Your Big Question

 

Tim Keller in his book The Reasons for God says that this is the kind of question that carries a lot of assumptions and smuggles in a whole range of other questions…..

Are you ready for the minefield???  Here’s a quick overview:

 

There are possibly two reasons to assume why people would ask this question:

1)      for personal reasons

2)      for philosophical reasons

 

And there are three main truths addressed within the question:

1)      The character of God

2)      The existence of a moral code

3)      The problem of sin and the condition of man

 

First, determine the motive for asking.  There are two groups of people who ask this kind of question. 

 

The personal argument is made by sincere, distressed people who have pondered this because of the “good people” that they know who have died…or are ageing.  They usually set up a scale of “goodness” ranging from Hitler on the “baddy” side to Mother Theresa on the saint end of the scale.  Usually, their loved one is a good person, has done good deeds and “never hurt anyone”.  They are sincerely distraught. 

 

The philosophical argument is made by judgement-angry people who don’t want any outside force or being to impose a moral code on him, or to presume to judge him. 

They argue that man creates his own set of rules. 

Or that right and wrong are relative. 

They might even dig up some anthropological practices of a tribe somewhere who accept cutting off fingers as a ritual that confers blessing.  Or something like that. 

Their bottom line is that they want to determine their own strategy for getting through life without the vague sense of guilt created by your religion. 

 

So, addressing the question from one angle is going to be VERY different from the other.  But the three main truths addressed are the same.  The character of God, the existence of an objective moral law, and the fallen condition of man.  We will just look at the first and last for the sake of time.  Most thinking people do believe in an absolute moral code.  

 

Here’s a restatement of the question If God is forgiving, why doesn’t he just forgive everyone and not send anyone to hell?  Or, if God is loving, why does he create people that are going to refuse him if he knows they will end up in hell?

 

First, I think people innately need to know that there’s someone in charge who will arbitrate for you when you’ve been wronged.  Someone who will make things right based on objective and good laws.  Kids WANT their teacher to make the bully stop.

 

But the question challenges the character of God, the one who made the law.  What people don’t want to confront is the REAL nature of God…. misconceptions run from the Santa Clause image all the way to the vindictive parking warden, just waiting for your meter to run out to slap you with a fine. 

However….

 

1)      God is holy and cannot permit unholiness and sin in his presence.

2)      God is a righteous judge, the supreme source and standard of morality, of right and wrong.  He is, by nature, bound to punish unholiness and unrighteousness. 

Rebecca Pippert says: “God’s wrath is NOT just a cranky explosion, but the settled opposition to the cancer of sin.” 

3)      God is LOVE, he does not want anyone to die without relationship with Him.  He IS love by nature and wants to forgive us and restore us.  Hell is, simply stated, the absence of God for all eternity. God had to provide a way to restore that relationship that would satisfy both his justice AND his love and mercy. 

 

This leads to à

 

The condition of man.  People don’t want to confront their own sin, their inability to save themselves. 

Nor do they want to assent to a supreme lawgiver OR a supreme law.

 

But every person has sinned and missed the mark of perfection that the law requires.  That means that the universal condition of man is fallen and deserving of judgement. 

 

Once they recognize God as holy, and righteous judge, ALONG with the logic of hell – the need for a place to send lawbreakers -  they can grasp the IMMENSITY of God’s love. 

 

God’s love and the truth of Hell are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, God’s love took his own son to the hell of the cross for our sake.  Jesus flawlessly obeyed God’s moral law, making him uniquely qualified to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sin.  He accepted the cross – in love – to save those who were perishing and bound for hell.   It is a costly, bloody love that has no parallel in other world religions. 

 

The same God who can dispatch unrepentant sinners to hell, loves us so very much. 

 
CSLewis said “there are really only two types of people: those who say “thy will be done” to God, or those to whom God – in the end – will say “thy will be done.”

 

Posted by Carol Kinne