Questions:

Why would God even create a hell? Why will souls live eternally in damnation?  If they don’t make it into heaven, their soul is destroyed.  Also, I was reading on your site about Jesus and examples you give for believing He is the Messiah. One is His fulfillment of prophecy. One of the prophecies fulfilled is ” He will be silent before His accusers”. When Jesus was brought to the San Hedron , He did speak, He said” I Am”. Is this considered speaking before His accusers?

Answers:

God has a number of traits. Every quality he has he has intensely. God is love, God is omnipotent.  God is omnipresent.  We like these things.  But God is also holy and he is just.  His holiness and his justice demand that we be without sin.  The wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23).  None is righteous, not even one (Romans 3:9-20).  God wants a relationship with us.  He offers this to us, either through our obeying him completely (unfortunately, none of us do that) or through forgiveness of sin offered to us through faith in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice.  If we reject his love and if we refuse to honor him–if we rebel and commit atrocious acts, then we will not have an intimate relationship with him and we will be separated from him for eternity.  This is why there is hell.  The nature of God requires holiness and justice.   We like God’s love and his mercy and his grace, but we are not so excited about his justice, but his justice is as real as his other qualities.  That is why hell exists. God does not want anyone to go to hell, but he accepts our decision to go there according to our actions.

About the trial, When given an opportunity to defend himself against false charges, Jesus did not defend himself. The statement that he will be silent before his accusers applies to his response, specifically, to his accusers at his trial.  The accounts we have do include Jesus speaking to Pilate and speaking in the court, but only to give a yes or no answer to a direct question. However, he did not respond to the charges and he did not offer a personal defense against the false accusations. In that sense he was “silent before his accusers.”  He responded to direct questions, but was silent when given an opportunity to defend himself with regard to the charges against him.  The prophecy in Isaiah 53 is fulfilled to the letter by Jesus in his trials.

John Oakes