Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. -James 3:1
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. -Hebrews 13:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. -Proverbs 1:7
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. -1 Timothy 4:16
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. -Philippians 2:12-13
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. -Galatians 1:6-10
In the beginning God created man. Then man, being a gentlemen, returned the favor. -Often attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Last week a very popular pastor from Grand Rapids named Rob Bell wrote a book beckoning the church to rethink its classical view of hell. Bell has created a firestorm of controversy because he claims to a self-professed evangelical pastor and yet is now teaching a form of universalism.
Before we begin, some preliminary questions:
How sacred do we consider the blood-bought gospel of Jesus Christ? To what degree are we, as broken, confused and finite sinners, utterly dependent upon God's gracious revelation in Christ and in Scripture for life and ministry? What is the best way for a pastor to serve the flock God has entrusted into his care considering the fact he will have to one day give an account before the blazing majesty of our holy God?
In this blog entry, I am not interested in giving a full, point-by-point, theological assessment of Rob Bell's new book "Love Wins." I really do encourage you to go read yourself. You can read it faithfully in several hours. I am interested, though, in focusing on the high calling put on the pastorate and using "Love Wins" as a illustration.
Here are some excerpts from Rob's new book. I encourage you to read them slowly:
At the center of the Christian tradition since the first church have been a number who insist that history is not tragic, hell is not forever, and love, in the end, wins and all will be reconciled to God (pg 109).
Secondly, it's important that we be honest about the fact that some stories are better than others. Telling a story in which billions of people spend forever somewhere in the universe trapped in a black hole of endless torment and misery with no way out isn't a very good story. Telling a story about a God who inflicts unrelenting punishment on people because they didn't do or say or believe the correct things in a brief window of time called life isn't a very good story (pg 110).
Hell is our refusal to trust God's retelling of our story (pg 170).
But there's more. Millions have been taught that if they don't believe, if they don't accept the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell. God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them forever. A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean vicious tormenter who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony.
If there was an earthly father who was like that, we would call the authorities. If there was an actual human dad who was that volatile we would contact child protection services immediately.
If God can switch gears like that, switch entire modes of being that quickly, that raises a thousand questions about whether a being like this could ever be trusted, let alone be good (pg 174).
Because if something is wrong with your God, if your God is loving one second and cruel the next, if your God will punish people for all of eternity for sins committed in a few short years, no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able to disguise that one, true, glaring, untenable, unacceptable, awful reality (pg 175).
Let me be very clear, then: we do not need to be rescued from God. God is the one who rescues us from death, sin and destruction. God is the rescuer. This is crucial for our peace, because we shape our God, and then our God shapes us (pg 182).
The only thing left to do is trust. Everybody is already at the party. Heaven and hell, here, now, around us, upon us, within us (pg 190).
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These are not only audacious statements, but they are rife with a condescension bordering on contempt for classical, biblical orthodoxy.
First, let me say that up until this point I have had no bone to pick with Rob Bell. I always thought he was quirky, but never considered his teachings to be antithetical to Christ's teachings. So hear my heart in this review: Love necessitates truth. Justice demands holiness. Our faith is based on Christ, informed by Scripture, and centered around the substitionary cross and supernatural resurrection of Jesus. If Bell is teaching something entirely other than what Christ clearly taught in Scripture, the most loving thing to do is to confront him.
Truth be told, after reading this book, I feel like Michael Corleone in Godfather II when he discovers his brother Fredo's deception. Do you remember the scene? Michael kisses him forcefully on the lips and declares, "I know it was you Fredo, you broke my heart."
"Love Wins" breaks my heart. You may see this as condescension or judgment, but when you prescribe a Gospel without sin, judgment, holiness, the cross, new birth or eternal consequences and condescend that that Gospel is an "untenable, unacceptable, awful reality," you have stepped outside the bounds of biblical truth. You are leading people astray. More than that, you are shockingly suggesting to be more loving than God. It is an affront to God himself. I hope Rob wrote this book on his knees trembling before the Holy God of the Bible... but one gets the impression he did not. He is too quick to flippantly label the God of historical orthodoxy as untrustworthy and unworthy.
Let me say, also, that the doctrine of an everlasting conscious hell is the doctrine that I struggle with the most. More than theodicy, this is it. Still, I am fully aware of my inability, in my short thirty-three years of life, to dictate the laws of the universe. God has lovingly redeemed my soul and continues to redeem my mind through the sanctifying work of His indwelt Holy Spirit and the piercing revelation of Holy Scripture. I am forced to humbly submit my finite and convoluted emotions to the veracity of His Gospel.
