If He were to render our judgment, we’d all be doomed. If He faltered in His responsibility to punish us—criminals—He shouldn’t be commended for it. He would be a deficient God, one who can’t be trusted to do what is right. Even though I’d be included in His judgment, I would still have to acknowledge that to punish me would be the just and good thing to do. This is bad news. But there’s good news.

When my son trespasses into his sister’s room and takes something of hers, he’s violated our daughter’s trust and broken our family rules. He knows he’s done something wrong and now he’s in trouble. That’s why we punish him with some sort of discipline.

If we fail to hold him accountable, my daughter is the first to protest: “That’s not fair! He stole something of mine, and that’s wrong.” She’d also add that we were horrible parents for letting him off the hook. She intuitively knows that it’s fair and good for parents—who are the authority in the home—to punish kids when they do wrong. The house we live in is our jurisdiction. We have the right to manage it, and it is good that we do. She also knows that she’ll get punished if she does something wrong. I suspect most people would acknowledge that disciplining your kids is fair and good.

That’s why I’m mystified by a common question: If God is good, how could He send someone to Hell? I often reply by asking them to consider a parallel question: If the government is good, how could it send someone to prison? In one sense, this is a no-brainer.

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