Answer
To address the question of how a loving God can send someone to hell, we need to define a few terms and, most likely, correct a few assumptions. We must first define the term loving. Our culture tends to think of “love” as a completely non-confrontational, tolerant approval of whatever the loved one wants to do. But that is not a biblical definition. Love, according to the Bible, is goodwill and benevolence shown in self-sacrifice and an unconditional commitment to the loved one. Love is action promoting the well-being of another person.
Implied in the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” is the assumption that sending someone to hell is unloving on God’s part. But God’s very nature is love (1 John 4:16). He cannot do anything that is unloving because His every action and every thought is an expression of His nature. God alone loves in the highest sense of the word; He loves with perfect freedom and objectivity.
If we say that God is somehow wrong to punish unrepentant sinners in the manner He has chosen, then we have declared that we are more loving than God is—and wiser and fairer and more righteous. But it is impossible for us to be more loving than Love Himself. And our feeble notions of what is “wise” and “fair” will always fall short of God’s perfection.
Another assumption we must guard against in asking the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” concerns the word send. Yes, God is the one—the only one—who sends people to hell (Luke 12:5; Revelation 20:15). However, when someone is sent to hell, it is not a unilateral action on God’s part, and the person being sent is not a passive victim of circumstance. God has given human beings freedom to participate in their life choices and eternal destinations (John 3:16–18). God has entrusted personal responsibility to each of us. And, in His love, God sent His only begotten Son into the world to save sinners. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
“How can a loving God send someone to hell?” Romans 1:18–20 lays the foundation for the answer: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (emphasis added).
There are several key points in this passage. First, people actively “suppress the truth.” Everyone has been given enough truth to know about God and surrender to Him, but they willfully refuse to accept the truth. They love darkness rather than light (John 3:19). Dr. Thomas Nagel, an atheistic professor of philosophy and law, has said, “It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that” (The Last Word, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 130).
Second, Romans 1:19 states that God has “made [the truth about God] plain to them.” In other words, the Creator took the initiative to make His truth obvious to everyone. History has proved this since time began, as every culture and civilization has sought an understanding of a Creator to whom they owe allegiance. The innate understanding that God exists is due to our being created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
Third, Romans 1:20 says that people “have no excuse for not knowing God” (NLT). There is no defense, no justification for continuing to reject God’s offer of salvation in Christ. In love, God gave each of us enough truth to turn toward Him rather than away from Him.
When considering the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” we must not try to separate God’s love from His justice and righteousness. God’s attributes exist together, and they cannot be plucked out and made to stand alone. God is love, and that shapes His justice; at the same time, His justice affects His expressions of love. Justice requires adequate payment for crimes committed; love requires the extension of grace to the criminal. The cross shows both justice and love. As Jesus died on the cross, He bore the punishment for sin that justice demanded, and He extended the grace of forgiveness to sinners. Thus, both the justice and love of God were at work. “Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed” (Psalm 85:10, NKJV).
The question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” has a logical counterpart: “how can a just God send someone to heaven?” The answer to both questions is, again, the cross. For those who believe in Christ and accept His loving sacrifice on their behalf, God’s justice falls on Jesus. For those who turn away from Christ and reject His sacrifice, God’s justice falls on them.
Hell was originally created for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). When humans joined the devil’s rebellion against God, hell became their fate, too. But God, in His love, provided a way of escape. He proved His love at the cross of Christ. Those who are in Christ have been forgiven of their sin by the grace of God. But those who reject Christ are spurning God’s love and refusing His offer of salvation. If we decline the payment offered by another, we must pay the price ourselves, and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Sinners are sent to hell, in spite of God’s love, because they reject God’s loving provision of a Savior.
Jesus revealed the heart of the Father when He lamented those who spurned salvation: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37; see also Isaiah 5:1–7 and Hosea 7:13). Hell does not negate God’s love any more than heaven negates God’s justice. “So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’” (2 Corinthians 5:20, NLT).
