The Atheist Bus Campain - Part 2

[Disclaimer: This is hugely condensed, so please do not consider this the whole argument. If you would like to discuss further, let me know.]

In my last post, I wrote about an atheist ad campaign which was motivated by the Christian belief that non-Christians "will be condemned to everlasting separation from God and then you spend all eternily in torment in hell... Jesus spoke about this as a lake of fire prepared for the devil". They call this belief "irrational."

And so I posed the question: Do you know why hell exists and why it is completely in line with Jesus' character?

And now I shall attempt to answer it, begining, not with hell, but with God, for everything starts with Him (Col 1:15-18).

God's Justice

The common response to a person's exclamation, "well that's not fair!" is "well life's not fair!" And, I propose, that God, by the common definition, isn't fair either. But He is just. 

So what's the difference between being fair and being just? Fairness, in this sense, is often "In comparision to him, I deserve just as much/more!" The kid in the playground who gets two chocolate bars and you just get one. The car in front of you who didn't get a ticket for going 18 mph over the speed limi, but you did, for just going 10 over. A good child who dies young, while the wicked grow old. And you might agree, that's not fair!

But it might be just. The kid with two chocolate bars bought it with his own allowance money for getting all his chores done, and you didn't make your bed twice, so could only afford one. It's not even handed, but it is just. No, you weren't going as fast as the other guy, but you were breaking the law, and receiving a ticket for speed is just regardless. And as for the child and the old, while it may not be fair, who are we to tell God what is and is not just?

Moses says of God: "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he." The psalmist says of God, "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne" (Ps. 89:14). The verses on God's justice abound in the Scriptures. But beyond that, God is just, because He is the measure of Justice. He declares of Himself: "I, the Lord, speak the truth, I declare what is right." 

Imagine existance without creation. The only thing left, is actually, no thing, but God. Before creation, before anything was created, only the non-created, eternal being existed, and He is God. There was no beauty, besides Him. No glory, besides His. No love, besides the love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No justice, save the Trinity's own righteousness. No sin at all, because He is perfection and sin is all that falls short of Him and what He declares "good".

God's Justice and Us

We all sin, do we not? We lie, get unnecessarily angry, we covet and make excuses for not answering God's call. God's righteousness demands that we get what we deserve. And sin deserves punishment. Therefore, we will all stand before God and be judged (2 Timothy 4:1; Matthew 25:31-33). Though life may not have been "fair," God will serve justice. He is bound by His character.  

At this point I would like to pause and give you an example of when God was "not fair," from Jesus' own parables (Matthew 20:1-15):

For the Kingdowm of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work.

At nine o'clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whaever was right at the end of the day. So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o'clock he did the same thing.

At five o'clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them 'Why haven't you been working today?'

They  replied, 'Because no one hired us.'

The landowner told them, 'Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.'

That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. When those hired at five o'clock were paid, each received a full day's wage. When those fired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day's wage. When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, 'Those people worked only one hour, and yet you've paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.'

He answered them, 'Friend, I haven't been unfair! Didn't you agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take you money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?'

The workers thought that they deserved more than those who worked late, and sure, those who worked less, deserved less. But those who worked longer did not deserve more because they agreed to the pay ahead of time. They got what they deserved. It was the latecomers who didn't get what they deserved, but more!

And finally, to hell

And so it is with us. We all deserve hell. This is true because

1. We all sinned (Psalm 53:3; Romans 3:23; your own conscience).
2. The just payment of sin is death (Romans 6:23), punishment with everlasting destruction and banishment from God's presence (2 Thessalonians 1:9) (among other things).

Like what was cited above: "There is no one who does good, not even one" (Ps. 53:3). And God cannot let sin go unpunished. He is a just God, and let us thank Him for it! Imagine if we had an unjust God - then life would truly be unfair! An unjust God, even if He were "good" by our definitions (which is good most of the time, like a "good" person), would let evil run rampant! How many times have you thought someone was good because they let you get away with something? Is that the god you want? What about the reverse: how many times have you thought someone was evil because they let someone get away with something you thought they shouldn't have? But, thanks be to Him! He is just.

Even better is that, God, like the master of the vineyard, gives more than deserved to some. John 1:12 says, "But to all who did receive [Jesus] who believed in [Jesus'] name, he gave the right to become children of God." That is to say, not everyone is God's child, as is a popular belief. Jesus Himself says, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). That means that not all get to the Father. Those that do, only come through Jesus, as the above verses (and others) state. Though we all deserve separation from God, death and hell, God has graciously provided, through the Son's substitutionary death on the cross, that some may enter into His glory. 

So can good people who don't believe in Jesus go to heaven? Let's see what the Bible says:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

John 14:6

 "I [, Jesus,] am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Acts 4:12

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

God is just by punishing sin. But He is even better than that by having given His Son to die for us (remember we just celebrated Christmas and the reason why He came), so that in His death, those who believe in Him may live, though we definately don't deserve it!