If god is love why did he create hell?  Again, if God is loving why does he send people to hell just for the reason for not believing in him? There are good and moral people who do great deeds but just because they are unbelievers how can a loving God send them to hell?

God is love, but God is also holy and he is just.  His justice demands recompense for evil that is done. God’s justice says, “The wages of sin are death” (separation from God in hell).  By the way, we do not go to hell because of unbelief.  We go to hell because of rebellion and because of the evil we have done.  Would we ask God to be unholy–to tolerate sin?  Would we ask God to not be a just God?  God’s justice is as intense as his love.  Hell is not about love, but it is about justice for rebellion and evil.  This is the nature of the God whom we have to do with.  You say that some people are moral and do great deeds.  OK, but I will allow God to determine what is moral and what is great.  In Romans we are told that “all sin and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23) and “There is no on righteous, not even one.”  Speaking for myself, I know that I am not a righteous person.  I am not a moral person.  I have sinned and I have done evil.  I do not plan on standing before God on judgment day and claiming to have done “great deeds.”  No, I intend to throw myself on God’s mercy.

God is love is not why there is hell.  God is live is why we have an opportunity to avoid hell and to be with God for eternity.  For, although “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” because of his love, we can, by faith, be “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”  If we are saved, it is because of Jesus’ love.  It is not unbelief that condemns. As I said above, it is not lack of belief that causes us to go to hell, but it is our faith that saves us (through the blood of Jesus, of course).  If we are lost, it is because of God’s justice and our sin.  There is no contradiction between the love of God and the fact that rebellious sinners will be separated from God.

John Oakes