Is God unjust if He sends someone to hell? Why or Why not?

Question

Do you understand that if we break God's law one time we deserve death in Gods eyes? Do you see that everyone deserves death and to go to hell? Can you see that hell is a sentence for our sin against God. The only way we do not have to go to hell and pay our own sentence, for breaking the law, is if our sentence is paid for by another. Jesus took our sentence if we choose to take the free gift of God.

If God did not spare His only begotten Son from His wrath, do you think you will be safe on your own?

Answer 1

God would be unjust if he let the wicked into heaven, therefore hell is just. If you reject God, then you chose to spend eternity in hell.

Answer 2

God is too just to not follow through with His promise that the wage of sin is death - but He loves us too much to spend eternity without us so He paid the price for us... amazing love

Answer 3

The idea of hell is ridiculous... If hell was real, god would definitely be unjust.

Answer 4

yes. "Justice" is the concept that we get our "just desserts" for our actions, whether for good or for bad. God is the one who created the principle of justice. It would not, therefore, be "just" of Him to not follow through by making sure that he carries this principle out for each person.

Answer 5

Jesus is 100% just.

Answer 6

All throughout the world of professing Christianity, every Sunday morning preachers will scare the daylights or worse out of their parishioners with the threats of an ever-burning Hell fire that awaits unrepentant sinners.


Little children in Sunday school will hear what happens to bad boys and girls when the devil gets them in Hell.

We have all kinds of jokes about Hell, the devil and his demons. Some people invite others to go there.

Former President Harry S. Truman when asked why he gives people hell, said, “I don’t give ‘em hell, I tell ‘em the truth and they think its hell.”

There are all kinds of concepts of HELL. There’s no doubt about it, the idea, concept and doctrine of Hell is mighty effective.


Heaven, on the other hand, is a nebulous concept. Preachers talk of angels, harps, beatific visions, streets of gold, milk and honey and cloud nine. All of this seems tame, almost boring compared to say, thick steaks, vacations on the French Riviera, sports cars, jet planes and rock music.

On the other hand, the idea of HELL FIRE conjures up a frightful image. The idea of burning in a fire that never ceases’ burning is horrific beyond imagination. In my city of Southgate, Kentucky back in 1977, the posh super club, The Beverly Hills, where entertainer John Davidson was performing, caught fire and nearly 300 perished in that blaze. To this day the fire fighters, survivors, and rescue workers have nightmares from that fateful night nearly thirty years ago. So we clearly can see what a gifted speaker can do with the impending torture of eternal burning in the flames of hell fire to get our attention.

With such an important subject as hell, it is vital we understand what the Bible says about it, and more importantly what it doesn’t say, but merely comes from human thought and invention.

The common concept is that Hell is somewhere down below; and it is a place of torture and torment run by Satan and his demons. Dante depicted it as a place with bodies writhing in constant pain, on fire, but never burning up while Satan and his demons race around in boundless joy with pitchforks jabbing the hapless victims.


Roman catholic theologians have subdivided Hell into four compartments:

1. Hell itself: the final place of damnation.
2. Limbus Parvulorum: a place for the unbaptized who are stained with original sin and must undergo some sort of punishment.
3. Limbus Patrum: holding pen for those who died before Christ.
4. Purgatory: for the just, stained with venial or minor sins, owing debts of punishment before being allowed into heaven.

All of these sound rather impressive, except they are nowhere to be found in all of sacred scripture.


Jesus said, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

The Bereans searched the scriptures daily whether these things are so. Paul told the Thessalonians to prove all things and to hold fast to that which is good.

If the popular doctrines of Hell, Limbo, Purgatory and the like are true as taught in the churches, they should be able to stand the test of the Bereans, the Thessalonians and us. Let’s see.

The King James translators have rendered the Hebrew word Sheol, and the Greek words Hades, Gehenna (or Geena) and Tartaroo as Hell. Is this really intellectual honesty? No, it is not! [Note: It is the same selective interpreting that is used with the words Nephesh and Psuche to establish the doctrine of the immortal soul. Another interesting study for another time].

Let’s take a brief look at the meaning of the words translated Hell:

Sheol: world of the dead, the grave, the pit, hell.
Hades: place of departed souls: i.e. the grave.
(Strong’s Concordance, 7585, 86)

Neither of these words have the slightest notion or connotation of a place of punishing or punishment. Sheol appears 65 times in the Old Testament. It is rendered the grave 31 times, the pit three times and hell 31 times.

A clear example is in Psalm 86:14. The word sheol is translated thusly. “For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.” However, the King James version of the same verse translates the word sheol as hell—interpreting and not translating.

Let’s go to the New Testament and see a similar application to Hades. Here we find this Word used eleven times and it is translated hell in all instances except in I Corinthians 15:55, which is the resurrection chapter. If Hades refers to a place of punishment, then how could these most uplifting scriptures of hope be recorded here as our victory over hell (the grave) through Jesus Christ? It would make no sense whatsoever. Let us read it together. “Where O death, is your victory? Where, O death (Hades), is your sting?”[NIV].The King James states, “…O grave (Hades), where is your victory?” (I Corinthians 15:55). There is no intellectual honesty whatsoever to attempt to apply the notion of Hades as a place of punishment or punishing when it and Sheol merely mean a pit, or grave. Before refrigeration, farmers stowed their potatoes in “hell” to preserve them.

However, does this mean there is no place of punishment? No it does not. There is such a place and we want no part of that.

The Greek word for that place of punishment is Gene, rendered Gehenna, which is transliterated from the Hebrew Gai Hinnom. It is a valley of Jesus’ day used figuratively as a name for the place of eternal punishment (Strong’s Concordance, 1067). Anciently this Valley of Hinnom was a place of fires where children were sacrificed to the pagan god Moloch. In Jesus’ day this valley was perpetually kept on fire for burning garbage, thus the association made with the fire of destruction of the judgment of God.

Geena or Gehenna occurs twelve times in the New Testament and is always rendered hell, and rightly so. Let us look at the example in Matthew 5:22, 29, “…But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell (gehenna)…It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell (gehenna).”

This is a horrible fate for the wicked and those that refuse to repent. But this is an eternal punishment, not eternal punishing. A merciful God will simply put the unrepentant sinner out of his or her misery as any of us would a rabid animal, not continue to let it suffer needlessly.

It is Satan’s fate to suffer eternally because spirit cannot die. That is why it is he who has perpetuated the lie of the immortality of the soul and an ever-burning hell and eternal punishment. That is his fate—not mankind’s.

The final use of the word hell is tartaroo, meaning to incarcerate in eternal torment—to cast down to hell (Strong’s Concordance, 5020). This word appears only once and it has nothing to do with fire. Spirit cannot burn and has only to do with Satan and his demons. As we said, it is Satan and his who will endure eternal punishment.

The victims of Gehenna fire are described in Malachi 4:1-3 as merely ashes left under our feet—that’s all you have left after a fire of any physical material—ashes, that’s all. The fallen angel’s fate is described in 2 Peter 2:4, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell (tartaroo), putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment.”

Satan and his demons will be tormented forever in tartaroo and the saints of God will judge them as we’re told in I Corinthians 6;3.

In review, Sheol, and Hades mean grave. Tartaroo is the place of final restraint for Satan and his demons. Gehenna is the punishment for the wicked and the end of their existence.

Is there an ever-burning Hell, No!