Cyber-Discipleship

I was listening to a radio broadcast some time ago and I heard a person ask the host a question: Is God unfair in making people spend an eternity paying for sins committed in a finite existence? As I thought about this, I thought about the folly of the question (not the questioner). [He was actually asking a question that was posed to him.] My answer to that question would be this:

First, let’s set aside the fact that eternity has no timetable or measurement as we know it. Suppose you live 100 years and you sinned all of those 100 years then you die? Should you just spend 100 in torment? 200 years? 100 years for each sin? Then when you were released, where would you go? Since outside of Hell (or the Lake of Fire) is the Kingdom of God, that sinful person would then be released into a real hell. He or she would be forced to live an existence they resisted their whole life: living in an eternal worship service!

Secondly, the person who was released from torment would be released with the same spiritual deadness and rebellious nature that they entered Hell with. So when they come out, they would not be more God-honoring but likely more God-hating because of the eons of torment they had to endure. Setting aside the fact that God cannot be in the presence of sin, and that a sinful person cannot abide in His presence, would they then have a desire to worship God? They would more likely decide to go hang by the Crystal Sea than to abide in the presence of God.

Third, the original questioners premise was wrong. Hell was not created for man. Hell was created for the devil and his angels who rebelled against God. When we joined in their rebellion, we earned the right to join in their punishment. Since both angels and people are eternal in nature, the rebellious ones will spend eternity apart from the God who loved and created them.

Romans 9 asks the question, “Is their unrighteousness with God?” Paul answers, “Certainly not!” God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and compassion on whom He will have compassion. What that says to us is that God is not unfair in causing us to pay eternally for sins committed in this life but that God is gracious in giving us any way out of the punishment for the sins we have committed in this life. Instead of trying to find injustice in God toward us, we should be thankful to the justice He meted out to His Son on our behalf so that we would not have to spend an eternity separated from Him, which is the real torment.