July 23, 2012 · 12:45 pm

Eternal Hell Belongs to the Gospel of Hope: A Response to Rob Bell’s “Love Wins”- Part 4- Bell’s Inclusivism

In this series on hell we have been responding to Rob Bell’s alternative vision of the Christian message.   In “Love Wins” Bell’s essential claim is that the traditional (he labels it “toxic” and “misguided”) view that some are saved by Christ while others are lost in hell forever turns the good news into bad news that drives people away from the opportunity to embrace Christ.  Moreover, he argues that this is not in fact the real message of Christianity– the true message is that “love wins” because God will relentlessly pursue everyone in love until every heart is won– even if this requires pursuit after one’s life on earth has ended.  For Bell, this triumph of God’s love is what the Bible means when it speaks of all things being reconciled to God  and all things being made new. 

Thus far in our series we discussed why in the first place Christians came to believe in hell as an eternal place of punishment.   We concluded that Scripture warrants this view and that the fact that the doctrine is naturally unpalatable is a proof of its validity.   Though a painful truth to contemplate, hell is important because it comes to us from Scripture, mostly from the lips of Jesus Christ.  For this reason we suggested that hell is an integral part of the gospel message, bound together with other key doctrines– the heinous nature of sin and God’s holy nature.  We can’t simply nor easily discard the traditional doctrine of hell.

We also took a brief historical look at how the Church has thought about the afterlife/hell and concluded that Bell is mistaken to locate his views within the orthodox stream.  In this post, we begin to examine  Bell’s particular brand of inclusivism, showing its ties to previous streams of thought.   Please note that this series is not a personal campaign against Bell– but strongly objects to the refashioning of the traditional Christian message Bell and others are presenting, as we think these innovations do incredible spiritual harm.

Bell’s thoughts on hell have precedents in the thinking of such disparate theologians as the heretic Origen (whom he follows in thinking God’s victory consists in full redemption of everything) and the reformed Barth (with whom he shares the thought that God’s sovereign power suggests that He can and will “get what He wants”, i.e., everyone saved).  In line with Victorian thinkers, Bell’s God is universally benevolent and a father to all, and Bell’s tendency to be embarrassed by the traditional view, and to re-define hell in metaphorical terms that place hell more in this world than the next, follows the liberal Christian trajectory.  His position on the scheme of redemption falls closest to inclusivism.  Yet I agree with Michael Wittmer, quoted earlier, who labels Bell’s position “incipient” or “functional universalism”.  Bell thinks the only people who may not be immediately won to God (I use this phrase since according to Bell, all are already saved) are those who by free choice resist God’s call; nevertheless he suggests that such people will eventually succumb to God’s relentless pursuit of them.

Bell’s inclusivistic, post-mortem view of salvation includes a partly metaphorical and partly purgatorial view of hell.  Bell rejects the traditional view that salvation involves conscious turning in this life to Jesus Christ in faith, so as to be rescued from the punishment and condemnation due one’s sins. Hell is neither a literal place of eternal torment nor a judgment inflicted by God, but the consequence of rejecting and resisting that love.  Bell writes,

God has no desire to inflict pain or agony on anyone. God extends an invitation to us, and we are free to do with it is as we please. Saying yes will take us in one direction; saying no will take us in another. God is love, and to refuse this love moves us away from it, in the other direction, and that will, by very definition, be an increasingly unloving, hellish reality. We do ourselves great harm when we confuse the very essence of God, which is love, with the very real consequences of rejecting and resisting that love, which creates what we call hell.[1]

Following liberal Christian theologians, Bell’s hell is what we experience in this life, our “refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story”.  Bell does claim to believe in a “literal hell”, but when he says this refers to the sufferings of this life, not the next.  He writes,

Do I believe in a literal hell? Of course. Those aren’t metaphorical missing arms and legs. Have you ever sat with a woman while she talked about what it was like to be raped? How does a person describe what it’s like to hear a five-year-old boy whose father has just committed suicide ask: “When is daddy coming home?” How does a person describe that unique look, that ravaged, empty stare you find in the eyes of a cocaine addict? I’ve seen what happens when people abandon all that is good and right and kind and humane.[2]

We have mentioned that Bell’s view offers postmortem opportunities for growth and salvation.  Indeed in Bell’s picture both heaven and hell are places where one gets to re-think choices and decisions one has made in this life.  Our time in heaven or hell will be a necessarily purgatorial process, since Bell thinks each of us will need a lot of work after death before we will be fit for heaven:

Jesus makes no promise that in the blink of an eye we will suddenly become totally different people who have vastly different tastes, attitudes, and perspectives. Paul makes it very clear that we will have our true selves revealed and that once the sins and habits and bigotry and pride and petty jealousies are prohibited and removed, for some there simply won’t be much left. “As one escaping through the flames” is how he put it.[3]

Bell’s salvation picture might be summarized then as: a loving God who is not angry at sin; a salvation already accomplished for us by Christ that we just need to open our eyes to see; heaven or hell is of our own making but never final since in our freedom we can always choose for or against God’s love; God meets us in whatever religious tradition we may be in; God won’t punish or condemn any to an eternal hell but will pursue and perfect everyone in love, even after death.

It is not surprising that such a view finds widespread acceptance in a Church infected by the modern sensibility that highly prizes human reason, freedom and individual choice, and which is increasingly dismissive of the traditional Christian worldview that once, but no longer, dominates Western thought.  In our next post we’ll examine the Scriptural case Bell makes for his understanding of hell.

[1] Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (New York, NY: Harper Collins, Inc., 2011), 177.

