salvation?” and/or “Does It Really Matter What You Believe?”]