“I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity” (Isa. 13:11a).
A common question posed by unbelievers in their critique of Christianity is, “How can a good and loving God allow bad things to happen to good people?” Or they might state, “I can’t believe in a God that would send anyone to hell.” Such irrational musings stem from presuppositions that create a skewed concept of God. In the minds of unbelievers, God is all-loving and never condemning. He is motivated solely by our comfort, without any consideration of His own values and principles. Such a warped understanding of God misses a very important dimension: God’s holiness.
It is impossible to understand justice without having a right conception of God’s holiness. Herman Bavinck wrote, “God’s holiness is the principle of punishment and chastisement: when Israel breaks the covenant, desecrates God’s name, and transgresses His laws, it is God’s holiness which causes Him to mete out punishment. His holiness demands that Israel be holy.… The same holiness which is a principle of redemption and object of praise is for the transgressors a principle of destruction and object of fear.” If God were not a holy God, sinners would have nothing to fear because there would be no standard of perfection of which man would fall short. There would be no righteous requirements and no laws to break. If there is no standard, no law, then there can be no sin, and hence there can be no punishment.
Such a God, however, is a figment of man’s fallen imagination. God is holy. If He weren’t, He could not be God. Remember, holiness signifies everything about God that sets Him apart from creation. It encompasses every dimension of His transcendence, majesty, and moral perfection. Because this is who God is, He cannot tolerate sin, which is darkness where there should be light, and corruption in place of perfection. God is “light,” and in Him there is no darkness.
Justice is an expression of God’s holiness. To be just is to do the right thing in accordance with God’s holiness. If God did nothing about sin, then there would be no justice and His holiness would be meaningless. But because God is holy, because He is just, He deals with sin by condemning sinners. So when a person asks “How can a good God send people to hell?” our response is “because God is holy.”
Have you ever wondered how a good and loving God could send someone to hell? Do you struggle with accounts of destruction and punishment in the Bible? If so, spend some time reading through the passages below. Why is it right and necessary for a just and holy God to punish evildoers?
