Why Does God Send Good People to Hell?

I can’t imagine why God sends good people to hell!

From an emotional, and even logical standpoint, this makes sense. When one thinks of God, they think of who He is and what He embodies. God is goodness. God is love. God is kindness. You get the point. But to truly understand this concept, you have to know God’s nature. There is more to God than just sweet whispers in your ear during a crisis. God is also jealous (Exodus 25:5 & 34:14), vengeful (Romans 12:19), and a God of wrath (Deuteronomy 32:35).

We have all heard this phrase spoken. We’ve heard it said primarily in reference to people that live lives believing that there are certain sins God didn’t mean to put in there. He meant to say that “those” sins are actually ok. That the writers of the Bible just made a mistake. We’ve heard it said in reference to those that don’t really know what they believe, or if they believe in God at all but live a good, decent life. So that brings the question, would God send perfectly good people to hell? To answer this question and address that phrase above, you have to look at two things: what does “good people” mean, and does God send people to hell? We’ll start with the latter.

Imagine you’re on a train and this train is headed for a brick wall. You are certainly headed for death- no doubt. You didn’t do anything to really cause this. You’re just on the train. And you really can’t do anything to stop it. It’s going too fast to try to do anything about it. Suddenly, someone comes along and says, “I have a way out. It’s not easy, but it’s the way out. You’ll avoid death and live a long fruitful life.” What’s your next move? “Nah, I’m good. I think I’ll just sit back and hope for the best.” No. You wouldn’t do that. You would jump at the opportunity to be rescued from inevitable death.

This is the life we live, summed up. We were born destined for death. We didn’t get ourselves into this, Adam did that. We can’t get ourselves out either. So God comes along and comes up with a plan; Adam got them in, so he’ll send Jesus to get them out. So there we were, on that train headed for a brick wall. Jesus comes in and says, “I’m the way out of here.” What you and I do with that information is up to us. We can either choose to follow this guy out or hit that brick wall and perish being a perfectly good person. But in the end, God never sent anyone anywhere. He made a way out, and we choose to take that way or not. Up to us.

But wait, they’re really good people! Ok. Well, let’s see what the guy that gave us a way out says. The next place we have to look is to standards. Standards are used in every facet of life in the entire universe. Standards tell us true value. If I say that a pizza is good, that’s one standard, my standard. I love pizza. I feel like I know a good pizza when I taste one. But then again, I like frozen pizza. But if an owner of an authentic Italian pizzeria in Chicago says a pizza is good, well that’s a different standard. Now that pizza just raised in value. It’s now worth more that he said it was good than when I said it was good. Unfortunately, our standards vary as well as ebb and flow. They are not steady. Sometimes they are raised and sometimes they are lowered, based on our current circumstances. God’s standards never change. If there’s one thing I learned in my boring philosophy of religion class, it’s that if God could change, we would be doomed. The fact that He cannot and will not change gives us a steady standard by which to live and a hope that we serve a truly just and almighty God.

So what are His standards? Isaiah 64:6 says that our righteousness, our best, is still like filthy rags, meaning that our best is still not worthy of God’s presence. Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Basically, summed up, we can be as good as we can possibly be, like Billy Graham and Mother Teresa good, and will still not be worthy of God and being in His presence. So there has to be another way. Yep. Jesus. Being good does not qualify you for heaven. You don’t get holy brownie points.

But there’s good news, you didn’t get yourself in this mess so you can’t get yourself out. Yep. Jesus. Seeing a pattern yet? When Jesus said He was the only way, He really meant it. Goodness isn’t another way. Jesus is the ONLY way. He’s the only way off of that train. Our goodness still has us buckled into the seats on the train. If you believe your goodness outweighs your sin, or that what God calls sin really isn’t a sin, and you don’t believe you’re doing anything wrong, you’re in a very dangerous place. You’ve been blind-sided by deception. But there’s hope.

So what do we do when we wrestle with the truth of God’s word? When we really don’t like God’s laws? I’ll leave you with this tough truth. I once had a rule in my house that one of my bonus sons didn’t want to adhere to. I basically told him he had two choices, adhere or leave. He said he would follow the rule but made sure he told me what he thought about it. My wife says, “What are we going to do about this?” I said, “Nothing. That’s a win! I don’t need him to like the rule, I just need him to obey it. Out of his obedience, I can reward him and bless him.” See, blessings always flow from obedience. The sins that God has defined as such in the Bible are there for our protection. But the hard truth is, God doesn’t need us to like them, he just needs us to obey them.

It’s much like when I was going to church growing up. There were many, many times that I didn’t want to go. My parents never asked me if I wanted to go. They didn’t care if I wanted to go. They KNEW that if I would just obey, blessings would flow. They knew this, even when I didn’t. And eventually, once I was “grown”, I ended up seeing the benefit of church and began attending on my own. I would’ve never gotten to that place if I hadn’t obeyed them and God.

The qualification? Believe Jesus is who He says He is. Follow Him. Turn away from sin daily. The man on the cross next to Jesus basically asked Jesus to just remember him and maybe let him join. That was about it. No baptism. No special worded prayer. No song with a 14-minute bridge to catch your emotions. Just “Hey Mister, I believe you are who you say you are, can I go too?” And Jesus said yes.

So, does God send good people to hell? Nope. We were already headed there. He gave us a way out. We choose what to do with that. But if we want to be right with God, it starts with recognizing our shortcomings. Without that, we’re still really good people sitting on that train.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger