The Reality of Unfathomable Love: Thoughts on "Love Wins" by Rob Bell

Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, was released today. Below are my thoughts on that book, according to the research I have done over the past several weeks. I have not read the book yet, but I will. At the end of this post there are links to several of the articles and authors that I have been following.

Please know that this is not a vendetta against Rob Bell. I have never been a “fan” of his teaching style, but that doesn’t mean I doubted the validity of what he was teaching. I am writing this because I was shocked to hear that he might have turned away from and twisted God’s truth, and because I am saddened that it’s true.

I am writing this because my heart is breaking for him and for those who may take his false teaching as truth.


Unfathomable Love

Rob Bell is very successful at being different. Artistic. Compelling. He has worked to break away from the stereotype of a stuffy, judgmental church leader.

Over the past few weeks, word sped throughout the Christian community that Rob Bell had embraced a universalist view of heaven and hell. There are many different variations to this system of belief, but put as simply as possible: all roads lead to heaven. Hell is empty. God has many names, and everyone will get to Him in different ways.

The rumors are painfully true. Though Bell has left himself openings to escape a strict universalist label, he is no longer teaching a Biblically sound view of eternal life.

Bell uses dozens of Bible passages in his book, but multiple pastors have pointed out how he takes the verses out of context and never fully uses any of them to support his thesis.

Summarized from reviews and excerpts from Love Wins, here is (in my words) what Bell is saying he believes about heaven and hell:

After death, some people are ready to enter God’s Kingdom automatically, while others must wait and first go through God’s refining fire. This burning away of sinful nature will take longer for some than it will for others, but everyone will be united with God in the end. Hell is what we make it, and God allows us the evil things we want for a while, but we will all be purged in time. God’s love will purify everyone. Trust in Jesus is important, but those who don’t like Christianity’s terms will come to know God through their own, personalized path.

As part of his support for this, Bell digs into an alternative meaning of the word eternal, saying that when God proclaims “eternal punishment” it merely means “intense punishment.” This means that corrective fire will be more intense for some than it is for others, but not forever.

Bell leaves himself a way out of the universalist label by never saying that absolutely nobody will stay in this refining period forever. But he strongly leans toward the view that everyone, no matter how long it takes, will be able to share in the glory of heaven.

This sounds wonderful at first, but if it were true, God would be nothing like the Bible says He is.

The Bible tells of a God who is angry. Jealous. Loving. We are created in His image, so our emotions reflect His, but our puny range of emotions is nothing compared to His. We struggle to forgive a cashier who short-changes us or a driver who runs us off the road. God forgives us of EVERYTHING. It’s unfathomable. We use the term “God-fearing” not because we need to cower in constant terror, but because God is more powerful and all-encompassing than anything we could possibly imagine.

If God loves the way that Bell claims He does, then Christ’s death on the cross is severely diminished. This ultimate sacrifice was all a show, a metaphor for the people of ancient times. If God truly is a wrathless God, and all our suffering is man-made and completely reversible, then Jesus’ death is just a nice example. We don’t need the blood of Christ to wash us clean.

Think about it this way: What kind of horrible, sadistic father would put his son through a torturous death for nothing? Is that a God you'd want to follow?

If what Rob Bell is teaching were true, why would Jesus tell the parables of the unprepared servant and the virgins who were not ready for the bridegroom’s arrival? (Matthew 24 and 25).

If what he’s teaching were true, why would God command us again and again to reach out to the lost, to minister to the ungodly, to live our lives as a reflection of His glory?

Why would the call to evangelism and missions be so desperate if there aren’t nations perishing without Him?

Why would we take up our cross and follow Him?

Christ’s death on the cross is the ultimate sacrifice. It is the only reason that God hasn’t wiped out the earth a hundred times. God loves us so much that He gave part of Himself to die and be reborn in our place. That is love. A get-out-of-hell-free card isn't love.

Some will choose to never to see His grace, and this breaks His heart. But it does not diminish His glory.

Bell still seems to urge people to live good lives and make the best decisions they can while they can, but in his mind, all our mistakes mean is a little more time spent in God’s refinery at the end.

