The Quantum Spirituality of Rob Bell
A critical review of Love Wins
Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (New York, NY: Harper One, 2011) xi + 198 pages, Acknowledgments and Further Reading. The back cover blurb first states and then incredulously asks: âGod loves us. God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely, through no merit on our part. Unless you do not respond the right way. Then God will torture you forever. In hell.â Huh?
Recommended by a whoâs who of emergent leaders, Rob Bellâs book Love Wins has, as it is calculated to do, stirred-up controversy. Recently, Time ran a front cover story on it.[1] Eugene H. Peterson lauds the book as being born out of a âthoroughly biblical imagination,â and a book âwithout a trace of soft sentimentality and without compromising an inch of evangelical conviction in its proclamation of the good news that is most truly for all.â(Front Cover Flap). Open theist Greg Boyd calls the book, âbold, prophetic, and a poetic masterpiece.â(Back Cover Flap). Andy Crouch sees Bell as âa central figure for his generation.â(Back Cover). So much for endorsements . . .
In his own hip way and as in his previous books (Velvet Elvis and Sex God), Rob Bell has written a book contending for universal reconciliation (UR); that based upon divine love eclipsing all other attributes of God (His justice, wrath, righteousness, etc.), everybody from everywhere and from all time and from all religions, without exception, are reconciled to God.[2] As the teacher at Mars Hill Bible Church in suburban Grand Rapids, Michigan, the reader is not surprised that Love Wins is inundated with scriptural references that cite book and chapter but omit the precise verse location. This means that readers will have to make an extra effort to locate the citation to determine if it and the context really support Bellâs interpretation. I guess the average reader will just have to trust the author has got it right.
A word about tone: For writing this book, Bell knows heâll be criticized. Some will think heâs courageous for having stated in public what many contemporary pan-evangelicals believe in private. Survey says . . .[3] Purposely, I have not read any other Internet reviews of Bellâs book for the reason of trying to retain objectivity in this review. This pastoral evaluation results from my impressions of the book, period. The eternal destiny of human beings is a serious subject and should be treated as such. Bell writes of religious people, who âshaped by their God,â become violent, a violence manifesting itself in the âtoxic, venomous nature of certain discussions and debates on the Internet.â(183) Recognizing that Bell does not articulate matters of faith as I do, and as I understand the Bible to state, I hope this review will not be taken as âviolent, toxic, or venomous.â The only other option for a pastor is to say nothing, and that is not an option. With this stated, we proceed . . .
After a Preface, the book consists of eight chapters, the last of which recounts Bellâs youthful conversion to the evangelical faith in his home near Lansing, Michigan, during the mid 70s. In reviewing the book, I shall attempt to follow the argument by which Bell builds his case for UR, and then comment upon it.
Bellâs thesis is that the âJesus story is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us . . . a stunning, beautiful, expansive love . . . for everybody, everywhere.â(Love Wins, vii)[4] This expansive love story includes all persons, from all times, from all places and from all religions . . . billions of people for whom Bell allows for no apparent exceptions. God is reconciling to Himself Nero, Hitler, Stalin and the sick-o-father who, as he molested his daughter, recited the Lordâs Prayer and sang Christian hymns.(7) Even the Canaanites were/are reconciled to Yahweh. That Godâs love may be discriminatory, that heaven might be limited to Godâs elect (Calvinism), or to a contemporary evangelical crowd that just wants a âpersonal-relationshipâ Jesus, Bell rejects. Thatâs just their âversion,â he writes, a story that turns people off and away from Christianity.(viii) The idea that only a few will make it to heaven, Bell views as âmisguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesusâ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.â(viii)
In this introduction to UR, Bell plays an overwhelming numbers gameâmillions upon billions of souls in hell forever simply because they did not hear about Jesus. The thought is stunning. But on this point, my heart is comforted by Johnâs vision that in heaven he saw âa great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues . . . clothed with white robesâ [incidentally, attire Bell derides, Love Wins, 24] (Revelation 7:9). How many people will be in heaven? Less than universalism believes, and more than what Bell thinks some of these other versions allow.