More than that, I hope I will never have the audacity to let my doubts and reservations lead others astray. When Jesus refers to us as sheep (Matt 10:16, Luke 15:4-6), it is not an uplifting exhortation. Sheep are dumb. Sheep are easily deceived. Sheep wander off very, very easily. Jesus is basically saying that we all have this propensity and ability to be led astray. I know this, mostly, of myself. That is why I sit humbly before God's Word, stand on the shoulders of many faithful sheep/shepherds before me and accept no imitations to Jesus' words and declarations.
Words and declarations like these (psst, don't skim over this part!):
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. -Matthew 10:28
The Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.
-Luke 12:42-47, see also Matthew 24
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where “‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’"
-Mark 9:42-48
(SEE ALSO: Matthew 5:22 Matthew 5:29-30 Matthew 10:28 Matthew 18:9 Matthew 13:42 Matthew 13:50 Matthew 23:13-15 Matthew 24:51 Matthew 25:30 Mark 9:43-47 Luke 12:5 Luke 13:8 John 3:16 John 10:28 Luke 16:19-31)
You see when we suggest that this story is untenable and awful, we are subtly (or very naively) saying that Jesus' teaching was untenable and awful. We are suggesting that we are, in effect, more loving than Jesus.
That is why "Love Wins," while meant to be a loving book, is really a harmful book. It allows those who do not know Jesus to continue living how they want because in the end "Love Wins." It completely devalues the hopelessly depraved state of the human heart. If you don't believe me, read the book reviews on amazon or in mainstream media. Jews, athiests, and agnostics can sleep better at night living how they want, all while their current destiny is one of everlasting separation from God.
That is why this matters.
If you think I am being unreasonable, I humbly encourage you to read pages 64-69 of Bell's book. It is both amazing and wildly irresponsible the way Bell handles the New Testament's teachings on hell.
Bell likes to make statements like the ones quoted above and then say he is "not a universalist" or he is in the center of biblical truth or he is "evangelical and orthodox to the core." From the trajectory of his argument, though, there is no logical grounds to believe he is not a universalist. Teaching one thing and then claiming you are something else doesn't work. I can't play for the New York Yankees and wear a Boston Red Sox jersey. I can't own a house in New Jersey but tell others I live in Wichita Kansas. I can't teach my son that sticking a fork into an electrical outlet will not have very real and immediate repercussions and then claim to be a good daddy.
This is what is frustrating about Bell's work. He will say that what we believe matters in one moment (pg 176) and then teach the afterlife is purely speculative in the next. He will say justice matters deeply to God and those bearing His image (pg 38-39) but somehow dislocate that unswerving, perfect justice away from God onto a cross-less emphasis for social action. He will say Hell exists (pg 71) but (shockingly!) suggest it is mostly those who live like the older brother in the prodigal son story who are currently experiencing hell (176-191).
Ultimately, what is most shocking about "Love Wins" is how human-centered and cross-emptied it is. The cross takes a distant back seat to "God's love," as if the two were in perpetual contradistinction. Bell loves to quote 1 John 4:8 that says "God is love." To which I can wholeheartedly proclaim "Amen and Amen"! I agree! We have to be careful, though, that we do not reverse this axiom and suggest "Love is God." Especially not with our limited and sinful understanding of love. If we recreate God in our image, with our understanding of love as the plumb line, we are idolaters.
This is why I hope throughout Bell's travels and interactions with people who love him, but more importantly love Jesus, love His Gospel and realize that this life is not some kind postmodern, bloodless, casual "conversation," he will revisit some of these dangerous teachings and admit the irresponsibility of his actions.
As I read this book, I couldn't help but think of Spider-man. Yes, Spider-man. The guiding mantra of that character's story is what his Uncle Ben taught him before being shot by a burglar... "With great power comes great responsibility."
Rob Bell has a platform and an audience that I will never have. He is a fantastic communicator and I'm sure, in many ways, a good pastor. But "Love Wins" is an abuse of power. I weep for those who read it and believe that if they are enemies of God (Rom 5:10), blind (2 Cor 4:4), deceived (Tit 3:3), slaves to sin (Gal 4:8-11), dead in sin (Eph 2:1-5), deserving of wrath (John 3:36) God will somehow save them in Hell regardless.
That is why this conversation is important and that is why this book needs to be challenged.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. -John 3:16
