Why does God create people when He knows they are going to go to hell?

Election is God's choice of individuals; predestination is to a blessing, as in Eph. 1:5, 11, believers are predestinated to the adoption of sons, according to the purpose of God. Predestination does not, as insisted on by some, imply reprobation of some to wrath. God "will have [or desires] all men to be saved," 1 Tim. 2:4; but to ensure some being saved, He predestinated, called, justified, and glorified them in His sovereign purpose.

God's choice is always "the election of GRACE" (Rom. 11:5). That God elects to judgment is an idea reached as the fruit of human reasonings upon this matter, which so completely transcends our reason; it is never so stated in Scripture. The Scriptural presentation of the case is that all are totally ruined with no point of recovery in themselves, and that God chooses to have mercy on some and, consequently, in them to work with life-giving power.

As regards the vessels of wrath, it truly says "they are fitted for destruction", but it does not say that God fitted them for destruction. He made His power known, not by fitting them for destruction, but, by enduring them with much longsuffering. As regards the vessels of mercy, it does say of such He "had afore prepared to glory".

Pharaoh was one of those "vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction" — it does not say God had fitted them, they had fitted themselves by their sin and rebellion; there were also "the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared to glory." Here Scripture does present God as the originator and worker. The vessels of mercy were such by His work.

In the case of the wicked, so far from being elected to eternal misery, we find that God endures them — vessels of wrath — with much longsuffering, fitted not by Him but by their own deeds for destruction. The word Katartizo means to correct, repair, mend; then in its participial form fitted, prepared. The word does not suppose a decree of God, but a work of man.

Men will depart into a place originally prepared, not for the wicked and impenitent, but for the devil and his angels. Matt. 25:41.

We preach a God who at His own cost has provided a way of escape for all from this terrible doom — Who "so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16), "Who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4), Who "commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8), Who beseeches men through His ambassadors to be reconciled to Him (2 Cor. 5:20), Whose long-suffering with men holds back the long-predicted judgment, because He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

The cross of Christ, on which He gave Himself a ransom for all, is the great proof of God's love for men and the length He would go to save them; He could not have done more.

Man's responsibility is based upon the fact that "light is come into the world", and shone in full splendour in the Person of the Son, revealing the heart of God. Man is responsible to avail himself of the light. The fact that he has made himself incapable of doing so does not affect his responsibility. Men love darkness rather than light. But why is this? Because their deeds are evil.

A drunkard may drink himself into a condition in which he is unconscious and incapable of fulfilling his duties. Nonetheless he is responsible. Incapacity does not relieve from responsibility.

God did not make Pharaoh wicked. God leads no man to sin; but when Pharaoh had proved himself wicked and stubborn, God judicially hardened his heart. This hardening, however, never takes place until man has proved himself to be wicked. The natural fallen man, as described in Romans 1, first gives up God before he is given up by God.

That God is sovereign and that man, though fallen, is a responsible creature, are two facts that stand out clearly in the Scriptures. It is when we study these two facts in their implications that we run into intellectual difficulties.

Let us by the grace of God maintain firmly both these great facts — God is sovereign in His gracious actings: man, though fallen, is a responsible creature and addressed as such.

If any would say to us, If God in His electing mercy is pleased to save this one and that one, why should He not elect and save all? — we have no answer to give. What lies behind His decisions is not revealed to us, who are but His creatures; but He has revealed Himself to us in Christ, and so we are sure that what He decides is right, and ultimately all will see how right it has been.

Whilst we believe both statements, namely, of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, we are not pretending in a logical way to reconcile them. Perhaps it is never intended as finite beings that we should in this world.

Finally, it may be held as certain that those who are saved are saved by grace, through the electing love of God, and that those who, in the very precincts where that grace is operating are lost, are lost by their own fault.