The other side of this question is: “If God is so just how can He accept anyone into heaven?” God reveals to us clearly two aspects of His character: His justice and His love.

God, because He is just, cannot say that our rebellion against Him does not matter. All of us have offended Him. We reject God’s commands, which is a personal rejection of God.

When my daughter was 2-years-old she jumped violently on the back of our then baby son. She offended my son, but she also offended me, because I had been clear with her that she was to be gentle with her little brother. In the same way, when we adults act against each other (in our sexual misbehaviour, our selfishness, crashing into each other’s cars without owning up) we offend another person, but we also offend God.

Our rejection of God’s commands is a symptom of our personal rejection of God. God has been clear about how He wants me to live and how He wants me to relate to Him. When I go astray I am actually saying to God, “God, I do not accept you as God of my life — I am the ruler — just go away and leave me alone.”

God cannot just say to Adolf Hitler that it does not matter and sweep Hitler’s many offences under the carpet. And God (because of His justice) cannot say that my offence does not matter, just because my offence may be of a different degree. Its anti-social nature is the same.

God in His justice gives us what we ask for: eternity without Him. Hell is not the popularly conceived “goblins at the end of the garden”, but rather is eternal loneliness ... as God withdraws relationship from us.

The greatness of the Bible message is that God is not only just, but loving. In the moment of the death of Jesus, the love of God and the justice of God meet. In His last moments on the cross, Jesus cries out in anguish to the Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The answer is that God so loved us that He abandoned Jesus (sent Him to Hell) to pay the price of our rebellion, so that God could in His love accept us, and yet maintain His justice (and not say that our offence does not matter).

We must accept God’s justice, and the question is: Will you accept God’s love ... and thank Him for Jesus’ death on your behalf?

I do not function well or react quickly in the mornings. While I was having a shower, my little boy swung his arm around in the kitchen, hit the coffee cup that Catherine was carrying across the room and scalded his arm very badly. Catherine raced him into the shower with me and told me to turn off the hot tap.

After a few moments I realised he needed to be in the cold shower — not me — so I got out of the shower. Then I put him in a cold bath. It was freezing — his little face poking up through the water — but I was determined that he would stay under the cold water — because burns recover better if they have cold water put on them for 20 minutes. He was whimpering, shivering, freezing — pleading to get out — and I ruled against him — “Stay in the water”. But I did it for Solomon’s good. It hurts to have an obedient boy make a reasonable plea, and to be a father who rules against your son. If there had been any other way I would have found it.

On the night before He was killed, Jesus, with tears, begged His father not to have to go through with His death: Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39Matthew 26:39)

I felt a little of what that was like with Solomon in the bath that day. I just had the smallest glimpse into God’s heart, as He looked down from heaven, as His obedient boy made a reasonable plea, and to be a father who rules against your son.

But what struck me was “What father would kill his son — if there had been any other way?” Only a thug of a father, a cruel barbaric father. But that is not the Father God of the Bible. The Father we meet in the Bible is a Father who loves and delights in His Son.

What I have come to see is that there was no other way of me being forgiven other than for the Son to take the punishment that should have been directed at me.

The problem with other religions is that they ultimately are suggesting other ways. If you look closely at every other religion other than “Biblical Christianity”, then you will see that essentially they are saying “We do things to make ourselves acceptable to God”, whereas God (in the Bible) is saying “I sent my Son to die so you could be acceptable to me.”

When God went to the extent of sending His Son to die, any other proposed route to God is an insult to Him and His Son. To propose another way is to say either “the death of your Son was not enough”, or “I have a better idea”. Either way they are salt into the wounds of the death of Jesus.