How Does God Love Unbelievers? (Part Two)
He leads me …
Please note – There could be aspects of this blog that may be new to some readers. What follows opens up the subject of punishment in Hell for consideration and discussion. It is in no way meant to undermine what anyone believes.
In Part One we looked at how God loves all people – Christians and non-Christians. We saw that God has a special love, and a special plan, which requires an ongoing relationship with all of humanity to achieve it. Humans have been created in His image to enable this to happen –
· We all have a personality which is made up of knowledge, feelings, and a will. This makes us quite different from all animals and plants.
· We also possess morality, which means that we have a conscience and are able to make moral choices.
· We also have a spirit which is enables us to have a relationship with God
We saw that regrettably a lot of people have chosen not to have a relationship with God, and He has not forced them to change their minds. It has to be their decision. We saw that the Lord has no pleasure when a sinner dies, but while they live He calls them to turn from their sinful ways, to accept Him as Lord of their life, and live free of sin.
If the unbeliever continues to reject God they will not go to Heaven when they die, because they have not received the gift of salvation by faith. Instead it is generally accepted that unbelievers go to Hell where they will remain in torment forever. For many Christians this does appear to agree with what the New Testament says about God being pure love.
Can God be loving and still send people to Hell? Well yes, He can. He is Almighty God and can do what He wants. He is not answerable to anyone. But here are three reasons why He is able to send sinner to Hell -
First, God is perfect love, so He therefore has the right to define what love is. We would probably define love as providing complete happiness for the people we have contact with. However, life is not one big happy experience. There are times when we go through unhappy times too. And it is these unhappy times that help us to appreciate and benefit from the happy times more.
Both Scripture and life experience show us that there are consequences for our actions. Anything that we do wrong requires corrective action. Either the problem is fixed, or there is punishment. As long as a sinner is alive they can get their life right with God, but when they die their opportunity to do anything about their sin has gone. This leaves punishment for unremorseful sin as the only other option remaining.
Second, we should understand that while God is love, He is also holy and just. Near enough is not good enough for Him as we see in Jesus Christ who is our example of being holy. As we know, the Holy Spirit is progressively sanctifying us as Christians because God wants us to the very best that we can be. During this process there will be times where the changes will be hard and may even hurt us emotionally, but they are necessary to make us better people in the long term. This is God’s love.
Third, it is a logical (and theological) mistake to think that God is only really loving if He saves everyone. Assuming that God could do this, it would, however, violate the standards that He has set for us.[1] He has said that there must be punishment for sin. Jesus Christ has paid that price so that all we have to do is to accept Him as Lord of our life by faith to be free of sin. It cannot get much simpler than this. If we decide for whatever reason that we do not want to do this, we must be prepared to accept the alternative – punishment in Hell.
So, where are the dead unbelievers now? We will recall that after Jesus died on the cross He descended into Hades (Ephesians 4:8–10). In Luke 16:19-31, we see that it was an area which was divided into two parts. One is where the unrepentant sinners still are and across a chasm there was the area known as Paradise and Abrahams Bosom where the righteous who had submitted to Jesus’s Lordship, were prior to Jesus resurrection. Once Jesus was resurrected, all the righteous souls were able to leave Paradise in Hades and be with Jesus in Heaven.
Today, believers’ souls will be united in Heaven with Jesus when they die. Then they will be fully resurrected with their body to be with Jesus when He returns prior to His 1,000 year reign on Earth. After the millennial reign, the Judgement Day will come and the believers will be joined with the unbelievers to stand before God to give an account of their lives on Earth. The final judgment will include everyone who has ever lived. Jesus will separate the sheep (the believers) on His right, and the goats (the unbelievers) on His left (Matthew 25:31-46) and everyone will then be judged (Romans 14:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:10).
Revelation 20:13-15 indicates that Death gives up the bodies of the dead from wherever they were left, including the sea. Hades, gives up the souls of the dead, and both the souls and their bodies are bought together so that everyone is resurrected ready to judged and then sent to their final destination.[2]
It is sometimes asked, ‘Are there degrees of punishment in Hell?’
Jesus told the people of Capernaum who had seen His works, “I tell you, even Sodom will be better off on judgment day than you.” (Matthew 11:24 NLT). Then in Luke 12:46–48 Jesus tells a parable about some disobedient slaves who receive punishment for their offences. One slave is cut into pieces and ‘banished with the unfaithful’, another is lashed severely, while the last one gets ‘punished only lightly’ (NLT). This parable applies to punishment in Hell and indicates that there will be degrees of suffering there. Paul also suggests this when he says that unbelievers are ‘storing up terrible punishment’ for themselves on judgment day (Romans 2:5 NLT).[3]
The following is a list of the Scriptures that teach that there will be degrees of punishment in Hell following the Day of Judgment - Matthew 10:15; 11:21-24; 16:27; Luke 12:47-48; John 15:22; Hebrews 10:29; Revelation 20:11-15; 22:12. If we accept that there are degrees of punishment in Hell, what happens when the period of punishment ends?
In Matthew 25:41 we read Jesus saying - “‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons’” (TLB). Revelation 20:10 says much the same thing. This shows that Hell was originally meant for the devil and his angels. When we consider the evil that they have caused for at least the last 6,000 years, then eternal torment in the Lake of Fire could be considered to be a fair punishment.
There are Christians called Annihilationists who believe that whoever cannot be redeemed by God is ultimately put completely out of existence. Some Annihilationists say that anyone who is not redeemed will cease to exist after the Judgement Day, while others say that the unredeemed will go to Hell to be punished for a time determined by God and then they will no longer exist. Both the traditional view of eternal torment and Annihilationism existed in the New Testament church with the traditional view being more accepted.
When we look at the degrees of punishment that Jesus referred to, we should also consider some of His comments like ‘And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God’ (Luke 13:3 NLT).
The KJV Dictionary defines the word perish to mean to be destroyed; to come to nothing, which fits in with annihilation after God’s punishment has been completed. What do you think the answer is?
Dear Reader – If you have found some value in this blog, please feel free to send a copy on to your family and friends. Kind regards, John
[1] Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle, Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up, David C. Cook; 1st edition (July 5, 2011) p 89-90/113
[2] Revelation 20:13, Benson Commentary, Biblehub.com;
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/revelation/20-13.htm
[3] Erasing Hell p 85-86/113
