This sounds like a very contradictory and confusing statement. How can hell be a gift of love? Let’s unpack this statement.
Jesus and Paul explain the way unbelievers think and act.
Jesus said that unbelievers love darkness because of their sin.
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”
John 3:19-20 NIV
Paul explains that the wicked behaviour of unbelievers expresses a deep-seated disrespect for God.
“As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” …“There is no fear of God before their eyes.””
Romans 3:10-12, 18 NIV
These verdicts add up to one thing…people hate and run from God because of their sin. Eventually, sin…and the judgment of God on sinners…is traced back to unbelief. People hate God… they are terrified of Him because they know that their sin will be punished…
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
John 3:18 NIV
Some people even lean hard on the lie that there is no God because, if they can make God go away, they need not worry about punishment. They can sin as much as they like because death ends it all and there is no accountability.
Now, let’s examine a few descriptions of hell in the Bible. We know that hell is a place of darkness. This means that God’s presence cannot be in hell because there is no darkness in God.
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”
1 John 1:5 NIV
Jesus told stories of people who rejected God’s way and were thrown out, away from God’s presence, into darkness, for example, the man who was not wearing a ”wedding garment”.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
Matthew 22:13 NIV
Hell is also a place of torment. Imagine having enjoyed sin so much in this life that you have become enslaved to your lusts. You just cannot get enough of your evil desires. Now, take away the opportunity to satisfy your lusts but the lusts are still in you, tormenting you, forever unfulfilled.
Imagine then, how uncomfortable people who love darkness and sin, would feel in God’s eternal presence where His light would reveal everything about them and what they had done. Without faith in God’s forgiveness and the blood of Jesus to wash them clean, their filthy hearts would be known to everyone.
Therefore, in God’s kindness, He will send them to the place of darkness, away from His presence forever, where they would be in the environment they loved and forever in the company of people like themselves.
The Bible also tells us that God has given us the freedom to choose. He honours that right, even if people make wrong choices with terrible consequences. He will never force anyone to do what they don’t want to do.
Without the new life in Jesus, people’s choices are limited to only that which is in their nature to do. This means that they cannot be truly righteous because even their good choices are tainted with selfishness.
God gives people what they want even if they land up in hell as a consequence.
In Romans 1, Paul explained how this works.
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness …For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another…Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Romans 1:18, 21-24, 26-27 NIV
People are not born homosexuals. They become homosexuals by choice, and God confirms their choices by letting them become what they want. Note that their actions lead to a mindset that enslaves them. They are inflamed with lust.
The end result is even more terrible, beginning with a choice and ending with a mind that has lost the ability to know the difference between good and evil.
“Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”
Romans 1:28-32 NIV
Their minds become so corrupted that they approve of everything evil and condemn everything good.
Now, how can anyone with a depraved mind be comfortable and at home in the presence of God? Imagine living forever in a place that is completely opposite to the way you think and behave, a place where there is no sin, evil, or wickedness in anyone and where your wickedness is glaringly visible to everyone.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” …But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
Revelation 21:3-4, 8-9 NIV
Can you now understand that, though hell is a terrible place, it is a kindness to separate unbelievers from God’s children and to consign them to a place they themselves have chosen while they lived in this earth.
Paul makes it clear the no one can hide behind the excuse that he/she did not know that God exists and that He holds all people accountable for their choices. This is true for three reasons… creation, conscience, and the Holy Spirit.
First,
“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.”
Romans 1:18-20 NIV
Second,
“(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)”
Romans 2:14-15 NIV
Third,
The Holy Spirit convicts people of sin.
“When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin …”
John 16:8 NIV
Not only has God signed His name on every detail of creation, which people can acknowledge if they are honest and can choose to see, but He has also written His law on their conscience from conception. There is not a soul on earth that does not know the difference between right and wrong from birth. Even a very young child knows when he/she has done wrong. Then, on top of that, the Holy Spirit actives the conscience about sin until, if the sinner continues to ignore His voice the conscience becomes inactive, no longer functioning as a warning system.
“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”
1 Timothy 4:1-2 NIV
God has a specific plan for those who trust in Him.
“Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. “On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”
Malachi 3:16-18 NIV
So, it is because of God’s loving kindness that He separates believers from unbelievers, preventing His pure and perfect kingdom from being polluted by sinners and sending unbelievers to a place where they will remain in the environment of their choice forever.
We, who know and love God, can be grateful to Him that He will separate His own people from a corrupt society into a place of purity and perfection in His presence when Jesus returns to set up His eternal kingdom on earth. Those who refuse to come under His rule now will enjoy the fruits of their choices then.
- Eternal Light! Eternal Light!
How pure the soul must be,
when, placed within Thy searching sight,
it shrinks not, but with calm delight
can live and look on Thee.
- The spirits that surround Thy throne
may bear the burning bliss;
but that is surely theirs alone,
since they have never, never known
a fallen world like this.
- O how shall I, whose native bow’s
is dark, whose mind is dim,
before the Ineffable appear
and on my human spirit bear
the uncreated beam?
- There is a way for man to rise
to that sublime abode:
an offering and a sacrifice,
a Holy Spirit’s energies,
an Advocate with God.
- These, these prepares us for the sight
of holiness above:
the sons of ignorance and night
May dwell in the eternal Light,
through the eternal Love.
(Author: Thomas Binney
Source: hymnary.org)