There will always be theological questions that need to be asked, but Bell is not asking them. He is providing answers. It’s not rhetorical or contemplative. He is stating this as truth. And that’s what is so damaging.

This is the chance that God has given us. He sent His son to us HERE so that we may find and follow the truth before our deaths.

History is tragic, but not because God “isn’t getting what He wants.” Not because His greatness has been diminished. Because of us. Our selfishness. Our pride. Our unwillingness to put ourselves in hard places, to reach out to those that don’t know of Him, to stand up for His name in the face of adversity.

Saving everyone would be easy for God. Do we really want a God that takes the easy way out?

Nothing can diminish God’s greatness. God is not only “sort of great” because some of His children are lost daily. God has saved us all. We condemn ourselves when we choose not to listen. When we refuse to share His grace with those who don’t know. When we believe that it doesn’t matter how we live.

The song Our God is an Awesome God has long seemed like a Bible camp cliche to me. But when it came on the radio this morning I was struck by the power of its words. Words taken for granted are words that proclaim the truth.

“When He rolls up His sleeves
He ain't just putting on the ritz;
Our God is an awesome God

There's thunder in His footsteps
And lightning in His fists;
Our God is an awesome God

And the Lord wasn't joking
When He kicked 'em out of Eden
It wasn't for no reason
That He shed His blood
His return is very close
And so you better be believing that
Our God is an awesome God

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God

And when the sky was starless
In the void of the night;
Our God is an awesome God

He spoke into the darkness
And created the light;
Our God is an awesome God

Judgement and wrath
He poured out on Sodom
Mercy and grace
He gave us at the cross
I hope that we have not
Too quickly forgotten that
Our God is an awesome God

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God.”

In his book Radical, David Platt describes how the true message of Christ has never been the popular one. Jesus taught that to follow Him meant persecution, ridicule, and abandonment. He told people to leave their homes, sell their belongings, and follow Him, whatever the cost.

Jesus didn’t teach people to believe what feels right and to call Him whatever name we choose.
“Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” says Matthew 7:14. There is one way, and it is difficult. There is judgment. And there is a God who loves us more than we could ever imagine.

I pray that Rob Bell will not lead his church to destruction. I pray that he will find his way back to the way, the truth and the life that is God’s perfect and unfathomable love.

____________________________________________________________________


A few of my sources:

Burk, Denny. http://www.dennyburk.com/revising-hell-into-the-heterodox-mainstream/

Challies, Tim. http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/love-wins-a-review-of-rob-bells-new-book

DeYoung, Kevin. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/03/14/rob-bell-love-wins-review/

Platt, David. Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.

Trueman, Carl. http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2011/03/an-accidental-optimist.php

Rarity

Glimpsing a complete stranger in a moment of pure happiness is very rare. Waiting at a stoplight while running errands, I noticed the driver of a trash truck as he turned into the lane next to me. There was unashamed happiness on his face, his mouth wide with a smile and laugh, teeth brilliantly white against his dark skin. It may have been caused by something his coworker said or something he heard on the radio, but this wasn’t a passing smile of amusement or a chuckle at an appreciated joke. This was joy.


What made him so joyful on a rainy midweek morning as he drove his battered green truck through the neighborhoods of north Austin? And why don’t I look that way? I have plenty to be joyful about, but I doubt I show it. I even TRY to exude an air of busyness or distractedness when in public alone. I know it’s a shield. We work so hard to keep people out that when someone’s true emotion shines through, we are stunned. Flabbergasted. And ...jealous.

“He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away,” says the popular quote by Raymond Hull. How many whittled-down, gouged-out people do we encounter every day? And how whittled-down and gouged-out am I?

We begin to forget ourselves as we strain to fit into the world’s stereotypes. As a relationship grows we may begin to fill out in each other’s presence, but there are often personality pieces that are never shown, dreams never shared, hopes kept silent.

People do grow and change, but some things remain constant. The ability to feel and show joy is one of them. I think we should use it more often.