[2] Ibid. 71

[3] Ibid. 50

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July 20, 2012 · 10:11 pm

Eternal Hell Belongs to the Gospel of Hope- A Response to Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” Part 3- A Brief History of Hell

Until the nineteenth century almost all Christian theologians taught the reality of eternal torment in hell. Here and there, outside the theological mainstream, were some who believed that the wicked would be finally annihilated. . . . Even fewer were the advocates of universal salvation, though these few included some major theologians of the early church. Eternal punishment was firmly asserted in official creeds and confessions of the churches. It must have seemed as indispensable a part of the universal Christian belief as the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation. [1]

The change in the modern attitude towards the traditional understanding of hell can be traced philosophically and theologically.  In his essay, “Is Hell for Real”, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. notes that early church teaching on hell was based on New Testament passages and was viewed as “God’s just judgment on sinners who did not put their faith in Christ. It was seen as real and eternal, characterized by fire and torment”. [2]But a challenge soon arose.

The first major challenge to this view came from a theologian named Origen, who taught that everyone and everything would ultimately be reconciled to God. He reasoned that God’s victory could only be complete when nothing was left unredeemed, and that hell would not be eternal and punitive but rather temporary and purifying. Origen’s teaching was rejected by a church council held in Constantinople in AD 553, however, and the church’s consensus on hell continued to be widely held for another thousand years. Rejections of hell during these years were limited to sects and heretics. Indeed, hell was such a fixture of the Christian mind that most persons understood all of life in terms of their ultimate destination. Men and women longed for heaven and feared hell.[3]

Though a Christian understanding of life, with a framework of an eternal heaven and hell, was for centuries the dominant influence in European and American thought, it is an influence that has dramatically waned in the last few centuries, due to new patterns of thinking that began to emerge during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. As Dr. Mohler relates, various streams of atheism and skepticism first emerged during the 17th century, raising doubts about hell which continued into the Enlightenment and Victorian eras.  At first this changing thought did not infiltrate the Church, but in the 19th century, opposition to the traditional understanding of hell became more vociferous.  As the thinking on hell of Victorian preachers, writers and thinkers both in Europe and America was evolving, this in turn influenced the aristocracy and educated classes, and there began to be widespread calls for changes to be made to traditional Christian teaching.  But the evolution in thought was having a wider impact than just the doctrine of hell.

Victorian-era doubts about historic Christian beliefs were not limited to hell, though. As Western nations colonized countries around the world, Westerners confronted other people’s gods, practices, and worldviews. This discovery led some Victorian thinkers to emphasize the universal fatherhood of God, and they came up with ways to soften Christianity’s claim of salvation through Christ alone. In Germany, a “history of religions” school of thought treated Christianity as just one form of human religion alongside others, with all religions understood to be human inventions. Above all, when they thought about God, Victorians increasingly came to the conclusion that he was universally benevolent. This concept of a humanitarian God would have doctrinal repercussions in the twentieth century.[4]

In the 20th century,

Technological revolutions… led to an outlook that gave science and the natural world preeminence, with spiritual truths relegated to mere personal or speculative interest. As a result, the place of religion was diminished in the public sphere. Secularization became the norm in Western societies, alongside advanced technologies and ever-increasing wealth.  [5]

For liberal Christians, heaven and hell became more about the grim realities facing us in this life than the next.  Facing such horrors as the gas ovens of Auschwitz, we could witness “hell” right now, in the present.  Influential theologians such Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth, and Jürgen Moltmann also promoted ideas that departed from traditional views, with reformed theologian Barth holding out the possibility that God’s sovereign victory in Christ might lead to salvation for all.  Thus,

“By the end of the century, many liberal Christians had abandoned claims of exclusivity for the Christian faith. In accommodating themselves to the secular and antisupernatural worldview of the times, belief in a literal hell became incredible and unacceptable — an embarrassment to the Christian faith.”[6]

These historical trends bring us to our current day of pluralism, desensitization to evil, biblical illiteracy and institutionalized secularism, with Western emphasis on freedom and autonomy of the individual.  In today’s climate, the traditional teaching of a literal hell seems outmoded.  Modern technologies such as the Internet enable cultures around to mutually encounter one another in ways previously unimaginable.  Nations like America, with its diversity of religions, lifestyles, cultures and opinions living side by side, embrace “tolerance” as a supreme virtue, viewing this is as necessary to maintaining harmony and goodwill.  Everyone must be free to choose their own way, thus the Christian conception of heaven as destiny for believers and hell for non-believers, is seen as too exclusive and divisive, and as a relic from the past to be discarded and replaced.

In theological history, four general Christian schools of thought or approaches to life after death (literal, metaphorical, purgatorial and conditional) have appeared.  These in turn influenced various positions regarding the nature of hell.   The literal view has much in common with what we have been calling the “traditional” view, holding that hell is eternal, conscious, irreversible punishment.  But the literal view also is distinguished by regarding the Bible’s descriptions of hell (unending fire, worms that don’t die, black darkness, etc.) as literally true, whereas some traditionalists (e.g., Calvin, Martin Luther,) have considered these images to be symbolic in nature.

William Crockett, a leading proponent of the metaphorical view, defines it as follows, “the metaphorical view says that hell is a real place, a place of serious eternal judgment, but a place whose exact nature is best left in the hands of God.”[7] Some who hold the metaphorical view seem to be trying to escape or soften the painful physical realities of hell, but traditionalists who take a metaphorical stance think the reality the symbols point to is actually far more awful than the symbols themselves.

 The purgatorial view is mostly associated with Roman Catholic theology.  In addition to heaven and hell, in Roman Catholic thought there is a third state after death known as purgatory, in which a person not yet holy enough for heaven, but not sinful enough to be condemned to hell, goes through a painful period of cleansing of their sins.  Those who apply purgatorial concepts to hell see hell not as a final destination but as a place where sinners undergo rehabilitation, as God continues to reach out to them in love.

