Does God love the people who are in hell?
This is a question that touches on two things Scripture reveals simultaneously: that "God is love" (1 John 4:8) and that "the wrath of God abides" on the unbeliever (John 3:36). These writers address this tension with remarkable care.
God's Love for Sinners Is Real and Unconditional
The starting point is that God genuinely loves sinners --- not because they deserve it, but because love is what He is.
J. Wilson Smith draws this out:
J. Wilson SmithGod loves the sinner! Wondrous fact... How can a holy God love those who are "dead in sins"? Can He love sin? Can He tolerate its faintest breath? Is He not pledged by that very holiness --- by the fact that "God is light," to judge it? --- to express His eternal abhorrence of it... Yes, all perfectly true. But the reason of His love for the sinner is simply and only found in the fact that "God is love."
Charles Stanley makes the same point from Romans 5:
Charles StanleyBut mark the contrast between the love of God and man's love. Man loves that, or those, whom he thinks deserving of his love. Not so God. For whilst nothing can shew more distinctly God's abhorrence of sin than the cross of Christ, yet it is even there that the love of God to the sinner shone out in all its glory. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." "God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:6, 8.)
C. J. Davis puts it in striking terms:
C. J. DavisGod yearns over the sinner, and hence sent Jesus with the mission from heaven which put in words would be, "Beseech men to be reconciled to Me! assure them that I am for them, I am all day long stretching forth my hand toward them. Can they not believe my love?"
But God Is More Than Love --- He Is God
Here is the crucial turn. God's love is real, but it does not override His holiness, His majesty, or His justice. The notion that love obligates God to save everyone is something these writers reject with force.
J. N. Darby states it with precision:
J. N. DarbyThe notion of His love, which makes it an obligation incumbent on Him to act so and so in it without His being able to help it, and so that eternal punishment cannot be, is a false, unscriptural, and senseless notion. He is love; but He is God, and acts freely and holily in His love. God is love; but it is GOD that is so. Love is what He is. But the first question is, who He is; and He is God, and does what pleases Him.
W. W. Fereday warns against separating God's attributes:
W. W. FeredayMen are always apt to think of God with a bias in their minds. Some perceive the tender side of His character and imagine that because God is love there cannot possibly be an eternal hell; others again fail to see the tender side at all... Neither the one nor the other really know God in their hearts.
Abiding Wrath, Not Abiding Love
When Scripture speaks of those who finally reject Christ, the language is not of continuing love but of abiding wrath. John 3:36 is the key text.
C. H. Mackintosh draws out the weight of that word "abides":
C. H. MackintoshNot so, says the Holy Spirit. It is quite true they shall not see life; but --- tremendous fact! "The wrath of God abides on him." This, beyond all question, gives a flat contradiction to annihilationism. If the wrath of God is to abide upon the unbeliever, it is utterly impossible he can be made an end of.
F. W. Grant brings both sides together in a single paragraph:
F. W. GrantAs long as God lives, the wicked shall exist, and exist as objects of His abiding wrath. Yet, reader, God warns of it, because He is most unwilling you should suffer it. Trifle not with His statements, but accept His love, in Christ freely offered to you.
Notice Grant's logic: the lost exist forever under God's wrath --- yet God warns of it precisely because He is "most unwilling" that anyone should end up there. The love is expressed now, in the warning and in the offer of Christ.
The Cross Is Where Love and Judgment Meet
James Boyd makes a penetrating observation: the more you diminish eternal judgment, the more you diminish the cross --- and therefore the more you diminish the love of God itself:
James BoydThe less I make of sin, the less I make of the judgment which must fall upon man on account of it. The less I make of the judgment, the less I make of the cross of God's Son. The less I make of the cross, the less I make of the love which came to light there... Do away with eternal punishment, and you do away with the necessity of the cross; and the strong crying and the tears of the Son of God, that He might be saved out of death, become the expression of the mere weakness of human nature... You lose the greatness of the Person who accomplished the work of redemption, the value of that work itself, and the love of God of which the cross is the one mighty and perfect expression in the sight of the universe.
God's Love Has a "Now"
W. W. Fereday makes clear that the time for God's love to be received is this life:
W. W. FeredayThe 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... God will not proclaim these glad tidings for ever. Even His long-suffering has a limit. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Let no man be mistaken in this great matter. Salvation is proclaimed earnestly to all while in this world; when the border-line is passed, salvation's amazing story of divine love and grace is heard no more.
Synthesis
The answer is layered and sober. God's love for sinners is utterly real --- it is the very reason He sent His Son, the very reason the gospel is preached, the very reason He "yearns" over the lost and stretches out His hands all day long. But God's love does not exist in isolation from His holiness. He is not only love; He is God.
For those who finally reject Christ, Scripture does not speak of God's continuing love toward them but of His wrath abiding on them. The word is chosen deliberately: it is not a passing anger but a permanent, settled condition. As Grant puts it: "As long as God lives, the wicked shall exist, and exist as objects of His abiding wrath."
And yet --- the greatness of that judgment is itself the measure of how great the love was that sought to prevent it. Boyd's point is unanswerable: diminish the punishment and you diminish the cross; diminish the cross and you diminish the love. The very severity of hell tells us how far God's love was willing to go to rescue sinners from it.