How Can a Loving and Merciful God Send People to Hell?

3/10/2025

“If God is gracious, loving, and merciful, how could he possibly send people to hell?”

“If God is love, there’s no way that He could send people to hell.”

“I refuse to believe in a God who causes people to suffer eternal torment”

“The God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament and he used to be a God of judgement, but in the New Testament we only see His love!”

People are surprised to learn that the person who spoke most extensively and specifically about hell more than any other person in the entire Bible is none other than Jesus Himself. Jesus described hell in vivid detail several times to different audiences during his earthly ministry.

He described hell, in Matthew 25:41, as a cursed place of “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (yes Satan himself and his angels aka demons will also suffer in hell). Hell will be a dark place where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30), a place of eternal torment (Luke 16:23), where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:48), designed for “all cause of sin and all law-breakers” (Matthew 13:41), a place of eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46), a place where God’s wrath is unleashed (John 3:36), a “hell of fire” (Matthew 5:22), where a “great chasm has been fixed” (Luke 16:26) to prevent those in heaven to never be able to cross into hell and those in hell to never be able to cross to heaven, and that we should Fear God who could “destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

Eternal, conscious, painful, fire, judgement and punishment, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the fire is never quenched, the place of God’s wrath, and where there are no second chances. These are the vivid descriptions that Jesus Himself uses to describe hell.

You can’t claim to be a Christian in good conscience unless you believe in this essential teaching about hell that is plastered all over the Bible. Today there are many denominations and pastors that would deny hell altogether claiming that a loving God would not possibly send people to hell and that God’s merciful and gracious nature is opposed to it. To replace hell, some have begun to teach annihilationism (the belief that after death those who have continued to rebel against God are simply annihilated/destroyed into nothingness which is totally unfounded) or have heretically begun to teach universalism (that Christ simply saves everybody in the end, which is completely unbiblical altogether).

So how do Christians deal with this uncomfortable issue of hell contrasted with the nature of God’s goodness, kindness, grace, and mercy?

I will argue three main things in this post:

1. Hell is justice

2. All deserve hell

3. God is a merciful and gracious God that allows us the opportunity to be saved from hell through Jesus Christ

1. Hell is justice. As an American, I have a profoundly strong conviction that justice ought to be served. I remember leaving my garage door open and forgetting to close it once a few years ago. When I went down to the garage a few hours later, I discovered that a thief had rummaged through all my belongings in my garage and even opened my my car looking for things to steal and ended up stealing two pricey bicycles that belonged to me and my wife that I purchased with my hard earned money. Even though its been over 7 years ago now, I still remember how I felt in that exact moment. It felt like somebody had entered into a safe and sacred space and desecrated a piece of my soul. I felt angry, I felt rage, I felt hurt, I felt my trust in my neighbors and community was utterly annihilated, and I distinctly remember getting on my knees and praying to God that this horrible person might be found and that justice may be done to him (God might break his legs), and that he would be put in jail for his crimes against my humanity. I remember ferociously scouring Craigslist for a few days to see if the thief had put my bikes up for sale so that I could hunt them down like Liam Neeson hunted down his daughter’s kidnappers in the movie Taken. Unfortunately, I gave up the search after several days and had to say goodbye to those bikes forever. I wanted justice. I wanted this evil man, woman, or child to be held accountable for their evil. I wanted things to be made right.

You and I believe in justice. You and I believe that we should have a functioning justice system that quickly executes justice. God is a God of justice. And He is a just judge. In our justice system, we believe that when criminals commit crimes, they should be punished for their crimes. That they ought to pay for their sins. If a murderer murdered your family and those you loved and was found guilty on all counts by the judge, you would expect the judge to execute quick justice. They should be in prison for life or be executed. And if somebody is a repeat offender, their punishment should even be more severe. Judges base their judgements on criminals based on the severity of the crime. Jesus exclaims that sin against God is so severe that “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell” (Matthew 5:29-30). Tearing out our own eyeballs and chopping off our hands are the appropriate response to rebelling against God according to Jesus. If God is a just God, who will by no means clear the guilty, (Exodus 34:7) He must punish people for their evil. Hell is God’s wrath and justice being poured out on those who have committed great evil.