In this chapter Bell attacks the doctrines of grace (Calvinism) by asking, âOf all the billions of people who have ever lived, will only a select number âmake it to a better placeâ and every single other person suffer torment and punishment forever?â(2) After pulling readersâ heart strings by alluding to Mahatma Gandhi and an atheist teenager killed in a car accident, Bell asks, âIs this the sacred calling of Christians to announce that thereâs no hope [if they had not believed on Jesus]?â(4) What if Christians fail their missionary calling? What if in route to share the Gospel a missionary gets a flat tire? Will the persons he was supposed to bring the Gospel to go to hell because the missionary had mechanical failure? The author fails to recognize that absent one human messenger, whether by default or disaster, the sovereign God is capable of sending another messenger, perhaps an angel, to preach the Gospel (See Revelation 14:6-7). God can fix flats! And in the end, âShall not the Judge of all the earth do right?â (Genesis 18:25).
In addition to attacking the doctrine of election, this chapter questions, I think legitimately, how evangelicals have peddled the Gospel over the last half centuryâthe âpersonal-relationship-with-Jesusâ Gospel. Bell observes âthat the phrase âpersonal relationshipâ is found nowhere in the Bible.â(10)
To make his argument, Bell weaves together, by my count, twenty-two passages, all of which, by his interpretation, present a little different slant on what it takes a person to do or believe to get to heaven. About these passages, and as he casts an aura of suspicion about how evangelical Protestants have understood the Gospel from the time of the Protestant Reformation, the author asks questions . . . questions . . . and more questions. Welcome to Chaos 101. Bell thus lays the groundwork for constructing his colorful and symmetrical fractal of universal reconciliation. The chapterâs tone manifests âa morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about wordsâ (1 Timothy 6:4, NASB).
Weâve all heard the expression, âLife is hell!â Well to Bell, if lived according the standards of Jesus, our reality can also be heaven. Life exists as a continuum of order from above (heaven) mixing with disorder below (hell). But if we cooperate and do the right as Jesus tells us, the fractal from above can bring order to chaos on earth. âJesus invites us,â Bell writes, âin this life, in this broken, beautiful world, to experience the life of heaven now [As above, so below].â(62) Thatâs why here is the new there. As Bell writes later on of Jesusâ Parable of the Prodigal Son, âIn this story, heaven and hell are within each other, intertwined, interwoven, bumping up against each other.â(170)[5]
To support his there-is-here view of reality, Bell appeals to string theory, that untested quantum physical worldview that posits the existence of several dimensions beyond spacetimeâthe three spatial dimensions (length, height and width) plus time. Bell tells readers that string theorists suppose âWe live in several dimensions [at least eleven]. Up and down. Left and right. Forward and backward. Three to be exact . . . . If we count time as the fourth dimension, thatâs seven beyond what we now know.â(59-60) In that string theory remains unproven, how does Bell know the universe exists in dimensions beyond spacetime?
Bell notes that occasionally weâve all had âexperiences when those three dimensions werenât adequate. Moments when we were acutely, overwhelmingly aware of other realities just beyond this one.â(58) We know other realities exist because weâve experienced them. We know theyâre there because we feel they are. With this, the author reveals mysticism that posits realities beyond spacetime because at one time or another, weâve all experienced them. Down here we can intuit whatâs out there. Experiences can bring heaven into our reality as here becomes the new there, as our consciousness below connects to the new above.
But according to Jesusâ worldview, human reality is not so mixed, for He told his audience of âstring theoristsâ: â[W]hither I go, ye cannot come . . . Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sinsâ (John 8:21-24). To Jesus reality is two dimensional: below and whatever this reality consists ofâI believe time, matter and spaceâand above and whatever that reality consists ofâGod knows (See Genesis 1:1.). But Jesus said that below is below, above is above, and never the twain shall meet, except in the âI am,â who âwhen all things are subjected to Him,â He in turn âwill be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in allâ (1 Corinthians 15:28, NASB).
