Why Would a Loving God Send People to Hell?

I have asked this question myself, and I don't think it is a question Christians should be afraid to ask.

If God is loving, why would He send anyone to Hell?

The question becomes much harder when we stop talking about imaginary people. Most of us know people who do not believe what we believe. They are friends, relatives, coworkers and people we genuinely care about. Suddenly Hell is no longer an abstract theological problem. If Christianity is true, then what Jesus says about judgment concerns actual people.

For a long time, my understanding was fairly simple. God gives us the opportunity to accept or reject Him. Sin separates us from God, Jesus offers salvation, and those who continually reject Christ ultimately face eternity apart from Him.

After looking more deeply at what Jesus, Paul and the other New Testament writers actually say, I still believe the centre of that explanation is true. But I also think it needs more care than I once gave it.

The New Testament does not allow me to solve the problem by pretending judgment isn't real. Jesus simply said too much about judgment for me to do that. But Scripture also does not portray God as eagerly waiting for an opportunity to condemn people.

Somehow, if we want an honest answer, we have to take both truths seriously.

Does God Actually Want People to Be Saved?

Before talking about Hell, this seems like the right place to begin.

Peter writes that God is patient, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Paul writes that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” before pointing directly to Jesus Christ as the mediator between God and humanity (1 Timothy 2:3–6).

Then Jesus gives us perhaps the most beautiful picture of this in Luke 15.

He tells three stories about something being lost. First there is a sheep. Then a coin. Finally, a son. When the shepherd finds his sheep, there is celebration. Jesus explains that there is likewise joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. When the woman finds her lost coin, there is celebration again.

Then Jesus tells the story we usually call the Prodigal Son.

A son takes his inheritance and leaves his father. He goes his own way until his choices eventually leave him broken, hungry and humiliated. Finally, he recognizes what he has done. He gets up and begins the journey home.

What happens next matters enormously to this question.

The father does not reluctantly allow his son back after making him prove himself. He sees his son while he is still far away, runs to him, embraces him and celebrates his return.

The father wanted his son home.

There is another detail I don't think we should overlook, though: the father allowed him to leave.

I don't think we should turn one parable into a complete philosophical explanation of human free will. That isn't why Jesus told it. But Luke 15 leaves very little doubt about God's disposition toward repentance. Heaven rejoices when the lost return.

That makes it very difficult to argue that God delights in people being lost.

Repentance is not convincing an unwilling God to forgive us. It is turning back toward the Father who desires our return.

If God Wants Us Home, Why Is There Judgment?

This is where the question becomes uncomfortable.

The same Jesus who tells us about the father running toward his returning son also repeatedly warns about judgment. Jesus speaks about Gehenna, destruction, outer darkness, punishment, fire, and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Revelation later gives us the terrifying imagery of final judgment and the lake of fire, which it calls the “second death.”

Paul doesn't normally use the Gospel language of Gehenna, but he certainly doesn't avoid judgment. Romans 2 says God's kindness, patience and forbearance are intended to lead us toward repentance. Yet Paul immediately warns about stubbornness, an unrepentant heart and God's righteous judgment.

That word righteous matters.

If God is perfectly loving, does love require Him to ignore evil?

Most of us don't actually believe that when we encounter serious injustice. If someone deliberately abuses, tortures or murders innocent people, we don't usually consider a judge loving because he refuses to hold that person accountable. Something within us recognizes that justice matters.

But this is also where Paul takes away one of our easiest escapes.

I can point toward someone who has done terrible things and conclude that they deserve judgment. Paul turns the finger around.

I cannot establish my innocence before God by finding someone worse than I am.

Christianity does not divide humanity neatly between terrible sinners who deserve judgment and good Christians who deserve Heaven. Paul eventually arrives at the much more uncomfortable conclusion that all of us have sinned.

I am not standing outside the problem trying to explain what God should do with everyone else.

I am one of the people who needs mercy.

The Judge Has Also Acted to Save the Guilty

This is where the Christian answer becomes remarkable.

Romans 5 says that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Paul goes even further and describes reconciliation occurring while we were God's enemies.

God's answer to human sin was not simply judgment.

It was Christ.

That changes how I read John 3:16. The verse is so familiar that it is easy to stop reading once we reach eternal life. But the conversation continues. God loved the world and gave His Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

Yet Jesus continues speaking about condemnation. He speaks about people loving darkness rather than light.

Love and judgment exist in the same passage.

Paul gives us another remarkably concise summary in Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Death is what sin earns.

Eternal life is a gift.

And that gift is found in Christ.

This is why I cannot remove Jesus' words in John 14:6 simply because they are uncomfortable in a culture that prefers many paths to the same destination. Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Christianity does not teach that salvation is God's reward for people who managed to become morally superior to everybody else.

