Have you read Revelation? Some of the things in it—pain, heartache, punishment for non-Christians—can make it seem like an intimidating book.
When I set out to read Revelation, I was excited in spite of the content I knew it contained. I didn't dare to start the book without a commentary—I was afraid it would be confusing. But it was clearer than I expected.
One of the things Revelation is most clear about is the penalty for our sin. Punishment awaits those who don’t know Jesus. These people have sinned, like the rest of humanity, but haven’t had the price paid for their sin.
Punishment will come upon them that Christians deserve, too, but are exempt from because of Jesus’ blood. Punishments that seem horrible, but because they are from God, must be just.
Christians are guaranteed to suffer for Jesus’ name’s sake, but non-Christians will suffer more in the end. Non-believers will suffer punishment for eternity.
Revelation details how God’s wrath will come upon the world through woes, plagues, and more. It also shows what will happen at the end of this world. Anyone whose name isn’t in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur along with Satan.
It saddens me that people I love are destined to that fate if they continue in their ways. People I love will be thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur. They will spend eternity in Hell.
A God who would sentence people to that doesn’t seem very loving. Rather, He seems wrathful.
As I thought over this—”How can a loving God sentence people to Hell?”—I realized that the God loves the people who are headed to Hell. 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
In Matthew 5:44, Jesus says, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Those who don’t have faith in Jesus are enemies of God, because they actively rebel against Him. God isn’t a hypocrite, so if He instructed us to love our enemies, He must love His enemies, too.
So if God loves unbelievers in spite of their rebellion, wouldn’t it make sense that it breaks God’s heart to sentence people He loves and made in His image to Hell?
God punishing unbelievers cannot be an unloving act, since God is love. Christians are made holy by the righteousness of Jesus. Those who don’t have faith in Jesus are not. They are unholy and cannot be in God’s presence, so they have to spend eternity apart from God.
The people headed to eternal punishment brought that fate upon themselves. God gives everyone a chance to repent and believe in Jesus, and those people chose not to. Even in the last days, when God’s wrath was poured out on the Earth, unbelievers will not repent.
“The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and woods, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thiefs” (Revelation 9:20-21).
I think that by punishing those who have hard hearts and don’t want to have a relationship with Christ, God is creating a perfect world for His chosen people. A world where everyone loves Him. A world that sin will not enter; a world that glorifies God and God only.
So God is loving. So loving that He sent His Son to die so that anyone who believes in Him won’t have to face the fate they deserve. The fact that He punishes people for their sin makes Him just, not unfair. He is not going against His loving nature when He punishes those who do wrong, because those people are unfit to spend eternity with Him.
Christians would be unfit, too. If it weren't for Jesus.