If down is really up, and taking cue from the preceding chapter, Bell, his editor or publisher could have titled this chapter, There is the New Here. In this chapter pastor Bell attempts to deconstruct the traditional notion of hell.
To demolish it, the author points out that âthe actual word âhellâ is used roughly twelve times in the New Testament, almost exclusively by Jesus himself.â(67) Rightly, he notes that the biblical words for hellâsheol, hades, gehenna and tartarosâcarry a temporal nuance about them. Bell points out that sheol or the grave, is an ambiguous term sometimes referring to the realm of the dead (See Genesis 37:35; Job 17:16.), while at other times to trouble in life (See Psalm 86:13; Jonah 2:2.). The term does not refer to a fixed state after death. Hades, the New Testament equivalent of sheol, carries the same hazy nuance about itâgrave or netherworld. Gehenna is a picturesque word Jesus uses to refer to the city dump to the south of the Old City of Jerusalem, suggesting to Bell that people can âtrashâ life, making it âhellâ both for themselves and those around them. Tartaros is a term Peter imports from Greek mythology designating âthe place where the Greek demigods were judged in the âabyssâ.â (69) After taking his readers through a concordance tour of these words, Bell makes the bold claim: âAnd thatâs it. Anything you have ever heard people say about the actual word âhellâ in the Bible they got from those verses you just read.â(69)
Anything you have ever heard people say about the actual word âhellâ they got from those verses . . . Right? What about the lake of fire? Is not this âfor ever and everâ placeâwhere God imprisons âthe beastâ and âthe false prophetâ (Revelation 19:20; 20:10); into which God throws âthe devilâ (Revelation 20:10); where death and hades are consumed (suggesting the dimension when hades-the-temporal becomes hades-the-eternal, Revelation 20:14); and finally, where those who were ânot found written in the book of lifeâ are consigned (Revelation 20:15)âis not this forever place relevant to any discussion about hell? Bell mentions the lake of fire, but only in passing.(112)
Nevertheless, what kind of time frame does John ascribe to the lake of fire? Bell notes that in biblical usage aion often nuances âa period of time with a beginning and an end,â or an âintensity of experience that transcends time.â(32, 57) So confidently, he asserts that aion âdoesnât mean âforeverâ as we think of forever.â(31-32) Seemingly there is no âforeverâ category of time for Bell. But John expresses the time frame for the lake of fire in multiples of forever-s! Literally, the lake of fireâs duration is for ages of ages, the longest period of time the Greek language, perhaps any language, can conceptualize (Greek plurals, tous aionas ton aionon, Revelation 20:10). Combined with âday and nightâ (Greek, hemeras kai nyktos), âfor ever and everâ becomes an atemporal statement meaning that 24/7, for ages of ages, the unholy trinityâthe beast, the false prophet, the devilâand others will be confined. The whole clause âexpresses the unbroken continuity of their tormentâ in perpetuity.[6]
Based upon Jesusâ statement that the goats âshall go away into everlasting (Greek, aionios) punishment: but the righteous into life eternal (Greek, aionios)â (Emphasis added, Matthew 25:46), Charles Ryrie notes: âBecause the same word is used it is impossible to argue that eternal punishment is not unending in the same way that eternal life is.â[7] In that Paul employs the same word âeternalâ (aionios) to refer to the âeverlasting Godâ (Romans 16:26), it becomes difficult to see how Bellâs temporal understanding of aion pre-empts the biblical teaching that the dimensions of hell and heaven exist in eternity and in perpetuity.
