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Does a loving God send people to Hell?
In his most famous sermon, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), Massachusetts Congregational minister, and contemporary of George Whitefield, during the days of the Great Awakening, declared these words to an Enfield Connecticut congregation in the year 1741, "...thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell;

God's Justice and Man's Destiny

An angry God

In his most famous sermon, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), Massachusetts Congregational minister, and contemporary of George Whitefield, during the days of the Great Awakening, declared these words to an Enfield Connecticut congregation in the year 1741, "...thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God." [1]

Although Edwards is careful to point out that the objects of God's attention are well deserved of the fate that awaits them, certainly the above paints a frightening portrait of a God of wrath and anger. This God, "dreadfully provoked" and "incensed" dangles the helpless unrepentant soul over a gaping pit whereupon if loosed from his grasp, they are flung headlong into the awaiting flames. These flames that "flash about them" long to "swallow them up" never ceasing to torment the hapless, wretched sinner day and night forever. Didn't their creator extend to them opportunity after opportunity? God then, at the sinner's defiance, has no recourse but to condemn them to a prison of their own choosing, from which there is no escape. What a destiny is reserved for those who have stubbornly refused to leave their life of iniquity for the joy of restored relationship with a God of mercy.

However, could a God of mercy also be vindictive, malicious, spiteful, and cruel? Is he to be found as the gods of the pagan populace seen in the Old Testament depictions? Should we know him as capricious and unpredictable, responding to his helpless worshipers according to unrestrained passions, fits of anger, and divine fiat. If Edward's portrayal is accurate this would seem to be the case, or would it? How are we to reconcile a god of whim and fancy over against the picture of a God who is love; doesn't this in itself scream incongruity? Just look at the antithetical relationships; love/hate, mercy-forgiveness/wrath-anger; none of it seems to line up (at least for rational creatures such as ourselves)!

Yet, on the contrary, unquestionably a God who is just and righteous (this being the foundation of his authority, Ps. 89:14; cf. 97:2), must also be a God that punishes disobedience, insubordination, and sin. Doesn't King David, the warrior-worshipper of Israel, and the apple of God's eye, himself state in Psalm 21, verses 8-9, "Your hand will lay hold on all your enemies; your right hand will seize your foes. At the time of your appearing you will make them like a fiery furnace. In his wrath the LORD will swallow them up, and his fire will consume them (NIV)." "They deserve to be cast into hell;" Edwards rightfully (or spitefully, depending on one's position) declared, "...so that divine justice never stands in the way, it makes no objection against God's using his power at any moment to destroy them." Then the puritan parson continues, "Yea on the contrary justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins."

This classical interpretation of God's "just wrath" is no longer palatable to the western mind. "God", it is said, "seeks to lavish his love upon us." "He is not angry but longs for our fellowship," and "woos us" gently into his awaiting embrace. Certainly he cannot be understood as some sadistic monster that is eager to turn us wholesale over to torturers, but must be represented as a loving father that puts no unrealistic demands on the lives of his children; any "true" father will overlook our "inconsistencies" in the light of our humanness, as dictated by his mercy. Corporeal punishment cannot ever again be found in vogue in a civilized society; we have come much too far, being now refined and enlightened. Furthermore, the god of such a tolerant people as us must fit our advanced socio-political position and agenda. We have groups to please and artificially-synthetic unity to obtain. We no longer have the time or the forbearance for such a ruthless deity; one that would demand accountability at all costs.