When we preach, on the one hand, that God loves sinners and sent Jesus to die for them, and, on the other, that He is also the merciless Tormentor of all who would have the effrontery to slight Him, this must sound, to all but the convinced believer, like a hopeless contradiction, indicating that Christians must be wrong about one or another of those propositions—and perhaps about everything else too!
The good news is not the story of God’s judgment on sinners. Jesus, who understood the gospel best of all, immortalized its key theme in His story of the prodigal and his father. The message of the gospel is that Jesus has come to restore us to a proper relationship with our estranged Father, to whom all must return (repent), humbly and without agendas. This Father is waiting to get His hands on us, not to punish us but to embrace us, and to restore us to the privileges of full sonship. It was not fear of his father’s wrath, nor threats of his punishment, that converted the prodigal in the far country. It was the memory of the goodness of his father toward his servants (Luke 15: 17). As Paul wrote: “The goodness of God leads you to repentance” (Rom. 2: 4).
The idea that hell is the best motivator for doing what is right betrays a mentality that looks only to personal advantage, and fails to appreciate...
1) the intrinsic value of God Himself,
2) His right to be glorified in His creatures, and
3) the incalculable and undeserved honor of being in a right relationship with Him, quite apart from any specific benefits He may offer us.