Misconceptions - 7. A Loving God would not send people to Hell?

'If God Loved me so much why would He send me to hell'

This is a statement I hear fairly often and it is an interesting point. The Bible makes out that God Loves us so much that He would even be willing to die for us. So why would He send us to hell?

God is perfect in Love, but He is also perfect in Justice.

When you are wronged, you are usually quite passionate about seeing that 'justice' is done and it is indeed the same with God, except God hates all wrong. God hates murder, rape, lies, theft...He hates all He considers wrong (and this is how we know if there is wrong, because God said so...How else do we know? There is no acceptable standard other than one set by a Higher being than ourselves...otherwise it is human opinion vs human opinion and how do you work out who is right? Rant over haha) and He will punish wrong to make it right again.

If someone you loved was raped and murdered, you would be desperate to see those responsible brought to justice and rightly so.

Now I am not accusing us all of being rapists and murderers, but we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and we deserve to be punished for this. As God is such a Holy God and only perfection can stand in His Presence, we cannot go to Heaven. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and this death means spiritual death, in that we cannot be in relationship with God.

I began this post by pointing out that the Bible states that God loves us so much that He sent His only Son to die for us (John 3:16). This is where it turns around...God wants us in Heaven and He has made a way through Christ.

Romans 10:9
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.


God loves us so much that He died to pay the wages of our sin, so that we can go to Heaven. If we fail to take heed of this, is it any fault other than our own?

1st May, a infamous day

I was thinking about posting yesterday about the 17th anniversary of the untimely death one of my favourite all time F1 drivers, Ayrton Senna, but decided against it.

Since then, we have probably all heard the news about the death of Osama Bin Laden. What is strange is that both his and Hitler's death were announced on 1st May, 66 years apart (although Hitler actually died on the 30th April).

When I first heard the news I was shocked but pleased, as we all knew what an evil man he was and there is a strong feeling that he deserved it for what he did. I saw the pictures of the Americans celebrating in New York and Washington and understood.

But then a great friend of mine (who I just realised in getting the link, didn't blog once in April :P) posted this on Facebook and I have changed my stance:-

Proverbs 24:17
"Do not gloat when your enemy falls;
when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice,"


We cannot rejoice in this as the Lord has commanded otherwise. I believe it is because we should not focus our mind on celebrating death. Let's make it a challenge of ours today not to celebrate death but to celebrate the good things we have in our lives, let's celebrate life and remember how blessed we are to be alive. Let's thank God for such things :)


Some will say that justice or revenge has been done and we should celebrate that. But revenge is never something to be celebrated as we are just going down to their level, and justice hasn't been done and never will be done for the people on this earth for those who died that terrible day on 11/09/01. Justice WILL be done however when Bin Laden and those responsible met God and had to account for their actions. God punishes people justly for what they have done (unless you are in Christ and your sin is paid for already :D). God is so passionate about justice that He sent His Son Christ to die so that we can go to Heaven. 


If all you want to say to God to account for life is, 'I messed up tonnes but Christ paid for it all' then let Jesus into your life today :)



Romans 14:12
It is written:
   “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
   every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.