Rushwavefrom The Judgment God Desires to Withhold
© 2022 Bert Davidson
Chapter 11: How a Loving God can Condemn People
Questioning how God can justly condemn all men reveals our blindness to both man and God’s nature.
People generally have no problem with a loving God sending really bad, evil people to hell. For example, take a war criminal or serial killer who was not only guilty of unspeakable acts of cruelty, but also showed no remorse and actually bragged about his heinous crimes. When people are asked what God should do with such sinners, the answer is “Well, if there is a God, He should send them to hell!” In fact, the same people who object to a loving God condemning people tend to deem God unjust if He did not send such wicked people to hell!
When people ask “How could a loving God send someone to hell,” what they are really asking is “How could a loving God send decent, good people to hell who have never committed heinous acts?” Their question has several underlying assumptions, namely 1) there is a category of offenses and character traits that warrant being condemned to hell and 2) they themselves along with most people do not fall into that category. So the objection is not really about a loving God sending people to hell, but rather His sending people to hell for seemingly petty offenses.
We tend to compare ourselves to others, and in doing so we can look righteous. After all, if the comparison is between a vicious war criminal and we ourselves, then indeed we will look pretty good. But it will be seen this is a false comparison and faulty reasoning. The truth is all men are more unjust and unrighteous before God than the most cruel, wicked person is before us.
Understanding how a loving God can justly condemn all men to hell requires a radical realignment of what constitutes good and evil. Instead of asking “How could a loving God condemn people to hell,” the question should be “Why do we see ourselves as good, upright people when we are not? What are the dynamics of deception that causes us to be so seriously deceived about our moral condition?”
The importance of answering these questions must not be minimized. As long as we believe we are essentially good people and perceive God is unjust to condemn us to hell, we will never grasp His love. The message of John 3:16 is God’s love for the world was manifested by a step He took to save us from judgment. Understanding God’s love is predicated on this fact.
God verdict that all are unrighteous and deserving of the sentence to perish in hell is grounded in His meting what is justly deserved sinners. The question is therefore not how a loving God can condemn good, innocent people, but rather why we fallen humans are so blind to the wickedness of our deeds.
from The Judgment God Desires to Withhold
© 2022 Bert Davidson
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