The Justice of Hell: Why a Loving, Merciful God Requires Hell

Many people have objected to the thought and have vehemently disagreed with and argued against those who accept the notion of God’s eternal punishment in damnation of people in Hell. They posit that if anyone were to be sent to Hell, it would be unloving and unmerciful of God. How could the God who is love (cf. 1 John 4:8, 16) possibly allow, let alone send His children/creation to a place of eternal and unimaginable torment and suffering? They believe that God’s wrath could not possibly be that strong, and that it is not a perfect wrath that burns for eternity, but that it will subside, I guess with time (as the saying goes, time heals the heart).

But God does not dwell in the restraints of time; He is unchanging, He does not change His mind. The Bible is clear about the existence of Hell and why people go to Hell. Those who reject the existence of Hell are arguing with the very word of God. God does send people to Hell, and this in no way contradicts God’s love, mercy, or justice.

The key point to remember is that God is perfectly holy (and God’s holiness is the only attribute of God that is mentioned three times in succession in all of Scripture, Isaiah 6:3). Only the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8). “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation” (Psalm 24:3-5). Only those who are blameless will stand before God in His presence. God will not allow any who are evil to stand in His presence, for they are an abomination to His holiness and He abhors them (Psalm 5:4-6).

First I will show from Scripture that Hell does exist; that Hell is a real place.

If Hell were not a real, literal place, why would it be warned about so many times in Scripture? Jesus warns about it, Paul warns about it, and John warns about it in Revelation. Jesus and John specifically describe it as a physical place of great pain and suffering. If such a place does not exist, why warn against it? Such warnings would be unmerited, for they would bring about unnecessary fear; not to mention they would be liars for saying people will be sent there when no such place even exists. Hell does exist, and its fires grow hotter every day as they are fed with the souls of unrepentant sinners.

How does Scripture describe Hell?

It is described as “outer darkness” (Matthew 25:30), as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (cf. Matthew 13:41-42): a place of extreme pain, suffering, and anguish. Mark records Jesus’ exhortations to fight sin diligently and with the most extreme seriousness, for those who do not will “be cast into hell, where their worms does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). This warning is of the utmost earnestness, for Jesus gives it three times (vv. 44, 46, and 48). The fire that burns them will not be quenched, it will rage on forever. The worm that feeds upon them will not die, ever. For the worm to live there must be a host for the worm to feed upon. Thus the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the one who is cast into Hell will also never “die,” in a sense, though they will be finally and utterly dead. (Jesus is here referencing Gehenna, the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where the remains of the sacrifices were dumped; the place must have smelled awful, been a sore sight, and been utterly worm infested.)

In Revelation, it is described as “the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (21:8), which lake contains the devil, the beast, and the false prophet; the place where “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (20:10). Why would something different occur to these creatures than any other creature cast into this lake of fire? Why would they suffer for eternity while others are merely annihilated?

It is the lie of the devil to make people believe that Judgment is not coming and that Hell is only a temporary place where people’s sins are purged or where people are annihilated. This is seared into peoples’ consciences to excuse them (in their own minds) from not preaching and/or to give them a false security if they do not preach or if they do not consider eternity seriously. Such lies are dangerous both to those who seek to be preachers of the gospel and those who hear them. Paul warns Timothy to “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you” (1 Timothy 4:16). Those who teach falsehoods are not doing one iota of good. Rather, people may and probably will end up in Hell due, at least in part, to such lies.

Secondly, I will now show you that it is God Himself who casts the evil persons into Hell.

Matthew 13:41-42 says, “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” But of the righteous He says, they “will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (43). It is Christ who sends out the angels to gather the wicked to be cast into Hell, and it is He who will reward the righteous. A few verses later Jesus says, “at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (49-50). These are the angels of the Most High. The angels that have not followed Satan (cf. Revelation 12:4) are the ones who will gather the wicked and cast them into the sea of fire, not the demons.

In Matthew 24, Jesus tells a metaphor in which He represents the master (45-51). The master comes when the senseless, evil slave is not expecting His return. When the master finds the slave in wantonness and wickedness toward his fellow slaves, the master Himself “will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (51). And it is Jesus who tells those who call Him, “Lord, Lord,” and yet practice evil, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matthew 7:21-23).

And Jesus warns His “friends”, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5). It is God alone who has the authority to cast one into Hell. Those who do not know God should definitely fear the power and wrath of God, for this wrath is against them (as Jonathan Edwards so clearly warned in His sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God). Believers have no need to fear God in this way, for “there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love” (1 John 4:18). Yet those who love God should still revere God, recognizing His power. And they also ought to “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12), fearing sin and the effects of it and what the wrath of God can and will do to all who live in unbelief.

So who will take part in Hell and why?

Well, first, no children of God will take part in Hell. God will not abandon a single one of His children to a place of eternal destruction. Jesus cannot lose one, for He says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” And He goes on to say “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:37, 39-40). The promise of Christ is that He will not lose one, but all that are given to Him by the Father; all who belong to the Father because God has chosen them and Christ has purchased them, are safe in Christ’s hands, and the Father’s. Jesus gives His sheep eternal life, and the one with eternal life cannot have it taken away, otherwise it is not eternal life (and eternal life is knowing God (cf. John 10:28; 17:3). No one can take even one of Christ’s sheep out of the hand of God the Father (John 10:29). They are kept by the power of God (cf. 1 Peter 1:3-5).

