If Christ Took the Punishment for Sin, Why Must Sinners Be Punished in Hell?

Dr. Craig answers an ATONEMENT question submitted online following his lecture for Apologia Sweden.

QUESTION: If Christ took the punishment for the world's sin, why do sinners have to be punished in hell? It seems like the only alternatives are limited atonement or denying the retributive nature of hell.

DR. CRAIG: Oh, I think that there's another alternative, and that would be that God respects free will, and he therefore offers us a divine pardon for sin on the basis of Christ's atoning death, but that we are at liberty either to accept or to refuse that pardon. And if we refuse his pardon then we fall back on his justice. Here I would appeal to the analogy of the way pardons function in our Western systems of justice. If a condemned criminal is offered a pardon and he refuses the pardon, it cannot be forced upon him. He will then have to pay the just desert for his crime. And there have been cases in the law where condemned criminals have preferred to pay the penalty for their crimes rather than to accept the pardon from the executive power of the state. So I differ with our Calvinist brethren in thinking that the atonement of Christ is efficacious independent of our free will. I think that it potentially wins the salvation of all mankind but that potential needs to be actualized by a free affirmative response to God's offer of a pardon.