God Will Send People to Hell

This is one of the most frequently discussed topics about the God of the Bible. I specify “God of the Bible” because there are varying belief systems about God’s nature, and many reject the notion that God will send people to hell.

However, the Bible is the only place where one can find the true revelation of God. In fact, it’s God’s personal revelation of Himself and therefore, the final authority on what God will or won’t do. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Anyone else with the ability to reveal the nature of God would have to be God.

It might be helpful for you to review my earlier article, “So Loved”, which defines God’s expression of love compared to man’s assumption of His love. I won’t repeat what is in this article, except to say that the typical religious person is tragically wrong on the subject of God’s love.

The focus of this article will be “God will send people to Hell.” First, however, there needs to be a discussion about who is sending who to Hell. Consider this revelation in John 3:18: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” According to this verse, the decision of who is going to Heaven or Hell is left to each individual person. God is not making the decision at all. This information is astonishing and should end the discussion.

According to John 3:16, God provided the way to avoid going to Hell: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” “Shall not perish” means not going to Hell.

The conclusion is simple to understand. If God provided a way of escape from judgment and Hell by trusting in Jesus, then who really bears the responsibility for a person that goes to Hell? In truth, each person has the free will to choose or reject Hell.

God judged and condemned Adam and Eve when they rebelled against His command to “not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” which was located in the Garden of Eden. He warned them that if they did so, they would surely die.

The natural man believes the death penalty was too harsh a punishment for the crime. After all, it was only a piece of fruit. This sense of injustice arises from man’s complete ignorance of God’s absolute righteousness and His perspective on sin. There’s a foolish notion that God should oblige our flawed and corrupt understanding of justice. In short, mankind has a gross misunderstanding regarding the severity of sin, any sin, and especially their own sin. This why God will send people to hell.

When a person questions the justice of God, it is clear evidence that they do not understand the nature of God by His own revelation. In addition to the revelation of Scripture, God also reveals Himself in the Lord Jesus.

Consider these words from Hebrews 1:1-3: “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

The Scriptures reveal the nature of God, and the Lord Jesus is the living, breathing representation of God’s nature. He proclaimed this truth when He was on earth:
“I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

It should be pointed out that God does not want anyone to go to Hell. He wants everyone to go to Heaven and be with Him for all eternity: “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2Peter 3:9)

In fact, God did not even create Hell for humans: “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41)

Hopefully, the true nature of God is beginning to crystallize in your mind. God’s nature will be further revealed in Heaven. Here’s what we know about Heaven:

1. It’s the place the Lord Jesus came from and went back to
2. It’s the Father’s house
3. The angels are there
4. It is a place with no sin, no death, no fear, no sadness, no darkness, and no suffering
5. It’s a place of absolute and perpetual joy

It’s one requirement for entry is that a person must be perfectly righteous. The Bible tells us no man is righteous: “There is none righteous not even one.” (Romans 3:9)

Sin is so offensive to God that even one sin blocks the way to Heaven. Mankind was in a hopeless place; doomed to Hell for all eternity. Enter the love of God! “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Even the most casual observer knows that justice demands a penalty be paid for sin. God too has this same sense of justice, but His is a perfect justice. Mankind has never experienced perfect justice, but God displayed His perfect justice, on a small hill, outside the city of Jerusalem, in Israel, about 2,000 years ago.

God sent His beloved Son in the form of a baby into our world. This baby grew to be a man and at the age of 30, He introduced the availability of eternal life throughout Israel. He explained that in our present condition we could not go to Heaven (eternal life), but that we must become new creatures, born of the Spirit.

This new birth could only occur by trusting in God’s word that He, indeed, sent His Son to die on the cross of Calvary, bearing all our sins in His body. Furthermore, He would then suffer God’s punishment for our sins. In other words, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Corinthians 5:21)

We do not have, nor can we, by our own efforts, obtain the righteousness God demands. In His kindness and grace, He arranged (at a huge cost to Him) that we can receive the perfect righteousness of His Son, through faith in His Son’s sacrifice. By this sacrifice, the blockade to Heaven is removed.

When the Lord Jesus took our punishment for sins, it was equal to the punishment every person would suffer in Hell for all eternity. The payment is incalculable. God’s justice is so perfect it demanded payment for our sins and His love is so great that He gave His Son to make the payment.

The greater question for this article should be: “Why would a Holy God pay such an incredible price to redeem so rebellious a people as we?” “See how great a love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and in fact we are. For this reason, the world does not know us: because it did not know Him.” (1John 3:1)

While it’s true that God will send people to Hell that reject His gracious gift of salvation, the choice of going to Hell rests with each person. The person who rejects the gift of salvation, which is to reject the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, could never share in the joy of heaven because the joy of Heaven is to be with the Father and the Son.

As you can see there is no other place for the unsaved person to spend eternity, but in the torment and darkness of Hell. This reality can be ignored, denied, or dismissed, but it cannot be altered apart from faith in the Lord Jesus.

Based on the Lord’s sacrifice on Calvary, no one has the right to question His love and justice. Those that are truly worried about people going to Hell should strive to share the magnificent news that the way to salvation has been opened so that no one ever has to go to Hell. The greater question is, “Why are so many rejecting this gracious gift of salvation?”

I realize this is not an uplifting message that will bring joy to your heart, but it is a God sending people to Hell message that must be given.

“If I never spoke of hell, I should think I had kept back something that was profitable and should look on myself as an accomplice of the devil.”
J.C. Ryle (1816 – 1900)