Further, only those who receive Christ are given the right to become children of God. Those who believe in His name are rightfully His children (John 1:12). At one time, God’s children were in bondage to sin (and they were children at that time, just not yet realized into the family, cf. Galatians 4:3), yet they have been redeemed as adopted sons, welcomed into the family to which they belong, which family is God’s, and are given the Spirit of God, and are heirs of God through Christ (Galatians 4:4-7). Those who die without Christ are not children of God, but children of the devil. The children of God and the children of the devil are differentiated in this way: the children of God do what is right and pleasing to God, the children of the devil do not (1 John 3:10). It is the children of the devil who will face Hell, not the children of God.

We must remember that God is not required to be merciful to any, let alone to be merciful to everyone. If God were to save only a certain people group, say Israel for example, He would be just in only saving them and not saving anyone else. Why? Because God is totally free to do as He pleases; and this belongs only to God. God has mercy upon whom He has mercy and He has compassion upon whom He has compassion, and He hardens the hearts of whomever He desires as well (Exodus 34:19, Romans 9:15, 18). This belongs only to God and He is glorified in this; and this is His glory—to be the sovereign God (Exodus 33:18-19). God is free to choose some to be vessels of mercy and others to be vessels of wrath (Romans 9:22-24). He is the potter, and He has every right over the clay. Some from His lump of clay He chose to make to receive mercy, not because they deserved it but because He chose to, and some He makes to receive the wrath of Hell, and they deserve it.

That God would show mercy to any, let alone to all people groups, Jew and Gentile alike, is truly astounding and mind blowing. Why should God show mercy to Abram, who was an idolater, living among the Chaldeans? Truly he was not worthy of mercy. Or why should the promise to Abraham run through Isaac who was as sinful as Ishmael? Or why should God give mercy to Jacob who was clearly an evil and deceptive man? He deserved none. It was not their own goodness, nor any foreseen goodness (any righteousness they possessed was not of themselves but the gift of God’s grace, and God decided before any good or evil was done anyway, Romans 9:11), but God gave mercy to some and not to others, as He told Moses is His practice. God poured out His mercy abundantly, and Christ had to take the wrath due for divine justice to be satisfied (Romans 3:23-26).

Why will they go to Hell?

I believe that the utter lack of understanding that pervades peoples’ minds today is the most essential reason why people cannot accept that God would send people to such a place (since most people see humans as fundamentally good). God does not send people to Hell merely because they have rejected Jesus (though this is a sin worthy of Hell). He does not send people to Hell because they have erred once (though those who have transgressed God’s perfect Law once have become guilty of all and are deserving of Hell (cf. James 2:10)). God sends people to Hell because they are fundamentally evil, and all day, every day of their existence, everything they do is sin. They constantly transgress God’s Law.

Paul, under the compelling and guidance of the Holy Spirit, tells us that “whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Any action, no matter how good it seems in the eyes of men, if it is done without faith (in unbelief), is utterly despicable in God’s eyes. Why? Because “without faith it is impossible to please [God]” (Hebrews 11:6). And God sees and judges not merely the outward appearances, but “the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do [NKJV reads “all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account”]” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

How can this be the case? How could building a hospital possibly be evil in the sight of God? Such an act, if not done to the glory of God (as all things must be, 1 Corinthians 10:31), violates the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind (and Mark 12:30 adds “and with all your strength”)” (Matthew 22:37). A violation of the greatest commandment is the greatest possible sin. All who do not know God and worship Him as God, through Jesus (for He is the only way to the Father, John 14:6), are constantly, every moment of life down to the smallest possible degree of temporal measurement (for example, the nanosecond), committing this sin; an unimaginable amount of times in their lifetime. Not only this, but they are also failing to “love [their] neighbor as [themselves]” (Matthew 22:39). They should be telling their neighbor of the glories of God, and they are clearly failing to do this.

So those without Christ are constantly committing the two greatest sins possible. It’s not that they have merely done one or two things wrong, but that their whole being is corrupted (they are slaves to sin, cf. Romans 6), and so they sin constantly, and this is all they can do unless regenerated by the Spirit unto life and washed clean by the blood of the Lamb. And the punishment of a transgression to preserve holiness (as is set out as the reason and example for punishment under the Law) is an eye for an eye (cf. Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, Deuteronomy 19:21, see also Numbers 35 which commands that life be taken for life in Israel so that the land not be defiled because God dwells amongst the people,. So how much more so will this be true of heaven, the dwelling place of the Most High, a place far more holy than the land of Israel?). So because a person has sinned against an infinite God, an infinite punishment is required (and it is God whom they have sinned against, as David often recognized (cf. Psalm 41:4; 51:4)).

God has set the universe up to work in this way by His good pleasure; so to say that His plan is not good is to say that He who devised the plan and upholds it is not good. The whole earth and all that is therein belong to the Lord; He can do with it and its inhabitants as He pleases (Psalm 24:1-2). Man has no right to speak back to God. “The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory….” (Romans 9:20-23). There are clear implications in this passage that I do not have time to get into now. God does not owe anyone mercy. So if it is the pleasure of God to send the unrepentant to Hell for their sins, then it is good—for God is good (yet God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (in other words he does not enjoy it) -Ezekiel 33:11).

Why have I written this? Because Hell is a reality and real people are going there. These people could be your friends, family, coworkers, or any number of your acquaintances. To warn somebody who is an unrepentant sinner who has no fear of God about judgment and Hell is only right, since the Bible clearly does so (and Jesus Himself spoke more about Hell than of Heaven). That may be exactly what they need to hear. This is also a clear teaching from Scripture, and all doctrine should be as clear as possible in our minds so that we may teach it accurately, so that it may affect our hearts, so that we may have a better view of God, and so that we may “be ready in season and out of season” to use it properly and in the best way possible (2 Timothy 4:2). My aim is that Hell will be so real that we might weep over it, so much so that we will preach the gospel and pray without ceasing for the salvation of those who have not yet come to the faith.