Universalism teaches that everyone will be saved regardless of specific deeds or religious beliefs.  As mentioned earlier, Bell has been charged with being universalistic in the ideas expressed in “Love Wins.”  Michael E. Wittmer does a good job of analyzing Bell’s position on this score.  He writes,

Bell’s emphasis on human freedom prevents him from becoming a full-fledged universalist. He does allow for the possibility that someone will reject God’s love and choose to remain in hell. However, it seems fair to call Bell, as with Barth, an “incipient universalist.”… Bell apparently believes that it’s unlikely that any mere human will be able to outlast the omnipotent God, who “never stops pursuing,” who “simply doesn’t give up. Ever” (p. 101). I also think it’s fair to call Bell a “functional universalist,” for one undeniable takeaway from Love Wins is that everyone who desires to leave hell will be able to do so[8].

Finally, inclusivism refers to the idea that everyone who will be saved is saved by Christ, but that the knowledge of Christ required for salvation doesn’t have to be explicit but may be implicit.  For example, a person may live as a faithful Jew, Hindu, or Buddhist, yet in their own tradition encounter Christ unawares and be saved by Him.

Having outlined the major approaches to the afterlife/hell and looked at a brief historical background on hell, we can now better evaluate Rob Bell’s postmodern take on hell.   We conclude that Bell is mistaken to locate his views within the orthodox stream, for we see that not only is this contrary to the historical record, but also that his view has more in common with lines outside of the mainstream.  In our next article we’ll continue our series on hell and how it fits into the Christian gospel, as we take a closer look at Bell’s particular brand of inclusivism.

[1] Richard Bauckham, “Universalism: A Historical Survey,” Themelios 4, no. 2 (1978, September 1): 47.

[2] Timothy R. Keller et al, Is Hell for Real or Does Everyone Go to Heaven?, Kindle Edition, ed. Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Petersen (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Location 86.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid. Location 160

[5] Ibid. Location 188

[6] Ibid.

[7] Zondervan Academic, “Four Views On Hell: An Interview With William Crockett,” Koinonia (blog), accessed July 2, 2012, http://www.koinoniablog.net/2011/03/interview-crockett.html.

[8] Michael E. Wittmer, Christ Alone: An Evangelical Response to Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” (Grand Rapids, MI: Edenridge Press, 2011), 71.

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July 19, 2012 · 2:30 pm

Eternal Hell Belongs to the Gospel of Hope- A Response to Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” Part 2: Why Hell is Important

Is Hell a real place of eternal flames, or do we make our own hells on earth by refusing to believe God’s version of our story?

Though hell is an uncomfortable, difficult topic to write about, I join with others in thinking a strong reply to Bell’s view is necessary.  I am convinced that only a Christian hope that is faithful and true to the Word of God is worthy of proclamation, and will bring real and lasting benefit to those who hear it.  It must be a Christian hope that, in line with Scripture, envisions God not only as perfectly loving, but also as consummately holy, and that sees human nature by contrast as desperately flawed and in urgent need of a Savior.

Accordingly in this paper I argue that Christianity has and must derive its ideas about God’s love and holiness, the nature of heaven and hell, and the destiny of mankind, not from what one would personally hope or wish to be, but strictly from the revelation of Scripture, rightly interpreted. While one can certainly sympathize with Bell’s desire that all would be saved by the love of God, our only authority for designating the precise parameters of Christian hope is the revelation of Scripture, not wishful thinking.  However well-intentioned they may be, ultimately Bell’s proposals are irresponsible and even dangerous in that they hold out false hope for unbelievers, and offer a confusing message to believers about what the gospel message is.  Bell sees a God who is never angry towards sin, yet in Scripture we find the good news of forgiveness and healing through Christ juxtaposed against the backdrop of God’s holy wrath against sin, shining all the more brightly against this dark reality.

To better understand and properly respond to Bell’s peculiar brand of inclusivism, we’ll look at the history of thought on hell, including discussion of the major approaches to the afterlife.  Bell is right to say his position is not new, and as we examine its historical precedents, we’ll see also his was always a minority view, not a central stream in the Church, as he claims.  Nevertheless his view does resonate with many today, and we’ll discuss why that may be.

Delving further into his argument, we will find that contrary to Bell, Scripture does not present either hell or heaven as a purgatorial process, nor are there “endless opportunities in an endless amount of time”[1] for postmortem salvation for all people, as Bell envisions. Instead Scripture repeatedly sounds the alarm that a future, literal, consciously-experienced heaven or hell is the destiny of every individual, and that this destiny is based upon choices one makes solely this side of the grave. These choices are therefore of utmost urgency and importance, with irrevocable consequences.

The doctrine of hell cannot be severed from relation to other important doctrines. The nature and significance of hell is intertwined with one’s understanding of such doctrines as revelation, man’s total depravity, and the interplay of God’s perfect attributes of love, holiness and justice, particularly in the work of the Cross. How one thinks about these other doctrines impacts how one will define and delineate hell. Bell’s view on hell suffers from a biblically defective view of revelation, God’s holiness, man’s depravity, and the work of the Cross.

Finally, the traditional doctrine of hell cannot be jettisoned without losing crucial aspects of the true gospel message: its exclusivity, its urgency, its emphasis that an infinitely holy and righteous God is perfectly just in executing punishment against all sin and rebellion against Him, even as He lovingly, mercifully and graciously rescues a multitude of sinners. He did so by sending His own Son to die for sinners, removing God’s wrath against them by suffering the very pains of hell on their behalf. The love of God powerfully triumphs over sin, not, as Bell surmises, because everyone is already saved and hell will at some point be emptied, but because God has accomplished through the finished work of Christ the definite, full and eternal redemption of His people, whom He called to Himself before the foundation of the world.

