Hell Is a Human Choice

Maybe you’ve been asked this question—or have asked it yourself: “How can a God of love send someone to Hell?” Let me respond by quoting J. I. Packer, who wrote, “Scripture sees hell as self-chosen. . . . Hell appears as God’s gesture of respect for human choice.”

C.S. Lewis summed it up this way: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”

And Timothy Keller noted, “In short, hell is simply one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity.”

If someone ends up in Hell, it breaks the heart of God. They rejected God’s solution, and they charted their own course.

General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, said that if he had his way he would, as part his training for evangelism, take his trainees and dangle them over Hell so they would be able to comprehend what awaits those who don’t know the Lord.

I want to do everything I can to warn everyone I know so they won’t end up in that horrible place. I’m not suggesting we should call every unbeliever we know and say, “You’re going to Hell!” The Bible says, “The goodness of God leads [us] to repentance” (Romans 2:4 NKJV).

Tell them about what Christ has done for you. Tell them about the hope of Heaven. Tell them about the forgiveness of sin. And tell them what the repercussions are if they don’t believe. Don’t leave that out. Don’t dilute it. We have the hope of Heaven, but we don’t want anyone to go to Hell.