God is all-knowing. He is aware that some individuals would reject Him and go to hell as a result. Does God thus want people to burn in hell?
Hell is not where God wants people to end up. He desires their rescue. “God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” is mentioned in 1 Timothy 2:3–4.
God will judge
However, we are aware that not everyone accepts the gospel and finds salvation. And God will punish them for that: “…when the Lord Jesus appears in heaven with his powerful angels in blazing fire, punishing everyone who disobeys the gospel of our Lord Jesus and does not know God.” According to 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9, “They will bear the penalty of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”
God wants all people to be saved
So God wants all people to be saved. And He also wants to punish those who do not believe. These two things are not contradictory. When you ask ‘does God want people to go to hell?’, the answer is: ‘it depends on what you mean with ‘want’.’ An example will clarify this. After dinner, there are a lot of dishes to be done. Do you want to do them? Probably not, you’d rather do something else. Yet you do them, because you know that if you don’t, you won’t have plates and cups to use at breakfast. So even though you do not want to do the dishes, you still do it. You could say that you want to do it more than you do not want to do it.
God does not save everyone
God desires for everyone to be rescued in the same manner. However, the fact that some people are not saved indicates that there is more to this story. What if God, in his desire to reveal his strength and show off his wrath, had patiently endured vessels of wrath that were ready to be destroyed in order to reveal the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy that he had already prepared for glory? This is what is said in Romans 9:22–23.
We are unable to know what God’s [deepest thoughts] are. However, it is clear from this that God does not save everyone for at least three reasons. First, He wants us to comprehend his justifiable rage at sin. The second is that He want for us to comprehend His omnipotence. Thirdly, as compared to those who disobeyed God, the riches of His glory in those who are rescued are even more evident.
Understanding that hell and God’s wrath are real forces us to treat spiritual realities with seriousness. It exhorts us to live a life devoted to God and to trust in Christ. “Go through the small gate. Because there is a large gate and an easy path leading to ruin, many people enter through it. Because there are few people who find the way to life, it is a narrow gate and a difficult path (Matthew 7:13–14).
