Does God still love people who are in hell?

"The contrast between the obedient and disobedient, the faithful and unbelieving, in their relation to God as the righteous Judge, cannot set aside their common relation to Him as the bountiful Creator of all men, and the God of grace towards all who are sunk in guilt or misery… Sinners, to whom the Son of God was given, for whom He bore the cross, and died accursed, over whom He wept tears of pity, and towards whom there have been patient yearnings of God's infinite compassion, and of His divine long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, can surely never cease, even under the strokes of judgment, and in their depth of utter shame, to be encircled evermore by the infinite compassions of that holy and perfect Being, whose very name and nature is Love."

Mr. Pink speaks of God's wrath upon one as though it might be synonymous with God's hatred, but this "confounds hatred with judicial anger. There is no hatred in God to man assuredly. Yet God is a righteous judge, and God is angry every day, and ought to be so." But Mr. Pink asks, "Can God 'love' the one on whom His 'wrath' abides?" p. 248. Our answer to this is "yes," for God's wrath against the sinner because of his sin is not inconsistent with infinite and sovereign love. Thus Christ in the synagogue looked upon them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts. The grief was love, the anger was His righteous estimate of their sin.

We dare not intrude beyond what God has revealed, but we know Him whose judgment is His "strange work," and who would fain warn men from that judgment. Over the abode of the lost, there will rest, we may be sure, in the heart of Him who was once the "Man of sorrows," even in all His glory, no thought but that which is consistent with those tears which He shed over Jerusalem. How hopeless, then, must be that state which can call forth only divine sorrow!

"5. Once more, the last judgment is the work of God's mercy as well as of His judicial righteousness. This is plainly taught us in those striking and impressive words of the Psalmist — 'Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy; for thou renderest to every man according to his works.' In the judgment of the righteous it is easy to see and feel the truth of this whispered message of God… Can it be true, even of the souls that perish, that there is mercy in that sentence which dooms them to the lake of fire? The deep thought which Plato dimly apprehended by the light of nature, seems here to receive a direct sanction from the Spirit of God. Punishment is set before us in the light of a divine medicine for the diseases of the soul. Compared with that most awful of curses, that evil should be left to work out fully its own terrible issues in the darkness of utter banishment from the divine presence, even the justice of God, however severe, is medicinal to guilty sinners. Their doom is awful, but a world abandoned to the reign of unrestrained and triumphant wickedness would be still more awful. The abyss, a bottomless pit, boundless in its breadth and depth and insatiable in its craving, is to be destroyed and abolished by the power of the Redeemer. The revealed scene of judgment is not a sea, an ocean or abyss, but simply a lake of fire. It is mercy to the wicked to deny them the fatal power of adding sin to sin. It is mercy to keep them from the power of tormenting each other, by the free indulgence of their own sinful and hateful passions. It is mercy to force them back, even though captive and in chains, to the presence of that infinite goodness, from which their own rebellious hearts would lead them farther and farther away, till they should lose themselves deeper and deeper in delusion and darkness forever."

"the love of Christ has a length and breadth and depth and height, that passeth knowledge," its infinite depth must be manifested forever in the guilty and condemned, towards whom it may be shown in the perpetual yearnings of a deep and true compassion. This, he thinks, "may pierce through their conscience, and pervade their whole being, even amid their still abiding consciousness of deepest loss and eternal shame… The truth of God seems to give a most solemn assurance that the penal sentence shall never be reversed. The depth of a love that passeth knowledge gives an equal assurance that their doom shall not be, however terrible and mournful, one of unmitigated misery, but such that even here the glory of the divine goodness, and those tender mercies of God which are over all His works, shall be revealed for evermore."

This, he believes too, accords with God's title as Saviour of all men; and though unbelievers are not saved from judgment, the second death, and the fire that is not quenched, they will be saved from temporal death and corruption, from the curse of hopeless vanity, from the "abyss" — "will they not be saved from that utter, unmingled, hopeless misery, in which no ray of comfort or relief of any kind breaks in upon a dreary solitude of everlasting despair? Will they not be saved, in some strange and mysterious but real sense, when their irremovable sorrow finds beneath it a still lower depth of divine compassion, and the sinful creature in its most forlorn estate, and in its utter shame, encounters the amazing vision of tender, condescending and infinite love"?

