God's Love vs. Hell

The Lord God Almighty, the Creator and Owner of it all, loves you. Yes, you. It's His nature to love. He can't help Himself.

So, if He loves everyone, why does He send people to Hell? The answer is actually very simple, but getting to that simple answer will take laying some groundwork. So hang on, here we go.

God is love. 1 John 4:8. That tells me that Love is the very fabric of His being. He doesn't turn it on one minute and off the next. It's what He's made of. He's not some ogre looking for ways to keep people out of heaven.

He very much wants everyone to be with Him in heaven forever. That's really what He wants. So He's trying to draw people, trying to get them in. Jeremiah 31:3.

However, He won't force anyone to follow Him. He gave humanity free will because He wants people to CHOOSE to love Him...but it has to be on His terms. The purity of heaven cannot be compromised. Simply put, the physics of heaven won't allow impurity.

People have the freedom to reject Jesus, but they can't escape the consequences if they do. By the way, simply ignoring the need for a Savior is the same as rejecting Jesus.

I've made these points more thoroughly in other episodes, especially in He Can't Help Himself, What Drives God, and Coulda Woulda Shoulda.

Genesis 1:1, the very first verse in the Bible, reveals that God is a Creator. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

As the Creator, He is the absolute Owner of everything and everyone. He creates for His own many layered plans and purposes. He sets His own goals and creates what He wants when He wants. He sets His rules without needing any approval, consent, or advice. That's just the way it is for everything everywhere.

It's His rules that count, not yours or mine. We exist for Him, not the other way around. The sooner we embrace that, the better.

He alone is the source of life. The Bible states clearly that our Triune God...the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...made everything through Jesus, by Jesus, and for Jesus. John 1:10, Hebrews 1:2, Colossians 1:16.

Let's lay a little more groundwork. There are three heavens mentioned in the Bible. 

• The first heaven is the visible cosmos. When you look up at the sky at night, you're looking at the first heaven.

• The second heaven is the invisible spiritual realm in which angels and demons operate.

• The Bible also refers to a Third Heaven. It is the ultimate home of God's purity and unlimited presence. When we talk about going to heaven, we're talking about going to the Third Heaven. It's where Jesus' born again blood-bought redeemed ones will spend eternity. It's much more than a place that cannot be contaminated. It's a state of being.
  

Now let's get down to today's big question: If God loves everyone, why does He send people to Hell? The simple answer is that they leave Him no choice.

You see, to be in the Third Heaven, a person must be as pure and holy as Jesus. If you aren't that pure and holy, it won't be possible for you to be there. Impurity and darkness can't exist there. The physics of the Third Heaven simply won't allow it.

So, how do you become pure enough to live forever in the Third Heaven? The bottom line is this: Unless you let God join you up with Jesus' purity and holiness, you can't be there. He wants to join you up with Jesus, but the choice is yours. He gave you freedom of choice and He won't violate it.

Without Jesus, all people by nature are spiritually broken, impure, unholy, contaminated with darkness and completely incompatible with the Third Heaven. Being alienated from the life of God is the baked-in, natural, pre-born-again condition of everyone. Ephesians 4:18.

God wants you anyway, so how does He fix that?

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit went to a LOT of trouble to make it possible for each and every person to join spiritually with Jesus, be cleansed and transformed, and become filled with His purity and holiness.

People that go to eternal damnation bring it upon themselves in spite of God's efforts to draw them to Jesus. If you can't be in the Third Heaven, it will be because you disqualified yourself.

Jesus paid for all sin. He took the punishment for ALL of humanity’s sin. To receive the benefit of His payment for your sin, you must first realize that you can't purify yourself or earn what He did for you.

The rest is simple. Because He died for you, turn your life over to Him. Ask Him to forgive, cleanse, and transform you from the inside out. Trust Him to do for you what you can't do for yourself.

The moment you do that, your spirit is reborn and joined to His. 1 Corinthians 6:17 says "the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him." At that moment, your name is freshly written in the Lamb's Book of Life, recorded in the roll call of the Redeemed. Jesus said there is great rejoicing in Heaven when that happens. Luke 15:7.

But don't stop there. He has so much more for you. Get your nose in the Bible. I know long-time Believers who've never read the entire Bible. That should never be! Read it, study it, be inspired by it. Ask Him to reveal His heart to you and fill you with His Spirit. Grow in worship and prayer. It will pay great rewards.

Going in the other direction, Jesus said that the eternal fire of hell was originally made for the devil and the angels that followed him. Check out Matthew 25:41. Even though hell wasn't made for people, it's where people who reject His rescue will end up because they are incompatible with the purity of Heaven.

I said this a few moments ago, but it bears repeating. God wants you with Him in Heaven. If you can't be there, it will be because you disqualified yourself by rejecting Jesus and the rescue He so freely offers. Hebrews 2:3, The Voice, asks the question "How will we escape destruction if we ignore this great salvation?”

People that go to eternal damnation bring it upon themselves in spite of God's loving efforts to draw them to Jesus, to join them to Jesus. People that reject Jesus leave God no choice.

He paid such a high price to make your rescue possible. But you must accept His rescue on His terms.

He paid just as much for the sins of the Damned as for the Redeemed. The difference is that only the Redeemed have taken advantage of that payment. It will break His heart to say to the Damned that they have no place in heaven.