A very common question at this point is, "Why is this price necessary?" The answer is very much tied up in one of the hardest concepts to understand concerning God. How can a loving, moral God consign anyone, let alone all non-believers, to eternal torment (not torture!) in Hell? It seems completely inconsistent. If God is loving and moral, Hell should not exist. If Hell exists, God cannot, some say, be considered moral and loving. This is an incredibly difficult issue and one of the highest hurdles for people in our pluralistic society to overcome. There are several common errors of thought that need to be addressed before any acceptable answer can be found.
The first goes hand in hand with an idea that we've discussed before, that one gets to Heaven just by "being good". This type of thinking leads to the belief that Heaven is everyone's rightful place and that some people lose that right by being overly selfish or wicked. If Hell exists at all, it is reserved only for a small number of people who "deserve" it. However, the Bible makes it quite clear that Hell is for everyone. From beginning to end, the Bible consistently states that no one deserves to get to Heaven on their own merits. To stand forever in the presence of a holy God, one must be exactly as holy as God, and exactly one person in the history of the world has measured up to that standard.
You may also be familiar with a common claim of non-theists, stated in terms of God condemning people for an "honest error in belief". They wish to give the impression that God is some petty dictator who, on the one hand, doesn't provide convincing evidence of his existence and, on the other, feels the appropriate response for non-belief is an eternity of pain. Again, the Bible is forthright in refuting the idea that there is any such thing as an "honest error in belief" in this area. The evidence for God, biblically speaking, is overwhelmingly apparent, even to those who do not have access to the Bible. The reason people reject God has little to do with honesty. It has everything to do with pride. Christians are often criticized for being "self-righteous" by the liberal-minded, but true Christians are those who recognize their own unrighteousness and ask for God's "other-righteousness". It is the person who doesn't see a need for a savior who is exalting the self.
This exalting of the self leads to the final error in thought. In our pride, we have elevated ourselves to a position where we feel competent to judge God. The foundation of all of the doubt and emotional anguish and rhetoric concerning Hell is the feeling that God is being immensely unfair. Even those who have dedicated their lives to Him are left with an uneasy feeling that God's reasons for creating this whole situation may be morally inadequate. But, how did we get out from under God's ethical umbrella? To cast aspersions on God's morals, we must be metaphysically standing somewhere apart from him and measuring him against a yardstick that we acquired from … where? If God does not exist, or is simply another time-and-space-bound being like us, then all the yardsticks are strictly personal and come in all different sizes, none of which is "standard" or applicable to an imaginary or limited being. If, however, God is the Creator of all, and the source of morality, how can we possibly conclude that our own moral sense is somehow superior to His? If we don't know the reasons for the structure of reality, how do we determine whether those reasons are inadequate or immoral? If I don't know the color of the couch, how can I say that it clashes with the curtains? All of the emotional and logical arguments against the existence of Hell are resting on this uncertain foundation, a house of cards on a wobbly table in a decrepit building located on the San Andreas Fault.
We are left with one objective truth. The Bible says Hell exists. While the exact nature of Hell is debatable, it is clear that, left to our own devices, there is only one outcome at the end of this life: eternal death and separation from God. But, miracle of miracles, God was not content to leave it at that.