Does a loving God really send people to Hell?
Another way I think we should ask this question is: Does a parent really like to punish their child? Why does the child get punished? Is it the child that does something wrong that causes the punishment or the parent that causes the punishment?
Do you think God gives us these life situations so that we can understand him more?
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This what im looking for! much appreciated!
Love is only one aspect of God; absolute perfection, Justice, and separation from all that is imperfect, flawed and vile are others. God may BE love, but he is also “Holy, Holy, Holy!” as was recently reiterated in a local sermon. That means that even though God is 100% love, his purest aspect is separation from anything flawed… unfortunately including us.
But the absolute LOVE aspect of God’s personality is that it doesn’t end there; even though we fail *just once* and are permanently condemned to death and separation from God, He doesn’t leave it at that, and went so far as to offer the only acceptable substitution for our guilt allowed: His own blameless self given over to death and hell for all of eternity in our place, and then He clothes us with his Absolute Perfection, so that not only is the price paid, but our failures are wiped away forever from God’s sight, and then He only sees his own perfection shining back at him, through Yeshua who covers us.
Does God want us to go to hell? No. Must he send us there? Yes. Does he do it? Yes*, if we have rejected the free gift of his substitution of his suffering in our place.
The only good news we have is that not only is God great, awesome and huge, he is even bigger than death, hell, and eternity; He died a physical death, spent eternity in hell for every human that has ever lived (the price for failure to God is eternal separation from God!), but God actually is bigger than eternity, so that after He did our ‘time’ for us, He was able to COME BACK and then get us!
How awesome is that? It’s like on one hand we (rightfully) get thrown under the bus, but then at the last second, God volunteers to get thrown under the bus in our place even though He doesn’t deserve it. We would still be under that bus, but God is indestructible, and He shook it off and then said, “Hey, let’s get lunch!”, for eternity!
Now look at the flip side of that. Let’s say you built someone you love a house, and even bled over it, spent every dime you had on it, lost everything to do it, but you succeed in making the house perfect. Then you bring that special someone to the house, complete with giant red bow on it and give them the key. Then they throw the key away, spit on your face, punch you out, try to set you on fire and then stab you to death, and walk away saying “No thanks, I’ll build my own house.”
Would you pursue that person? Not for very long I bet. Even God has limited patience, and is more than willing to let the people who don’t want into heaven to get the house they built for themselves. The price for failure is eternal death and separation from God, and God isn’t going to force anyone into the pearl gates. God doesn’t take pleasure in sending the wicked to destruction, but He has every right to do so, even as He mourns us and cries desperate tears of heartbreak over our freewill decision to go be dead.
God’s love doesn’t send anyone to hell; people send themselves there.