Why Would a Loving God Send Someone to Hell

Contributed by:
Tyler Ward
spiritual formation pastor

This past weekend, Pastor Ron continued the Heaven or Hell series by addressing the question, “Why would a loving God send someone to hell?” This is no doubt one of the most challenging questions regarding our beliefs about life after death.

If hell is what we believe the Bible describes it to be, how could a God who truly loves us ever send someone there? It doesn’t seem to make sense – the two ideas seem to contradict. So what are we supposed to think about this?

Pastor Ron helped us to wrestle with this together by first of all talking about God’s love. His amazing love for us reaches out to us. It also rescues, redeems, restores – and his love refuses no one. It is truly overwhelming as we begin to understand the breadth and depth of his love.

God is not only loving, though. As Pastor Ron shared, he is also just. He always does what is right, and in fact must do what is right. As a result, the cost of our sin and rebellion must be paid – no matter how much God would like to do otherwise. He cannot simply overlook our sin – pretend it doesn’t exist – or choose not to hold it against us. That would violate his justice.

So his love cannot overrule his justice, but what his love can do is provide another suitable way for the cost of our sin to be paid. This of course is what Jesus came to do. Since he had no penalty of his own that needed to be paid – he was able to step in as our substitutes, paying ours for us.

He will not force this on us, though – we must embrace and accept this for ourselves. When we do, our debt is paid and we can experience forgiveness and freedom. When we don’t, though, we are left to pay our debt on our own – because we reject the only way that exists for us to be free…

...and so it is not God who has rejected us and is sending us to hell – we have rejected him and essentially choose it for ourselves.

1. One of the things that we want every person to do over the course of this series is to assess whether or not he or she has embraced Jesus as his or her savior. Have you accepted him as the one who came to rescue, redeem, and restore you? If not, get in touch with one of our staff members – we would love to help you respond to him!
2. If there is something that is holding you back from embracing him as your savior, think about what that is. Find someone you trust to talk about this with, and pray that God will help you as you wrestle through these things.
3. If you have embraced Jesus as your savior, how can you begin to share this good news with others? Who are some people that need to hear it? How can you begin praying for them and sharing with them about God’s love that has been displayed and extended to them in Jesus?