Why does a loving God send people to Hell?

This question is probably one of the most frequently asked by unbelievers. And it’s the reason for many of them to disregard God and keep living their lives however they want. Or it can serve as an excuse to say that since God loves us so much, no one is going to hell but we are all going to heaven. Here I will try to give the biblical answer to such an important question. This is just the first part of a series and I pray that God will speak to you through it and you may learn the truth about His love.

Understanding God’s love

I believe it’s totally impossible to even start describing or understanding the amazing love that God has for us. It would be like counting the sand in the seashore, or counting the stars in the sky. When we think that we are getting somewhere we realize that we are not even 1 percentage down the count. So the first step to understand God’s love is to understand that we can’t understand it. When we realize that we can’t describe or comprehend God’s love for us then we will start to understand how great is His love for us. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” 1 John 4:9-10. Imagine, a love that you can’t even describe. Sometimes, is hard for us to describe our love for our girlfriends (boyfriends), spouses, children, or friends; Imaging trying to describe God’s love towards us! However, there are some truths that we need to understand in order to have the right understanding of God’s love for us.

First thing we need to understand is that God loves us all equally. There is nothing that you can do, or that I can do that would change the love that God has for us. Therefore, you don’t get more love from God because you do “good” things, or less love because you do “bad” things. God loves us all equally and without conditions. Therefore, God’s love for us is unchangable and He loves me and you the same no matter what. And we see this throughout the Bible. As it’s true that God’s love for us is unchangable so are His justice and His holiness. One of the mistakes that many people make is that they believe that God’s love is more important and bigger than His justice and holiness, but that’s not true. God’s love and God’s justice and God’s holiness go hand in hand. And in order to understand God’s love we also need to understand His justice and His holiness.

The Bible teaches that one of the attributes of God is His justice. This means that He is a just God. He judges people according to His own moral standards. And anyone that breaks one of these “standards”  or “laws” is guilty of punishment. For a better example just think of any judge in the United States. The United States have certain laws, and if you break one of them you receive a punishment. The judge carries out the veridict and if you are found guilty then you will receive the punishment that you deserve for breaking the law of the United States, regardless if you are a “good” person or intend to be. Well this is the same towards God, in the sense that God made the law and anyone that breaks it will be punished by God. At the end everyone gets what they deserve. And since God is a just God he cannot overlook any sin, or compare your good deeds with your sins. If you sin you should be punish, if you don’t sin then you are found not guilty of any charges. So you might be asking yourself, “what does this has to do with God’s love toward us,” everything!

You see, God has given us a set of laws, and the Bible tells us that we have all broken those laws. We are all guilty of sin and there is no one who is righteous or good in front of God. We have commited, adultery, idolatry, coveted, lied, hated, lusted, steal etc… Therefore, we are all found guilty on God’s judgment day. And even though He loves us, he can’t overpass His judgment because of His love. We are considered His enemies because we have rebelled against Him. Think about any rebellion. According to the country, the rebels are considered as enemies. Even though they come from the same source, the same country, they are enemies because they have rebelled. And the same is with us. We are considered enemies in God’s eyes because we have rebelled against Him by breaking His laws, therefore we should all be punished. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior” Colossians 1:21. However, we need to understand that God doesn’t want to punish us, He loves us so much that He doesn’t want us to be punished. However, His love and His Justice go hand in hand He can’t overlook our sins just because He loves us. And also just because God sends people to hell, it does not mean He finds pleasure in doing so. “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?” Ezekiel 18:23.  However, because He loves us so much He has provided a way for us to be saved from this punishment in hell.

So it goes something like this. God’s Holy Justice demands for Him to judge all of us according to His laws, and since we have all broken them we deserve punishment. We need to understand and recognize that we are sinners in front of a Holy God and that “good” things can’t make us right with Him. We are destined to go to hell. However, God loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son, to die for our sins. To receive the punishment that we deserve. He paid the price for your sins and for my sins. And the Bible teaches that if we repent from our sins (turn away from them) and believe in Jesus Christ we will be saved, and we will not have to pay the penalty for our sins because Jesus Christ paid it with His blood on the cross. That’s something that we all need to do as soon as we can because we never know when we will face God on judgment day.

I know that many of you understand this already, however I need to explain something clearly. God’s love is not bigger than His justice, but they go hand in hand. And why do I say this? Because there is a growing belief that says that God loves us and that He will never send us to hell. That only a hateful God will send us to hell, but since God is loving He will never do such a thing. So we can do whatever we want because God’s love will save us and we will go to heaven. I want to clarify something. Heaven and Hell is not a matter of God’s love, but of God’s justice. Heaven and Hell was never an issue of love but an issue of justice. It doesn’t depend on love for us to go to heaven or hell, but it depends on God’s justice. Now, through God’s love He provided a way to bring justification to sinners, and that way is Jesus Christ, the only way to heaven. Therefore, don’t beleive that because God loves us we are going to heaven, because heaven and hell have nothing to do with love but all to do with justice. God’s love was the provision, it was the atonment for our sins, Jesus Christ. So God’s justice is made known by Heaven and Hell, and God’s love through Jesus Christ.