Nevertheless, Bell dismisses mention of the lake of fire for reason that âthe Book of Revelationâ is âa complex, enigmatic letterâ written âin an apocalyptic, heavily symbolic wayâ (111-112). He gives no attention to the ages of ages, the eternal maximum security prison into which the jail of hades will one day be cast, and he does so despite the fact that on other occasions, where it suits his purpose, he draws upon the Apocalypse to make the point that the presence, blessing and bliss of heaven are already here.(43, 48, 114-115) So it must be asked, by what imagination does an interpreter of Revelation pick and choose what is literal and what is not? Why not dismiss the whole book as symbolic of who knows what? But then, such an approach raises a bigger problem, doesnât it? For John warns:
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)
Admittedly, certain biblical texts suggest universalism. For example, Bell quotes Paulâs letter to Timothy, ââGod wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truthâ (1 Tim. 2).â (97) Other texts suggesting universalism are extant in the New Testament (See John 3:17; Titus 2:11; 2 Peter 3:9, etc.). Dealing with every text suggesting universal reconciliation (UR) goes beyond the scope of this review. But letâs look at the Timothy text which Bell employs to initiate his discussion.
Note: That God wants/wills/wishes (Greek, thelei) that all be saved indicates all are not saved, which is the point arguing against this verse teaching UR. If in the divine reality all persons from all times from all places from all religions are saved, then why âthe divine wishâ? Everybodyâs saved, arenât they? The fact that God wills/wishes/wants all to be saved indicates that all are not! Mounce comments that âthe text does not move into universalism,â and then points out that the statement resists âthe synagogueâs belief that God hates the sinner and wishes to save only the righteousâ and âthe gnostic belief that salvation is only for those âin the knowâ.â[8]
It can be charged that UR is fatalistic. Freedom of choice is violated to such a degree that even atheists are forced to spend eternity with a Person they do not like in a place where they did not want to goâwith God in heaven.[9] There are fools who mutter in their hearts, âNo Godâ (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). Sadly, the Bible describes some people as reprobate and âhaters of Godâ (Romans 1:26-28, 30). Are we to project that those individuals who possessed a deep and abiding animus against God in this life, both denying and despising Him, will derive one momentâs pleasure from being in the presence of the One whom in this life they loathed? Will God take them by the nape of their necks and drag them âkicking and screamingâ into heaven? Where is the responsibility of man? This raises the following question about hell: Never mind does God get what God wants (as if God is âneedyâ), but does man get what man wants? So âin the end,â writes Alistair McGrath, âGod cannot and does not make that decision for us. To affirm human dignity is to affirm our ability to say âNo!ââ[10] Similarly, C.S. Lewis wrote of hell:
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, âThy will be done,â and those to whom God says, in the end, âThy will be done.â All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.[11]
McGrath concludes that, âUniversalism perverts the gospel of the love of God into an obscene scene of theological rape quite unworthy of the God whom we encounter in the face of Jesus Christ.â[12] In a universal scheme of salvation like that proposed by Bell, love loses.[13]
If UR is true, then what is to be made of Jesusâ death? Why did He die? Why the cross? In light of the Sonâs agonizing death on the cross, are we to think of God like a liberal preacher of another generation thought of Him, as âa dirty bullyâ? Robertson McQuilken summarizes the dilemma:
For if all sin will ultimately be overlooked by a gracious deity, Christ never should have died. It was not only unnecessary, it was surely the greatest error in history . . . Universalism . . . demands a view of the death of Christ as having some purpose other than as an atonement for sin.[14]
When for reason of universalism the penal substitutionary atonement is rejectedâthat Jesus died for our sinsâthe only explanation left to explain Jesusâ death is that He died as a selfless example to others, the moral influence view of the atonement. In referring to the heroes of 9/11 and indicating heâs disposed toward such an explanation of Jesusâ death, Bell writes:
Who isnât moved when they hear those stories of selfless heroism. We talk about how inspiring it is when people sacrifice themselves for the well-being of another. To inspire is to give life. Their deaths for othersâ lives.â(131)
With that statement Bell tells us why he thinks Jesus died. He gave up His life to âinspireâ mankindâdeath for life. To Bell, the cross (like that he observed the rapper Eminem wearing in 2010) is âa religious icon, itâs a symbol of an elemental reality, one we all experience every time we take a bite of food.â(131) To press Bellâs explanation, Jesusâ death might be compared to an act as common as a human eating an appleâdeath for life. Bell explains that, âThis death-and-life mystery, this mechanism, this process is built into the very fabric of creation.â(131)
Of course, if Christâs death is to be an influence, there must be something within the human heartâwe might call it divinenessâthat will respond in kind to the example of Jesus. Yet radical depravity deters humanity from making an in-kind response to Jesusâ death. His death may move our emotions, but whether it will affect our wills is an entirely different matter.
