Does God really send people to hell?

The new movie (and earlier book) The Bridge to Terebithia offers lots of opportunities for reflecting on ultimate issues.

If you don’t believe the Bible, one girl tells another, God will send you to hell. The other girl can’t believe that. Waving an appreciative gesture at the beautiful creation around them, she says God doesn’t have time to send anyone to hell. He’s busy creating all this beauty and wonder.

The notion that God sends people to hell continues to astound me. Surely people find their way to hell through their own choices and actions.

Wherever the Bible describes God’s action, design or desire regarding salvation, it talks about how God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4, ESV)

Admittedly, all people do not come to that knowledge and find salvation. But that’s because of their choices; it wasn’t God’s idea for it to turn out that way.

The original consequence of sin was very specific. God tells Adam, “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life... By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19, ESV)

God does not say he is cursing the ground because of the man’s sin. The connection between the man’s sin and the curse is more direct, more immediate. The curse comes from the sin, not from God’s action. As the Bard might have said, "The fault lies not in our God, but in ourselves."

God’s desire is to bless us and lead us to an eternal promise. Continuing to blame God for things that are truly and properly our fault simply gets in the way of seeing his offer of salvation.