Lady Justice

2. All deserve hell. Most people do not think that they are bad people. Most people think there are others out there that are worse than them and therefore God couldn’t possibly judge them and send them to hell. There are two ways to commit evil: 1. You can do what God tells you not to do (do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not lie, do not steal, do not covet, do not take the Lord’s name in vain, have no idols, etc.) or you can 2. Fail to do what God tells you to do (Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself, serve God, worship God, obey God, etc.) You and I commit evil in both ways.

Lied before? ✅ Stolen something? ✅ Coveted your neighbor’s stuff? ✅ Taken the Lord’s name in vain? ✅ Worshiped something as more important than God Himself such as money, family, relationships, career, food, comfort, friends, material wealth? ✅ Committed adultery? Not physically, but according to Jesus all who look at a man/woman with lustful intent in their heart commits adultery of the heart (Matthew 5:27-28) ✅ Committed murder? Not physically, but according to Jesus anybody who is angry with a brother/sister or insults his brother or says “you fool” will be liable to the hell of fire and essentially commit murder of the heart (Matthew 5:21-22) ✅

What does that make us? Thieving, covetous, sacrilegious, idolaters, lustful adulterers, and murderers. How many times have we done these things that God tells us not to do going back to the day we were born? I don’t know about you but I lost count. And that’s just the half of it. These are simply all the ways we do what God tells us not to do. What about failing to do the things God does tell us to do?

Love God? Fail. Love others? Fail. Serve God? Fail. Worship God? Fail. Obey God? Fail.

Get this: sin isn’t just what we do, but it’s also what we think and what we feel as well. We sin with our minds (evil thoughts), we sin with our hearts (evil feelings), and we sin with our deeds (actions). How many evil thoughts and feelings can you count even in just one day of being alive? Romans 3:10-12 says, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Jesus spoke of the human heart in Mark 7:21-23 and said, “21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

What should a good, just God do with repeat offenders and career criminals who do great evil against God and against our fellow man? God’s wrath and justice should be swiftly executed. That’s hell. That’s the wrath of God. That’s justice. And all of us deserve it.

3. God is a merciful and gracious God that allows us the opportunity to be saved from hell through Jesus Christ. If God damned the entire world to hell, to suffer his wrath and justice for our sins against Him, that would be perfect justice. Evil people deserve to be punished. We are evil. It’s undeniable. It’s in our nature. Early on in Genesis 6:5, the “Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” That’s all of us without exception.

Yet God did not leave us to rot and be condemned in our own pitiful state, but He sent Jesus to live a perfect life, die in our place as our substitute (taking the wrath of God for our evil), and resurrected so that we too can have new life in Him. That’s the good news. That’s the Gospel. That’s why Christians worship Jesus Christ, the Son of God. All who turn from their evil, confess and repent of their sin, and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ will be saved from damnation and judgement, and enter into eternal life with God in heaven instead. 2 Peter 3:9 states, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” God is gracious, and merciful, and loving. He did not leave us to die in our own sin and go to judgement, but He sent Jesus to save us from our evil. You and I have the opportunity right now to turn away from evil and receive the forgiveness of sins, eternal life with God, and a new life through Jesus Christ. How will you respond to Jesus?

Yes the thought and doctrine of hell is terrible and scary. I think that’s the point, I think God wants to scare the hell out of us. God wants us to avoid it. At the same time, the doctrine of hell reassures us that one day every wrongdoing by every evil doer on this earth will be judged and accounted for. We can either pay for our crimes ourselves, or Jesus can pay it for us. Indeed Jesus came for unrighteous people like you and I because it’s not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. (Mark 2:17) Will you come to Jesus or will you continue to reject God’s hand and offer of mercy, grace, and love?