by Michael Davis

Created on: June 27, 2008

This is truly the wrong question to ask. As usual we approach thinking about God in a self centered way. "Why, God, do I deserve to be punished?" Instead we ought to raise our level of awareness to the depth of reality; which is: God is righteous. When we think in this way about God, the issues become clearer. That is not to say that we will like the conclusions, but that they do begin to make sense.

If you will accept the statement, "God is righteous," as a premise, then I can show you by this thinking: (1) that God must send people to hell, (2) God is loving, and (3) hell is not what we should be worried about.

In order to really understand what it is at issue, we need to decipher this statement: God is righteous. First, when I say "God" I am personally talking about the triune God of the Bible. Second, when I use the word "righteous" I really mean that righteousness as we know it is simply a reflection of who God is and what He is all about. God holds the moral high ground and as such is righteous and without sin. Note: He is without sin. As a consequence He cannot sin. That is to say God cannot contradict Himself. Furthermore He cannot allow sin to enter His presence (or glory; truly God is everywhere and sin is too so that makes me a liar. No, for the sake of simplicity I will use the word "presence" what I really mean is "glory."). We know this concept anecdotally as, "I'll burst into flames if I go into church!" and/or as a phrase, "No man can see God and live." Thus it is clear to see that God must send people to hell because God is righteous and cannot allow sin in his presence.

If God is righteous and is the standard of righteousness, then we who are mere mortals are bound to His Law-Word. Let me ask you a question; have you ever sinned? Let me be more specific; have you ever lied? cheated? stolen anything? Perhaps you have had anger without merit towards another (even if you think you were justified, your thinking was clouded by emotion so how can you be sure?). Maybe you have lusted after someone. If you have done any of these you have broken God's Law-Word. God calls this sin. In light of the previous paragraph you can only conclude that all men must be headed for hell. Who can say that they have not sinned? If you can show me someone like that then you may have found a liar. So God destroys all of humanity in a vengeful spirit, end of story. No. He sends His Son to take the punishment for sin and makes a way to seek and find Him in this dark and

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