Remember (during the 1970s) when âpet rocksâ were the rage? As he continues building his case for UR and employing Paulâs metaphorical reference to the pre-Christian Rock that followed and sustained the Israelites during their wilderness wanderings (See 1 Corinthians 10:4; Exodus 17:6; Numbers 20:11.), Bell tells readers, âPaul finds Jesus there, in that rock, because Paul finds Jesus everywhere.â(144) With rocks everywhere, itâs as if, in some incarnating way, rocks are âJesus-ed,â that a Jesus-Force permeates the whole of nature investing it with âI-am-ness.”[16] Betraying a pantheistic tendency, Bell describes Jesus: âHe is as exclusive as himself, and as inclusive as containing every single particle of creation.â(Emphasis added, 155) Jesus is as everywhere as rocks. In Bellâs worldview, an immanent Jesus consumes the transcendent Christ.[17]
Drawing upon the Genesis accountâwhich he calls a creation poem in which the Word speaks order out of chaosâand upon Paulâs letters where he mentions Christ created and sustains the cosmos (See John 1:1-3; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2.), Bell suggests that a Jesus-Force permeates nature. âThis energy, spark, and electricity that pulses through all creation sustains it, fuels it, and keeps it going. Growing, evolving, reproducing, and making more,â says Bell.(145, 144)
The inclusive everywhere-in-everything Jesus eschews any exclusivityâthe Jesus only-ism of the other versions of the Gospel story. Yes Jesus is alone says Bell in alluding to John 14, but âWhat Jesus does is declare that he, and he alone is saving everybody.â(155) This exclusivity/inclusivity is of, âThe kind that is open to all religions, the kind that trusts that good people will get in, that there is only one mountain, but it has many paths.â He goes on to say, âThis inclusivity assumes as long as your heart is fine or your actions measure up, youâll be okay.â(154-155) Bell writes that inclusivity âleaves the door way, way open. Creating all sorts of possibilities.â(155) Bellâs youâre-okay explanation is obviously pluralism, that many and variegated are the spiritual paths that lead up the mountain to God. Bellâs version of the Gospel also necessitates salvation by works, which according to Paul is another Gospel, one that deserves to be censored (Galatians 1:6-9). And all of this is premised upon a Jesus-Rock that accompanied Israel in her wilderness wanderings.
But does the authorâs rock(s) analogy conform to Scripture, to what Paul actually wrote? Did Paul really believe there are rocks everywhere? Note he wrote: âThe Rock was Christâ (1 Corinthians 10:4). Literally the Greek reads âbut the rock was the Christâ (n petra de nv o Christos). In both instances, the articles, first prefacing rock and then prefacing Christ, are monadic. In other words, there is only one rock and only one Christ, for monad means âoneâ![18] So the foundational biblical text, out of which Bell develops his rocks-are-everywhere thesis, actually contradicts his argument. And so does the word of Yahweh to the ancient Jewish nation. Through the prophet He told them: âDo not fear, nor be afraid; / Have I not told you from that time, and declared it? / You are My witnesses. / Is there a God besides Me? / Indeed there is no other Rock; /I know not oneâ (Isaiah 44:8, NKJV). Say again? There is no other Rock, says the Lord, I know not one.
