How Could a Loving God Condemn Good People to Hell?

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

It is a common question that arises from people who have lost their faith, are losing their faith or never had faith to begin with. If Hell is such a terrible place, as Christians have always said, why would a loving God allow good people to be there? It just doesn't make sense, does it? How can this be?

A lot of the problem is in the question itself. What is a good person? Who is a good person? What is the standard for goodness? We see God's standard in the Gospel of Matthew:

Therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
 - Matthew 5:48

So, the standard for goodness is perfection. God made us, so He gets to set the standard. We have to play the game by His rules. That's how it works. That leads us to the next inevitable question...who meets that criteria?

I think we can agree that there is not a single person who is perfect. We all have flaws. Every one of us has either told a lie, taken something that didn't belong to us, become angry with someone unjustly, said something hurtful to someone, been prideful or any combination of these and many other flaws. That being the case, none of us meets the criterion of perfection. We all fail the test. Paul talks about that in Romans:

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 on.

 - Romans 3:10-12

We have all missed the mark. Interestingly, there is a word for that. It's called "sin." That's what sin is. It's missing the mark. It is for that reason that God is perfectly justified in condemning every single one of us to spend eternity without Him. After all, that's really what hell is. It is eternity without the presence of God, without His love, His grace, His beauty, His glory. 

Yet, even though He would be within His rights to keep us all away from Him, He had a plan. He fixed what had been broken. He allows us to show up as though we had never done anything wrong, meet the criterion of perfection and spend eternity with Him. He gives us a picture of what this is like in Zechariah 3:

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. The LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?" Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, "Remove the filthy garments from him." Again he said to him, "See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes." Then I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, while the angel of the LORD was standing by.

 - Zechariah 3:1-5

We see that Joshua was covered with sin, but God removed that sin and gave him His own righteousness. It goes on to say that Joshua would then rule along with God. But what if Joshua had said that He didn't want the clean clothes? What if he told God that he didn't want to be with Him and rule with Him? If that were the case, God could simply force him to accept this offer. He is God, after all. But, He is a God of love and that is not a loving thing to do...to force someone to spend eternity with you when they don't want to. 

Perhaps C.S. Lewis put it best when he said, "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell, choose it." In other words, we have the power to tell God that we don't want to be with Him forever. And if we do, He will acquiesce to our request. He will not force us to be with Him against our will.

If we choose Him, however, He has made provisions for us. He has a clean robe ready for us. It can be a hard decision because it means that you no longer are in the driver's seat of your life, but Jesus is. Sometimes He asks us to do things that make us feel uncomfortable. But in the end, it is always for our own good. 

God doesn't condemn good people to hell, some imperfect people who are already condemned to hell will accept God's offer and receive a pardon so that they can spend eternity with Him. We all deserve hell, but only those who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior escape that fate.