It teaches that sinners need a Savior.

What About Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit?

This was one part of the question where my understanding needed some correction.

I had understood blasphemy against the Holy Spirit fairly simply: reject the Holy Spirit, reject Christ, and therefore commit the unforgivable sin.

After studying Jesus' warning more carefully, I don't think I can state it quite that broadly.

In Matthew 12 and Mark 3, Jesus gives this warning after religious leaders witness what is happening through Him and attribute the work associated with God's Spirit to evil. There is clearly a connection between hardened rejection and Jesus' warning, but Scripture does not give me enough reason to declare that every person who currently rejects Jesus has already committed the unforgivable sin.

That distinction is important.

A person who rejects Christ today can still repent tomorrow. Paul himself once opposed Christ. People who once did not believe have become Christians throughout the history of the Church.

The lost can still come home.

The warning about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is therefore something I take very seriously, particularly as a warning about hardened opposition to God's Spirit and His testimony concerning Christ. But Christians should be extremely cautious about declaring another person beyond repentance.

As long as someone can turn toward Christ, I want them to turn toward Christ.

And according to Jesus, Heaven will rejoice when they do.

Do People Choose Hell?

There is truth in saying that human beings can reject God, but I no longer think the sentence “God doesn't send anyone to Hell; people simply choose it” tells the whole biblical story.

Scripture repeatedly describes God judging.

I don't have the right to remove God's role in judgment simply because doing so makes Christianity easier to explain.

At the same time, the New Testament repeatedly treats our response to God as real and consequential. We are called to repent, believe and follow Christ. Some come toward the light. Others reject it.

Christians have spent centuries debating exactly how human freedom and God's sovereignty fit together. I am not going to pretend I can settle that debate in an article about Hell.

What I can say is that salvation is God's grace. We do not earn it.

And yet Scripture still calls us to respond.

What Does the New Testament Actually Say About Hell?

We should also be careful about claiming more certainty than Scripture gives us about exactly what final punishment looks like.

The New Testament uses several descriptions: death, destruction, Gehenna, fire, darkness, punishment, wrath, exclusion from God's kingdom, the second death and the lake of fire. Even the English word hell can hide distinctions between biblical terms such as Hades and Gehenna.

Christians have also disagreed about the precise nature of final punishment. The traditional view is eternal conscious punishment. Other Christians understand the biblical language of death and destruction to mean that those finally condemned are ultimately destroyed, a position generally called conditional immortality or annihilationism. A smaller Christian tradition argues that eventually everyone will be reconciled to God.

After looking at the New Testament evidence, I cannot confidently teach universal salvation. Jesus' warnings about judgment are simply too serious for me to explain away.

I am less willing to pretend that every detail of the debate between eternal conscious punishment and final destruction has been settled beyond legitimate Christian disagreement.

But disagreement about the exact nature of Hell should not become an excuse to erase final judgment altogether.

Whatever its precise nature, Jesus believed judgment was serious enough to warn us about it.

I think we should take Him seriously.

So Why Would a Loving God Send People to Hell?

After studying the question more carefully, I think I was partly asking it backwards.

The New Testament does not describe innocent humanity desperately trying to reach a God determined to keep us out.

It describes sinful humanity and a God who has acted to reconcile us to Himself.

The shepherd searches for the lost sheep. The father receives the returning son. Christ dies for sinners. God is patient and calls us toward repentance. Heaven rejoices when even one sinner returns.

And yet judgment remains real.

Perhaps God's love and God's justice are not contradictions after all.

Perhaps the cross is where we see both most clearly.

That leaves me with something much more personal than an argument about who is going to Hell.

I need to continue seeking repentance.

Not because repentance purchases my salvation. It doesn't. Christ has done what I cannot do for myself. But God's kindness should continually turn me back toward Him.

When I sin, the answer is not to compare myself with someone worse.

It is to repent.

When I wander, the answer is not to convince myself that wandering doesn't matter.

It is to turn around.

The Christian response to Hell should never be smug satisfaction that judgment awaits somebody else. It should produce humility, urgency, gratitude and repentance.

I began with the question: How could a loving God judge sinners?

The New Testament eventually forced me to ask another one.

If God is patient with me, if Christ died for sinners, if Heaven rejoices when one lost person returns, and if the Father is willing to run toward the returning son, why would I continue running away?

Maybe you have been running too. Maybe you know you have wandered and aren't sure what returning is supposed to look like.

Repentance does not mean pretending you never left.

It means recognizing the direction you are travelling, turning around, and coming back to Christ.

The road home is still open.

Turn around.

Watch: Turn Around

We created this short reflection about wandering from God, realizing the direction you are travelling, and making the decision to turn around.

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