In the next post in our series on Rob Bell and hell, we’ll do a brief review of the historical background of thought on hell.  This will help us better understand Rob Bell’s alternate take on hell, which isn’t new but finds much common ground with liberal theologians.

[1] Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (New York, NY: Harper Collins, Inc., 2011), 106.

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July 18, 2012 · 1:44 pm

Eternal Hell Belongs to the Gospel of Hope- A Response to Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” – Part 1: Why Do We Believe in Hell, Anyway?

Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Jesus, in Matthew 13:40-42, ESV)

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ (Jesus, in Mark 9:43-48, ESV)

The fearsome, terrible nature of hell as described in Scripture makes hell an unpleasant and much ignored subject in our day, even in many Christian pulpits.  Yet because hell is such a visible component of the teaching of Jesus Christ, it cannot be ignored for long.  The traditional understanding of the nature of hell– eternal, final, conscious punishment of sinners– surely underscored in the minds of Bible readers in all ages the heinousness of sin against an infinitely holy God, bringing to the fore the Bible’s teaching that all are by nature condemned sinners deserving God’s wrath.  The traditional view taught that apart from sins being forgiven and atoned for by Christ Jesus, the sins of humanity condemn the race to future punishment in an eternal hell, forever separated from the life-giving God, and suffering the unutterably painful yet just consequences of rebellion against Him.  Could such an understanding of hell, so naturally repulsive and terrifying, have come about as mere human invention?  Why has orthodox Christian tradition through the centuries come to the consensus from reading Scripture that hell is indeed a place of conscious, eternal punishment?  It cannot be because humans desire such a place to exist.  Speaking of this, theologian Charles Hodge has written:

Much less can this general consent be accounted for on the ground that the doctrine in question is congenial to the human mind, and is believed for its own sake, without any adequate support from Scripture. The reverse is the case. It is a doctrine which the natural heart revolts from and struggles against, and to which it submits only under stress of authority. The Church believes the doctrine because it must believe it, or renounce faith in the Bible and give up all the hopes founded upon its promises[1].

Hodge asserts that the Church, despite natural aversion to it, believes the traditional view because of its appearance in Scripture.  Yet the reaction of others in the Church to proclamation of the traditional doctrine is altogether different.  They deny its Scriptural basis, claiming it has been read into the Bible and influenced by Platonic thinking.  The late Charles Pinnock, an annihilationist (i.e., one who believes that at death the soul is permanently extinguished rather than sent to an eternal hell) concluded that the traditional view “is fostered by a Hellenistic view of human nature, is detrimental to the character of God, is defended on essentially pragmatic grounds, and is being rejected by a growing number of biblically faithful, contemporary scholars.”[2] Popular pastor and author Rob Bell is also highly sympathetic to those who feel revulsion at the traditional view.  He suggests that rather than deriving from scripture, “the idea of hell is a holdover from primitive, mythic religion that uses fear and punishment to control people for all sorts of devious reasons. And so the logical conclusion is that we’ve evolved beyond all of that outdated belief, right?” [3]

Accordingly, in his book, “Love Wins, A Book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived,” Bell presents the view that hell is not a final destination of punishment and eternal torment, but is rather our “refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story”[4].  For Bell, heaven and hell are not fixed destinations, but purgatorial processes.  In the end, “love wins” because God conquers the heart of every individual by His tireless overtures of love, even if that process must continue beyond death.

Bell’s desire to promote an inclusive Christian message he thinks is more in tune with the loving heart of God than the traditional view might be commendable, if he proved scripturally his case that the traditional view is harmful and wrong, while his alternative is correct. The problem is that he utterly fails to accomplish this. His presentation not only casually dismisses the centuries-old Christian historical consensus regarding the nature of salvation and hell, but ignores clear scriptural testimony contrary to his vision, instead relying on highly speculative interpretation and arguments woefully short on sound exegesis to make his theories work.

Reading “Love Wins” stirs me and others in a direction Rob Bell likely did not intend— to defense of the traditional view of hell.  Why the outcry against Bell’s ideas, some might ask?  Do traditionalists take such sadistic delight in the thought that some will burn for all eternity that we feel compelled to take up arms for this view?  I believe rather that the response to Bell’s hell reflects an intuitive understanding that hell is a vital doctrine closely tied to many others in the redemptive plan, and that to redefine or discard it introduces theological imbalance and confusion in our common understanding of that plan.  But more than this, I think there is recognition that if our loving Savior Himself warned about hell more than any other person in Scripture, then telling the story of hell is not incompatible with love, for it is love that motivates His warnings.  In this spirit, a number of excellent and thoughtful works, including full-length books, book reviews, and blog articles, have been written in response to Bell’s work.  I have been impressed with many of these works in their strong rejoinder to Bell’s ideas, yet charitable tone.

So to summarize, we believe in hell because it’s a teaching we find in Scripture and most prominently, from the lips of the Savior Himself.  As we continue our series on Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” we’ll consider further why the traditional doctrine of hell is vital and not to be discarded.

[1] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Volume III (Grand Rapids. MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1940), 793.

[2] John F. Walvoord et al, Four Views on Hell, ed. Stanley N. Gundry and William Crockett (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 165.

[3] Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (New York, NY: Harper Collins, Inc., 2011), 69.

[4] Ibid. 170.