Whatâs the âthatâ which the Good News is better than? Well itâs the old way of understanding an exclusive gospel that restricts heaven for only Godâs elect or the âI-just-want-a-personal-relationship-with-Jesusâ crowd. Bell writes: âSo when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will âget into heaven,â that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club.â(178) âThatâ refers to attitudes like the older brother in Jesusâ Parable of the Prodigal Son, who begrudged that his younger brother, after he had messed up his life, returned home to be reconciled to his father (Luke 15:11-32). So those not believing in UR are compared to that older brother who with a bitter and begrudging spirit, while the party was going on celebrating the return of his younger brother, refused to join in, thereby making his own hell.
So any who do not believe in the magnanimity of a God who will reconcile every person from every place from all time and from all religions, Bell compares to the older brotherâand for reason of peer pressure, who wants to be considered to be like him? As Bell writes, âAn entrance understanding [thatâs the older brotherâs] of the gospel rarely creates good art. Or innovation. Or a number of other things. Itâs a cheap view of the world, because itâs a cheap view of God. Itâs a shriveled imagination.â(Emphasis added, 179-180)[19] And who wants to be reputed to be an unimaginative or ungracious cheapskate, a Scrooge? We want to think, we want others to think about us, that we are better than that kind of person. But if you believe in the traditional heaven/hell realities after death, if you believe that stingy version of the Gospel, youâre like a bunch of killjoys who âdonât throw very good partiesâ?(179) In this, Bell consolidates his following by flattering his readersâ egosââusâ is better than âthem.â
Noting that âwe do not need to be rescued from God,â but that âGod is the one who rescues us,â that âGod is the rescuer,â Bell states: âThis is crucial for our peace, because we shape our God, and then our God shapes us.(Emphasis added, 182) Hum . . . we shape our God . . . isnât that idolatry? Old Testament scholar Peter Craigie cautions regarding idols, not of wood, but of words:
Too easily in our modern world we forget the implications of the second of the Ten Commandments; it prohibits the construction of images of God. And although few of us are tempted to construct an image of wood or stone, too soon we construct images of words, which can constrict the conception of God as readily as the material image.[20]
Wouldnât it be ironic, if in his desire to imagine who/what we want God to be, the author actually constricts the understanding of Deity? Do we really presume to be able to find God out? âFor who hath known the mind of the Lord?â asks Paul. âOr who hath been his counsellor?â (Romans 11:34). Do Christians live in a Magic Kingdom?
Bell recounts his conversion to Jesus as a young boy, when he said yes to Godâs love. âThat prayerâ he writes, âwas a defining moment in my life.â To Bell, this love is expansive and âJesus invites us to say yes to this love of God, again and again and again.â(194) To make life heaven, Godâs love must be trusted, the barriers to which are cynicism and skepticism.(195) And that makes trusting difficult. Those who canât make the leap of trust and choose to live without Godâs love permeating, activating and controlling them are people âwho âmiss out on the rewards and celebrations and opportunitiesâ that life (heaven) offers.(197)
Bell then ends his book with a poetic benediction to his readers:
May you experience this vast, expansive, infinite, indestructible love that has been yours all along. May you discover that this love is as wide as the sky and as small as the cracks in your heart no one else knows about. And may you know, deep in your bones, that love wins. (198)
In Love Wins, Rob Bell talks about a âbetter story,â presumably the one he, in an imaginative way, has created. But of his story, readers must ask the question: Is it just another story, a self-styled narrative parading as a metanarrative? In light of the very serious and eternal issues the book raise, the question needs to be answered by every reader.
In pan-evangelicalismâs big tent, Bell wants us to make room for his story, his version. âWhatever objections a person might have to this story,â he writes, âone has to admit that it is fitting, proper, and correct to long for it.â(111) Bell then pleads, âTo shun, censor, or ostracize someone for holding this belief is to fail to extend grace to each other in a discussion that has had plenty of room for varied perspectives for hundreds of years now.â(111) Are those who might reject his version of the story guilty of being ungracious? In the spirit of grace, should his version of the story to be given a pass?
