"Why would a loving God send people to hell?" Another often asked question but one that is much easier to answer. The simple answer: He doesn't. The longer and more accurate answer, however, follows:
- God didn't create hell for humans, He created it for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:41
- The choice of where we spend eternity is ours alone. Deuteronomy 30:15-20
- God is Life. 1 John 5:11
- No God = No Life. 1 John 5:12
- A non-choice is still a choice.
God created us with a the freedom of choice because forced worship isn't true worship and forced or coerced obedience isn't true obedience. God wants relationship with His creation, not mind numbing ritual. Hell is to be separated from God, if you choose to not have a relationship with Him, you only have one alternative.
Jesus said it best in John 3:16-21:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."