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July 17, 2012 · 5:58 pm

Eternal Hell Belongs to the Gospel: A Response to Rob Bell’s “Love Wins”- Introduction

Last year, Rob Bell set off a firestorm in the blogosphere with his book “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.”  The reason for the controversy about the book?  Rob Bell, a popular pastor and author with a sizable following, seemed to be advocating universalism,  offering his inclusive vision as an alternative to traditional, exclusive views of salvation, heaven and hell.  In the book, as well as in a promotional video released shortly before its release, Bell set out to raise doubts in people’s minds about the traditional view, often by asking a series of provocative questions.  Here’s what Bell said in his video:

Several years ago we had an art show at our church and people brought in all kinds of sculptures, and paintings, and we put them on display. And there was this one piece that had a quote from Gandhi in it; and lots of people found this piece compelling. They’d stop and sort of stare at it, and take it in, and reflect on it—but not everybody found it that compelling. Somewhere in the course of the art show somebody attached a hand-written note to the piece, and on the note they had written: “Reality Check—He’s In Hell.”

Gandhi’s in hell? He is? And someone knows this, for sure; and felt the need to let the rest of us know? Will only a few, select, people make it to heaven? And will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell? And, if that’s the case, how do you become one of the few? Is it what you believe; or what you say, or what you do, or who you know—or something that happens in your heart? Or do you need to be initiated, or baptized, or take a class, or converted, or being born again—how does one become one of these few?

And then there is the question behind the questions, the real question: What is God like? Because millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message—the center of the Gospel of Jesus—is that God is going to send you to hell, unless you believe in Jesus. And so, what gets, subtly, sort of caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what kind of God is that; that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good; how could that God ever be trusted? And how could that ever be good news.

This is why lots of people want nothing to do with the Christian faith. They see it as an endless list of absurdities and inconsistencies; and they say: “Why would I ever want to be part of that?” See, what we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it exposes what we believe about Who God is, and what God is like. What you discover in the Bible is so surprising, unexpected, and beautiful, that whatever we’ve been told or taught, the good news is actually better than that; better than we could ever imagine.  The good news is, that love wins.

The promotional video was amazingly successful in what such things set out to do: generate lots of buzz and debate about a book before its release. The blogging community was heatedly debating the book and Bell was generating great publicity through various media interviews. Bell even landed on the cover of Time magazine on April 14. The issue’s cover story, Pastor Rob Bell: What if Hell Doesn’t Exist?, published right before Easter, presented a sympathetic take on Bell’s effort to re-think the Christian message for a postmodern age.

Last year on this blog I too joined the fray, writing several articles critical of Bell’s views, as I began a series of articles in which I hoped to cover the topic of hell and offer a thorough response to Bell’s book.   In my initial reactions, I intuitively sensed that Bell’s book was headed on a dangerous theological trajectory.   Yet other priorities, including seminary, interrupted the series of articles.  But recently, I was faced with writing a term paper on the topic of hell for a systematic theology class, and chose to use Bell’s book as a thematic way to delve into the subject.   Thus I have had opportunity to analyze Rob Bell’s message in “Love Wins” again, more closely and systematically .  My sources for the term paper included a re-read of “Love Wins” and several book-length responses to it,  as well as several well-written book reviews and many other online articles on hell.   Having written my paper, I conclude that my initial concern about Bell’s theological stance was more than justified, and in the paper I defend traditional understandings of salvation, heaven and hell against Bell’s re-fashioning.  I have decided to turn the paper into a new series of articles I’ll present here.
As I write in my paper,

Reading ‘Love Wins’ stirs me and others in a direction Rob Bell likely did not intend— to defense of the traditional view of hell.  Why the outcry against Bell’s ideas, some might ask?  Do traditionalists take such sadistic delight in the thought that some will burn for all eternity that we feel compelled to take up arms for this view?  I believe rather that the response to Bell’s hell reflects an intuitive understanding that hell is a vital doctrine closely tied to many others in the redemptive plan, and that to redefine or discard it introduces theological imbalance and confusion in our common understanding of that plan.  But more than this, I think there is recognition that if our loving Savior Himself warned about hell more than any other person in Scripture, then telling the story of hell is not incompatible with love, for it is love that motivates His warnings.

I hope this new series will help readers think about what may be lost by abandoning the traditional view of hell, which, though unpleasant to contemplate, is an integral part of the gospel message.

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May 2, 2012 · 1:07 pm

Posts from the Virtual Seminary Front- “The Two Distinct Aspects of Christ’s Person”

I haven’t been posting articles very much, as I have been giving priority to seminary studies.  But the truth is there are things I’ve written and posted for seminary, or when commenting on someone’s blog article, that I have given much time, thought and effort to.   Why not, perhaps with some tweaking, re-post such items here on my blog?   Maybe some will be edified by the theological concepts I am learning about and writing on.

So I plan to try to do just that, and hopefully you will as a result see more “action” on this blog.  Here then is my first article along these lines.

What, according to T. F. Torrance, are the “two distinct aspects” of Christ’s person? What do we lose by emphasizing only one of those aspects in our theology?

The two distinct aspects of Christ, according to T.F. Torrance, are His humanity and His deity. Acknowledging and understanding both of these aspects of Christ, how they function and interrelate, is critical to a correct theological understanding of Christ, what He is in and for the believer.

