On the cross, God reconciled the world to himself in Christ (2 Cor 5:19). Jesus took away the sin of the world (John 1:29). And he bore God’s wrath—his legal condemnation of sin—as the atoning sacrifice for the whole world (1 John 2:2).
In other words: on AD 33, at the cross, God forgave everyone in Christ.
But! The Bible also warns that some will experience eternal punishment away from the presence of the Lord (Matt 25:46; 2 Thess 1:9). They will be judged according to what they have done (Rom 2:6; Rev 20:12-13). And they will face God’s wrath themselves (Rom 2:5).
In other words: from the last day until eternity, some people will not benefit from that forgiveness God has already given them in Jesus.
Don’t these two claims contradict each other?
Many things God says certainly seem not to make sense to us, because he has not told us everything. But he has revealed what we need to know in order to receive his forgiveness through trust in Jesus and walk in that trust throughout our lives.
So, it is important not to speculate on what God has not revealed, because
The secret things belong to the LORD our God (Deut 29:29).
But it’s just as important to receive the words God has given to us and not change them because
the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deut 29:29).
God genuinely loves the whole world. And the place where this is revealed and seen is in Jesus’ death even for his enemies on the cross. He just didn’t die for righteous people, or even good people:
one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:7-8)
This is why Paul can write with complete authenticity that:
[God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4)
And why—even at the very moment he most explicitly warns us about the existence of hell—Jesus describes it as a place prepared for demons, not for human beings:
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matt 25:41)
Some people will be in hell forever. But the reason they are there is not because God has not forgiven them. Nor because God wants them there. Nor, in fact, because of anything in God at all.
The reason some people will be in hell forever, is because they will be judged by their own works—in unbelief refusing the justification Christ has won for them and given to them freely.
We see this in the Gospels, when people encounter Jesus and resist him face to face in this life:
you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (John 5:40)
We see this on the day of judgment, when people stand before the judgment seat on the basis of their own works, rather than Christ’s:
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. (Rev 20:12)
And we see this in Jesus’ description of the attitude of those who will be in hell forever, gnashing their teeth at God as if still trying to argue their own case before him:
throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matt 13:42)
The fact that gnashing teeth is an act of defiance and disagreement in the Bible can be seen when the Judeans do this very act to Stephen after he gives his speech of defence—immediately before they stone him to death:
Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. (Acts 7:54)
Hell is real.
But: God doesn’t want anyone to be there.
In Christ, at the cross, God genuinely gave you forgiveness, justification and life. However, all of us have a natural predisposition to disbelieve God’s goodness toward us, suspect his motives, and so resist and reject his gifts.
That’s why he gave you the church: as a place where you can receive this forgiveness, and the faith that trusts him to benefit from it. Why not come along this week:
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