Again, "scripture, you say, affirms that our God (whose?) is a Saviour full of pity towards the lost, seeking their restoration so loving that He has given for man His only-begotten Son, in. and by whom the curse shall be overcome, and all the kindreds of the earth be blessed; and yet that some shall go away into everlasting punishment, where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched. How is it possible, you ask, to reconcile all this? Are not the statements directly inconsistent?" No. There is nothing to reconcile, no opposition whatever. Suppose He has been rejected — found none to answer? "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him," John 3:36. Those in hell are not kindreds of the earth.

But there is a very solemn back-ground to the blessed entrance into the kingdom: "Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (ver. 41). Observe, He does not say, Cursed of My Father, answering to "Blessed of My Father." God hates putting away. So when the awful moment comes for the curse to be pronounced on these wicked Gentiles, it is "Depart from Me, ye cursed." I believe it is the deepest sorrow to God, and throws all the onus of destruction on those whose own sin it was, who rejected His love and holiness and glory in rejecting His Son. "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." In the other case the kingdom was said to be "prepared for you:" not so when speaking about the curse. Hell was not prepared for poor guilty man. He deserves it; but it was prepared for the devil and his angels. Where the souls rejected the testimony, he does pronounce them cursed. He is the King, the judge. But whether it be the great white throne, or this earthly throne, it is "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." There was no hope of deliverance for these fallen angels — no redemption for them. They wilfully and without a tempter departed from God. Man was tempted by an enemy; and God feels for guilty man, drawn away by a mightier, if not more guilty, rebel than himself. How solemn to think that it was prepared for others, and that men share it with these rebellious spirits? It was not in the heart of God to make a hell for miserable man: it was prepared for the devil and his angels. But there were those who preferred the devil to God; and to such He says, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." The same test is applied to them as to the godly before — the treatment of the King and of His messengers, or rather of Him in them.

In a word, then, it is plain that God has "prepared" a kingdom of glory, and "vessels of mercy" to inherit that kingdom; but He has not prepared "everlasting fire" for men, but for the "devil and his angels" nor has He fitted the "vessels of wrath," but they have fitted themselves.

First, it is not because judgment is His delight. Let God be true, but every man a liar. "Say unto them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" If God expostulated thus with Israel of old, we may be sure He is no more willing to execute judgment now on Christendom and on the nations. Nay, where he foretells those judgments in the most solemn terms, He speaks of rising, "that he may do his work his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act." As to this very period which is passing over our heads, and in which He delays to strike the long threatened blow, it is thus the delay is accounted for: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." No; it is not that God has any pleasure in the destruction of any; but that men despise, alas! the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; after the hardness of their impenitent hearts treasuring up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Reader, is this the case with thee? If it be, O that the question may rouse thee from thy slumbers, to consider what thou canst do in the day that God shall deal with thee!

This brings us to our third question: "What is the way of escape from the judgement of God?" That there is a way of escape divinely provided is unquestionable, seeing that God has said: "Have I any pleasure at all in the death of the wicked?" (Ezek. 18:23). Has He not also told us that He "desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth"? (1 Tim. 2:4). The heart of God yearns over the erring children of men; fain would He welcome all to His bosom, and imprint upon every cheek the kiss of divine forgiveness. Heb. 9:27-28 sets before us God's grand principle of salvation and blessing. "And as it is appointed to men once to die, but after this the judgement: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many: and to them that look for Him shall He appear the second time apart from sin to salvation." Sins; death; judgement! Three terrible realities, which are all my own as one born of Adam's ruined race. But over against my sins God has set Christ's one offering. What matchless grace! The costly sacrifice of Calvary has made it possible for God to take every humble and contrite sinner to His heart for ever. The foulest sinner may be pardoned and cleansed in virtue of the Saviour's precious blood. Then over against death and judgement God has set Christ's second coming to complete the blessing of His people, when the body as well as the spirit shall experience the sweetness of God's salvation.