If we emphasize only the deity of Christ but do not recognize His full humanity, then we are denying the reality the Bible reports: that God came down to Earth as a flesh and blood, historical man. Torrance says that if God did not become man, then He is still far away from us; and that any such docetic view “snaps the life-line between God and man, and destroys the relevance of the divine acts in Jesus for men of flesh and blood.” In becoming true Man while retaining His divinity, Christ lived a life of sinless obedience to God in our place, for His humanity, though not tainted by sin, was nevertheless subject to the weaknesses real human beings are prone to (e.g., He could be tempted by sin). In becoming fully human, Christ’s perfect record of obedience to God is transferred to us who are also human, when we are united with Him by faith. As Scripture says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).” Torrance writes,

Apart from the human obedience and human life and death of Christ, apart from His human sacrifice, we have nothing at all to offer to God, nothing with which we can stand before God, but our sin and guilt. But here in the full Humanity of Jesus, as it is joined eternally to His Deity in Incarnation and atonement, man’s destiny as man is actually assured and restored to its place in God from which he has fallen; man’s wrong has been set aside in and with the judgment accomplished upon the Humanity of Christ and now in His Humanity our new right had has been established before God.

Those views which envision Christ as God but not as a human often do so out of a philosophical presupposition that spiritual life is on a higher plane than fleshly life. Such thinkers believe that God would not have stooped so low as to become a real human being. But Christ the God-Man, by His life and death, redeems and restores both the spirit and the flesh of man, proving that the body is also important in the scheme of redemption. He is forever the God-Man, and when our redemption is complete, both our bodies and spirits will be made like His.

The full deity of Christ is also critical to our theological understanding of Christ’s life, and to our salvation. If Christ is not fully God, the entire significance of His ministry is missed. It is God who saves humanity, man cannot save himself. God saves humanity by reconciling men to Himself through Christ. But if Christ is a mere man, then Christ’s actions would not be synonymous with God’s actions– they would be the limited acts of a mere man. But Christ by His ministry declared in words and acts that He was more than just a man — He forgave sins, spoke authoritatively for God, commanded waves and wind, cast out demons, healed diseases, raised the dead, chose men as disciples (breathing spiritual life into them), and most of all, laid down His life for sinners, only to take it up again, demonstrating His divine authority over sin and the grave.

Viewing Christ as God, we also recognize that Christ’s incarnation and His death on behalf of His elect was something planned by the Triune God before the foundation of the world and that it was accomplished by the power and wisdom of God; it was something that man could never do for himself. It was divine wisdom that designed that the salvation of man must be accomplished by One both fully human and fully divine. As Torrance explains,

Our salvation through Christ is valid because the One who died on the Cross under divine judgement is also God the Judge, so that He who forgives is also He who judges. The reality of our salvation means that its reality is anchored on the divine side of reality, that the Lamb is slain before the foundation of the world, that He has ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and sits down with God on His own throne because He is God. Everything depends upon the fact that the Cross is lodged in the heart of the Father.

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January 27, 2012 · 2:50 pm

Gingrich’s “Moment”- Why Did It Resonate?

During the Republican Debate Thursday evening, January 19, just 2 days before the South Carolina primary,  the opening question from debate moderator John King is directed to candidate Newt Gingrich, and it’s a highly provocative one:

As you know, your ex-wife gave an interview to ABC News and another interview at the Washington Post and this story has now gone viral on the Internet.  In it she says that you came to her in 1999 at a time when you were having an affair. She says, you asked her, Sir, to enter into an open marriage.  Would you like to take some time to respond to that?

While the question is being asked, Gingrich’s demeanor is calm, but his eyes cast a steely glare towards King, as if he is ready to pounce.  Gingrich’s response is cool but forceful.  “No… but I will.”    The audience erupts in loud applause.

I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that,

continued Gingrich.  Suddenly the audience is on its feet, giving Gingrich a standing ovation.  King asks if he is finished, but clearly Gingrich isn’t. He continues,

Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary, a significant question in a presidential campaign, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.

My two daughters, my two daughters wrote the head of ABC and made the point that it was wrong, that they should pull it, and I am, frankly, astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate.

It was an amazingly dramatic moment in these debates.  Two days later, Gingrich went on to win a resounding 41% victory in South Carolina, besting chief rival Romney by a whopping 12 percentage points.  Analysts and commentators credited this key Gingrich debate moment to his strong  showing in South Carolina, as well as his continued momentum as the Republican nomination contest headed to the next state battleground in Florida.

That Gingrich’s debate “moment” generated such visceral empathy for him, with people apparently flocking to his side because of it, reminds me how certain well-made movies get audiences to root for the anti-heroes–charming guys who  just happen to be bank robbers, ex-convicts, Mafia, even serial killers.   These movies stir us to feel for these ethically-challenged characters by potraying them as flawed yet very human.

Perhaps the empathy for Gingrich in this case is quite understandable.  Just as we mistrust government leaders, the media likewise seems untrustworthy in its biases.  In our Internet age of reality shows, Twitter, Facebook and Google, it’s isn’t just public figures whose lives are continually exposed to all.  The average person may also feel that their privacy is being eroded.  Maybe we empathize with Gingrich because of our own growing discomfort with the overly intrusive presence of media in our own daily lives.

And yet the fact remains that Gingrich is a thrice-married man who carried on adulterous affairs during his first two marriages.  Does such behavior reveal something negative about the moral character of a man and thus his ability to govern?  Would it be unreasonable to surmise that Gingrich may have divorced his former wives as they became liabilities to his political ambition?  Or is he a dramatically changed man, as his daughters from his first marriage have testified, one whose new religious faith has made him a very different person today than he was then?

Despite sharing the empathy many felt for Gingrich in his “moment”, I still think that the questions about character that arise from personal behavior are legitimate things to look at as we evaluate the worthiness of candidates for high office.

I’m not concluding Gingrich is one of the bad guys.  He says he’s gone to God for forgiveness for his past mistakes.  As a Christian, I certainly believe that the grace of God offered through Christ gives believers the chance to start fresh.  Embracing Christ, we’re challenged to walk away from our past life of self-centered sin.  We do so eagerly, knowing Christ died to give us this opportunity for a new life, and trusting that God will work in us to make us progressively less sinful and more like Christ.  Is this what has happened in Gingrich’s life?  Time will tell.