So we ask, is Judas in heaven? To his face Jesus told him: âWoe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been bornâ (Matthew 26:24; Mark 14:21). Are we to think that Judasâ life was Judasâ hell, and thatâs it? Are we to think that despots like Nero, Hitler, Stalin, etc., men who presided over the genocide of millions, only made life hell for themselves and others, and thatâs it? Is not the lake of fire as much a danger for them as for âthe beast, the false prophet and the devilâ? Will divine justice to be meted out by God in the next reality based upon what men do in this reality? Throughout its pages, from beginning to end, the Bible anticipates there will be justice. (Revelation 20:11-15) If in the end only love wins, what kind of God are we talking about? Are we to think that heaven totally eclipses hell because we simply canât get past the emotional revulsion of the idea of it?
I hope Internet readers will not take this review to have been written in a censorious spirit. In a way, Bell is to be commended for stating in public what many post-evangelicals now believe in private. As a student of Scripture too, I want to know the truth about heaven and hell. But I do not find that Bellâs story of it conforms to Scripture; that the narrative he creates eclipses the metanarrative revealed by God in the Bible. Even though he quotes and argues from the Bible, in the end his story, no matter he imagines it to be otherwise, just doesnât fit the Book. So the reader must ask, is the author by biblical allusion peddling spiritual illusion? In answering the question, remember, thatâs what imagination can do (See Matthew 4:1-11.).
On this point, it might be noted out that what one might long for does not make it true. We may wish upon a star, but it makes a difference what we are. Once upon a time I wished I could play football in the NFL. But reality settled inâtoo slow, not strong, big, or quick enough. That persons might enter into eternity separated from the life of God forever is a stunning thought, something too many of us are far too casual about. Itâs a final state no Christian wishes upon anyone, even their worst enemies. But the final disposition of the matter, as it should, rests in the hands of the Father and His Son (John 5:26-29).
Finally, does God possess wrath? Arthur Pink (1886-1952) observed: âA study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness.â[21] We might imagine that itâs otherwise, but if the Bible is true, itâs not. Wrath is the other side of love. Subtract wrath from love and love is no longer love, the tension between which the vicarious and penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christâs for sin solves. Absent divine wrath, divine love gets lost.
Jesus, the Gospel of John 5:28-29, Emphasis added.
ENDNOTES
1. John Meacham, âWhat If Thereâs No Hell?â Time, April 25, 2011.
2. The Shack (Los Angeles: Windblown Media, 2007), the best selling story by Wm. Paul Young, also opts for UR. In a comfortable, schmoozing, and relational conversation about the Canadian rock musician Bruce Cockburn, Papa says to Mack, âMackenzie, I have no favorites; I am just especially fond of him.â Mack then responds, âYou seem to be especially fond of a lot of people . . . Are there any who you are not especially fond of?â After pensively contemplating the question, Papa responds, âNope, I havenât been able to find any. Guess thatâs jesâ the way I is.â (The Shack, 118-119) Bingo! God is as âfondâ of Judas, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and Osama bin as He is of Jesus. Itâs all one big âcircle of relationshipâ (Kum Ba Ya).
3. Greg Garrison, âMany Americans don’t believe in hell, but what about pastors?â USA Today, August 1, 2009. Online at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-08-01-hell-damnation_N.htm.
4. From hence forth, number(s) in parentheses refer to the page of Love Wins from which the quote is taken or the illustration occurs.
5. Of heaven and hell, Bell writes: âEverybody is already at the party. Heaven and hell, here, now, around us, upon us, within us.â (190).
6. Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8-22: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1995): 427.
7. Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1999): 608.
8. William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles: Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 46 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000): 85.
9. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York, NY: Hachette Book Group, 2007). Interview of Hitchens on the Charley Rose Show regarding his book âHitch-22â available at: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11168. In the interview and in explaining his family atmosphere, Hitchens reflects that his grandfather was a very strict and austere Baptist who didnât believe in life that was fun. He also takes the opportunity to dispel any rumor that in the face of death, there might be a last minute conversion with him. No, his mind is made up.
10. Alister McGrath, Justification by Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1988): 106.
11. C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, The Best of C.S. Lewis (New York: Christianity Today, Inc., 1969) 156.
12. McGrath, Justification, 106. Though he was an Arminian within the camp of open theism, Clark Pinnock (1937-2010) stated: âUniversalism is not a viable position because of the gift of human freedom.â See William Crockett, General Editor, Four Views on Hell (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996): 128.
13. Bell notes âLove demands freedom. It always has, and always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against Godâs ways for us. We can have all the hell we want.â(113) But such freedom exists only in the ânowââin the âlower stakesâ of life. Where is freedom regarding the âhigher stakes,â heaven or hell ânot yetâ? Is not freedom consequential to the coming reality after death? Given his overall argument, Bellâs admission of freedom is like so much window dressing. As regards this life all free to choose, but as regards the next life all are not. In Bellâs scheme, freedom has everything to do with the temporal, but is inconsequential for the eternal.
14. Robertson McQuilken, The Great Omission: A Biblical Basis for World Evangelism (Waynesboro, GA: Authentic Media, 2002): 41.
15. Compare Pastor Larry DeBruyn, âHere a âChrist,â There a âChrist,â Everywhere a âChrist-Christâ!â Guarding His Flock Ministries. Online at : http://guardinghisflock.com/2010/03/14/here-a-christ-there-a-christ-everywhere-a-christ-christ/.
16. Frederic Louis Godet (1812-1900) commented on this point: âBut the idea of the incarnation of the Christ in a rock is so contrary to the spirit of St. Paul, that one cannot entertain it seriously, and ver. 9 represents the Christ in the wilderness acting as the representative of Jehovah, from the midst of the cloud!â Commentary on First Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, Reprint of 1889 ed.): 485. Personally, I agree with Garland that Paulâs Rock reference illustrates Christ to be the source for divine blessing; that as He supplied sustenance and guidance to Israel in the wilderness, so He âis the source of all divine gifts and succorâ for the Church. See David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003): 458.
17. See Pastor Larry DeBruyn, âThe âHolyâ God: From Immanence to Idolatry,â Guarding His Flock Ministries. Online at: http://guardinghisflock.com/2011/05/08/the-holy-god/#more-1768.
18. See Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996): 223-224. Wallace writes that âthe monadic article points out a unique object . . . For example, âthe sunâ is monadic because there is only one sun. It is not the best of many suns, but is the only one.â So Paulâs monadic use of the article does not allow for many ârocks,â but only for one Rock.
19. âGod has an imagination,â writes Bell.(116) So using our imagination/mind becomes a means of connecting to the divine imagination/mind. Interesting . . . but also idolatrous. Of a pagan frame of mind, Paul wrote, âBecause that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkenedâ (Romans 1:21, KJV). Other versions variously translate âimaginationsâ (Greek dialogismos) as âspeculations, reasoning, thinking, thoughts.â What do we think God is like? âSimon says God is ____________. You fill in the blank. Do you think thatâs how God desires to be known? What do you think about people who make up stories about you? Are we Godâs counselors to tell Him what Heâs to be like?
20. Peter C. Craigie, The Problem of War in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1978): 95.
21. Arthur W. Pink, The Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1975): 82.
This article published with permission of the author. Original article is posted HERE. Pastor Larry DeBruyn is the author of the following books: UNSHACKLED: Breaking Away from Seductive Spirituality, Church on the Rise: Why I am not a Purpose Driven Pastor, and Drumming Up Deception. All three of these books can be ordered HERE.