So perhaps we got behind Gingrich in his “moment” because we’re all longing for a more dignified national discourse, one where noble ideals and solutions are what is served up for discussion, rather than reality-TV trash fare.  But intuitively and rightly, people still assess the moral character of a man based on behavior both public and private.  If Gingrich is truly a changed man who aspires to greatness for this country and as a leader, he’ll need to acknowledge that as he moves forward.

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October 8, 2011 · 10:27 am

Universalism vs the Gospel

I was reading Michael Patton’s recent thought-provoking post, “How to Prepare for Hell- A “Just in Case” Letter to My Unbelieving Friends” and in the comments section someone wrote that to properly share the love of Christ, they feel they must promote the doctrine of universalism (i.e., the belief that all will be saved, whether or not they believe in Christ).  They justified this by saying, ” the God we worship will by no means allow the vast majority of the human family to be permanently separated from him and his love for us is greater than the punishment that we deserve.”  A few months ago I was writing on universalism quite a bit, in response to the teachings of Rob Bell.   This is a theme that continues to be on my mind and heart a lot these days.  I believe the teaching of universalism seriously compromises the gospel,  appealing to the spirit of the age we seem to be living in, that says love= tolerance of all ways and all truths.

 

Here is my response to the commenter:

Certainly it is true that God’s love for us is greater than the punishment we deserve! Yet this love for us is always mediated through Jesus Christ alone, as He Himself declares. Unless one believes in Christ, they will die in their sins (John 8:24). No one comes to the Father, except via Christ the Way (John 14:6). If you have the Son, you have the Father, but if you don’t believe in Christ, you make God out to be a liar, for you deny His testimony about His Son (1 John 2:23, 1 John 5:10-12). Eternal life is found in the Son. We know we have the Son, when we believe these things. This in turn causes us to live for Him in this life.

 

But if universalism is true, there’s no need to emphasize these truths and include them in the presentation of the gospel. Moreover, it is not necessary to preach the gospel at all, since everyone is already on their way to God and heaven, whether or not they have the Son. But the Bible was written and the gospel must be preached so that we might know and believe these exclusive, life-saving, life-changing truths. So that we might find the Son, be found in Him, and escape the wrath that comes on those who remain in their sins. “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God (John 3:18).”

 

The truths about Jesus being the exclusive way to eternal life and to the Father, the only way to be given righteous standing before God and forgiven our sins, are clearly stated. “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:9-11).”

 

Universalism contradicts this, teaching or implying that one’s sins will be forgiven even if one does not know Christ in this life. But God is not obligated to forgive sins and give eternal life to those who reject His Son! Jesus’ purpose for coming was to remove our sins (1 John 3:5), but universalism in effect says we can stand before God in our own righteousness (i.e., apart from Christ) and still be accepted. To share the real love of Christ, tell the truth about sin & how Jesus alone takes away sin. Otherwise the “love” of Christ we share is but sentimentality that keeps people in their sins.

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July 31, 2011 · 4:36 pm

The Sovereignty of God- the Basic Principle of the Reformed Faith (Loraine Boettner)

The following article by Lorraine Boettner succinctly describes the Calvinistic or Reformed faith, by focusing upon its basic principle– the sovereignty of God and the implications of that sovereignty.  I recommend it as a good, clear  introduction to the basic ideas of the Reformed faith (further resources are also included at the end of the article).

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The purpose of this article is to set forth, in plain language and in terms easily understood, the basic differences between the Calvinistic and the Arminian system to theology, and to show what the Bible teaches concerning these subjects. The harmony that exists between the various doctrines of the Christian faith is such that error in regard to any one of them produces more or less distortion in all of the others.

There are in reality only two types of religious thought. There is the religion of faith, and there is the religion of works. We believe that what has been known in Church History as Calvinism is the purest and most consistent embodiment of the religion of faith, while that which has been known as Arminianism has been diluted to a dangerous degree by the religion of works and that it is therefore an inconsistent and unstable form of Christianity. In other words, we believe that Christianity comes to its fullest and purest expression in Reformed Faith.

In the early part of the fifth century these two types of religious thought came into direct conflict in a remarkably clear contrast as embodied in two fifth-century theologians, Augustine and Pelagius. Augustine pointed men to God as the source of all true spiritual wisdom and strength, while Pelagius threw men back on themselves and said that they were able in their own strength to do all that God commanded, otherwise God would not command it. We believe that Arminianism represents a compromise between these two systems, but that while in its more evangelical form, as in early Wesleyanism, it approaches the religion of faith, it nevertheless does contain serious elements of error.

We are living in a day in which practically all of the historic churches are being attacked from within by unbelief. Many of them have already succumbed. And almost invariably the line of descent has been from Calvinism to Arminianism, from Arminianism to Liberalism, and then to Unitarianism. And the history of Liberalism and Unitarianism shows that they deteriorate into a social gospel that is too weak to sustain itself. We are convinced that the future of Christianity is bound up with that system of theology historically called “Calvinism.’ Where the God centered principles of Calvinism have been abandoned, there has been a strong tendency downward into the depths of man centered naturalism or secularism. Some have declared – rightly, we believe – that there is no consistent stopping place between Calvinism and atheism.

The basic principle of Calvinism is the sovereignty of God. This represents the purpose of the Triune God as absolute and unconditional, independent of the whole finite creation, and originating solely in the eternal counsel of His will. He appoints the course of nature and directs the course of history down to the minutest details. His decrees therefore are eternal, unchangeable, holy, wise and sovereign. They are represented in the Bible as being the basis of the divine foreknowledge of all future events, and not conditioned by that foreknowledge or by anything originating in the events themselves.

Every thinking person readily sees that some sovereignty rules his life. He was not asked whether or not he would have existence, when or what or where he would be born, whether in the twentieth century or before the Flood, whether male or female, whether white or black, whether in the United States, or China, or Africa. All of those things were sovereignly decided for him before he had any existence. It has been recognized by Christians in all ages that God is the Creator and Ruler of the world, and that as such He is the ultimate source of all power that is found in the world. Hence nothing can come to pass apart from His sovereign will. Otherwise He would not be truly GOD. And when we dwell on this truth we find that it involves considerations which establish the Calvinistic and disprove the Arminian position.

By virtue of the fact that God has created everything that exists, He is the absolute Owner and final Disposer of all that He has made.

He exerts not merely a general influence, but actually rules in the affairs of men (Acts 4:24-28). Even the nations are as the small dust of the balance when compared with His greatness (Is. 40:12-17). Amid all the apparent defeats and inconsistencies of our human lives, God is actually controlling all things in undisturbed majesty. Even the sinful actions of men can occur only by His permission and with the strength that he gives the creature. And since He permits not unwillingly but willingly, then all that comes to pass – including even the sinful actions and ultimate destiny of men – must be, in some sense, in accordance with what He has eternally purposed and decreed. Just in proportion as this is denied, God is excluded from the government of the world, and we have only a finite God. Naturally, some problems arise which in our present state of knowledge we are not able fully to explain. But that is not a sufficient reason for rejecting what the Scriptures and the plain dictates of reason affirm to be true. And shall we not believe that God can convert a sinner when He pleases? Cannot the Almighty, the omnipotent Ruler of heaven and earth, change the character of the creatures He has made? He changed the water into wine at Cana and converted Saul on the road to Damascus. The leper said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean” (Matt. 8:2). And at a word his leprosy was cleansed.

Let us not believe, as do the Arminians, that God cannot control the human will, or that He cannot regenerate a soul when He pleases. He is as able to cleanse the soul as the body.

If He chose He could raise up such a flood of Christian ministers, missionaries and workers of various kinds, and could so work through His Holy Spirit, that the entire world would be converted in a very short time. If He had purposed to save all men He could have sent hosts of angels to instruct them and to do supernatural works on the earth. He could have worked marvelously in the heart of every person so that no one would have been lost. Since evil exists only by His permission, He could, if He chose, blot it out of existence. His power in this respect was shown, for instance, in the work of the destroying angel who in one night slew all of the first-born of the Egyptians (Ex. 12:29), and in another night slew 185,000 of the Assyrian army (II Kings 19:35). It was shown when the earth opened and swallowed Korah and his rebellious allies (Nu. 16.31-35). King Herod was smitten and died a horrible death (Acts 12:23). In Daniel 4:34-35 we read that the Most High God’s “dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation; and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” All of this brings out the basic principle of the Reformed Faith – the sovereignty of God. God created this world in which we find ourselves, He owns it, and He is running it according to His own sovereign good pleasure.

God has lost none of His power, and it is highly dishonoring to Him to suppose that He is struggling along with the human race, doing the best He can to persuade men to do right, but unable to accomplish His eternal, unchangeable, holy, wise, and sovereign purpose. Any system which teaches that the serious intentions of God can in some cases be defeated, and that man, who is not only a creature but a sinful creature, can exercise veto power over the plans of Almighty God, is in striking contrast to the biblical idea of his immeasurable exaltation by which He is removed from all weaknesses of humanity.

That the plans of men are not always executed is due to a lack of power, or a lack of wisdom, or both. But since God is unlimited in these and in all other resources, no unforeseen emergencies can arise. To Him the causes for change have no existence. To assume that His plan fails and that he strives to no effect is to reduce Him to the level of His creatures and make Him no God at all.

Further resources

A Brief and Untechnical Statement of the Reformed Faith by Benjamin B. Warfield

Reformation Basics

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July 20, 2011 · 3:34 pm

Back to Blogging

I’ve fallen behind with blogging.  Again.  Here are my excuses:

1) Recently I joined Google+, Google’s new social network and answer to Facebook.  I like it quite a lot, as the system is built upon “Circles”, a way of organizing friends and following content I think makes more sense than Facebook.  So I’ve been learning my way around Google+, updated my profile there, and have been sharing many items over there (by the way, if you want an invite, let me know in the comments);

2) I’ve been posting exceedingly long comments in the comments discussion of an article Is it Okay for Christians to Believe in the Doctrine of Hell But Not Like It? by Kevin DeYoung (these comments could easily have been turned a blog post here– maybe I’ll do that);

3) Went to see Paul McCartney in concert last Saturday;

4) Was sick with a bad chest cold a few days last week;

5) Put together a surprise birthday party for my wife, in which a really good time was had by all;

6) I’m playing with my cat too much, as she is very demanding of my attention;

7) I’ve actually been working on new article, but not posting it.

All of the above are really true (well maybe # 6 is a bit of an exaggeration)– and, I have been working on an exceedingly long  post in my eternal series on hell (pun intended), but keep getting distracted from completing it.

But honestly, the truth is I’m pre-occupied with trying to figure out my next 5 year plan, and making tough but needed decisions about career/ministry/seminary direction.  Integration of effort is what is needed, on many fronts.   Perhaps I can find a way to post to Google+, Twitter and Facebook each time I post here.   But “big picture” integration is what I’m most after– to figure out how to integrate my various passions and gifts in a more focused, fruitful way, and, of course, to stay vitally connected with God as I do so.

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