In Love
Wins by Rob Bell, Love Doesn't Win Everyone
Bell,
Rob. 2011. Love Wins. Harper One, New York, NY.
. hb. or
pb. 202 pp. Table of Contents, Acknowledgments,
and Further Reading. Available on Amazon. Rating, 3 (out of a possible 5).
Introduction
Some Superlative Features of Love Wins
Bell's Personal Opinion
Some Changes Needed
Conclusion
I. Introduction
Bell's title Love Wins (LW)
is a clever inversion of Paul's famous words in I Corinthians 13:8--Love never fails (Greek: ē agapē oudepote piptei). There is
a deep syllogistic statement that emerges when I Corinthians 13:8 is combined with I John 4:8major premise
God
is love, minor
premise love never fails, conclusion God never fails. Yet we shall see that the author of LW, the
Rev. Rob Bell (RB), ended up claiming that at least in some cases, God will not
get what He wants.
In the year 2011, LW rapidly rocketed to a high position
on Amazon's best-seller list. One reason for this ascent was that Bell gave an
affirmative reply to a question that has haunted Christians for centuries: Can lost people ever
get saved after they die? RB's Bible-based yes is directly opposite to the dismal widespread
prospect promoted by numerous preachers in various denominations, the
troublesome idea that those who die outside the faith are expelled from God's presence, forever to face unending
judgment.
One other factor leading to LW's outstanding success may
be that the author is the popular pastor at a large and rapidly-growing emerging church, which, although
somewhat liberal, is nonetheless stationed at the edge of evangelicalism, the conservative core of Protestant Christianity. I
suspect that if LW had been written by an avowed liberal, or by
a minister from a denomination known for
its theological diversity, it would have found fewer readers and would not have
raised quite so many eyebrows.
In addition, this book was cast in a curt and breezy style that
probably appealed to the modern electronic mindset. And RB, like many other talented preachers, has
alluded to fascinating side topics and has used practical illustrations. For
example, he carefully described a painting in his grandmothers house to illustrate
how we often conceive of heaven as somewhere else. Many questions, such as the following, were raised: What really is
'conversion to Christ?' What is faith? and How can we be joyful in heaven if we will never even
see some of the people we loved here on earth? Concerning distorted views of God, on p. 9 RB related
an interesting approach he sometimes makes when talking with an atheist. First
he says something like this to the nonbeliever Tell me about the God in whom you don't believe. After listening for
some time, Bell then exclaims: You know, I don't believe in that God either!
II.Some Superlative Features of LW
I think this book's greatest
strength is that it promotes the likelihood of salvation occurring after death.
On this subject, RB's position in somewhat similar to that of
Dr. Billy Graham and the late Bishop J. A. T. Robinson (see Robinson's In
the End God). Bell's endorsement of posthumous reconciliation
is remarkable because he is an evangelical. Perhaps LW will open the
door for other evangelical pastors to abandon the teaching of Augustine and
Calvin on this subject, the terrible proposition that hell will last forever.
Reading LW may likewise lead many born-again Christians of various
persuasions to understand that salvation after death is not a damnable heresy but a Bible-based reality. This corrective hallmark of LW, by itself,
makes the book worth every penny of its price.
Bell has showed that the ultimate reconciliation of people to God
through Jesus Christ is supported by dozens of Bible passages including such
key free-standing texts as Romans 5:18-19, Colossians 1:20, Philippians 2:10-11,
I John 2:2, and hosts of others from both the Old and New Testaments. These are
the very scripture sections which, ironically, are ignored, downplayed, or revised by many
evangelicals, who themselves profess to believe that all scripture
is God-breathed
(II Timothy 3:16). RB showed that various well-known theologians in church
history, before and after Augustine, have championed the hope that God can and
does reconcile lost dead people, p. 107.
There are several Greek and Hebrew words that have been systematically
mistreated in most English Bible versions, with the result that they end up
fitting snugly with the everlasting torment view. RB has exposed these
underlying translation errors in a clear and readable genre. For example, he
showed that the Greek word aiōn
regularly refers to an age, having both a beginning and an end. It does not mean forever as so many Bibles
have it wrongly translated. Its adjectival form, aiōnion,
derives directly from it, and means aeonian or related to an age. Aiōnion in Greek does not mean forever, as is erroneously conveyed in most scripture
versions.
RB showed that gehenna
designates nothing more or less than the garbage dump southwest of Old Jerusalem
and that tartarus was a term borrowed
by the apostle Peter from Greek mythology to signify a temporary judgment
abyss. After demonstrating that these words, and the word hades too,
have nothing to do with our usual concept of hell, RB concluded by saying, ...and that's that p. 72. But in conjunction with all this, LW still
promoted the biblical notion that God will employ purifying judgments to cleanse
mankind, an idea that is rejected by many liberal theologians who have altogether
abandoned the reality of God's indignation (see p. 37.) Eventually, however,
Justice and mercy will hold hands in the age to come (p. 38) for God ...simply does not
give up on the creation (LW p. 36).
RB reported that
people, who favorably discuss the belief that God will reconcile lost souls,
are ostracized from the mainstream of evangelicalism. I have encountered such ostracism
and am pleased that RB made the following balanced assessment concerning the
censoring those who believe in total salvation: To shun, censor, or ostracize someone for not holding
this belief [everlasting hell] 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
(p. 111.)
III.
Bell's Personal Opinion
RB does not espouse the
full-blown universalist idea that God will ultimately
reconcile all lost peoplesee pp. 115-117. Nonetheless, on many pages from 95 to
116 and elsewhere in LW, Bell supplied a complete and comprehensive
overview of what Biblical Universalists teach, emphasizing the very scriptures
they use to support their views. Introducing this grand exposι
of total salvation, RB quoted I Timothy 2:3 (God wants all men to be saved), after which he
asked numerous rhetorical questions like: Will God take care of us? Are we safe? Will all be
feasting, as in Psalm 22? Will God get what God wants? Will all people be saved
or will God not get what God wants?... p. 98.
RB loaded his long exposition of Christian Universalism with Bible
quotations showing that all people, all nations, every knee, every tongue, etc.
will experience salvation. By using these, RB was demonstrating that God does
not fail, that He shows compassion to all, that His anger is short, that His
favor lasts a lifetime, and that God is not helpless. The author asked Will all people get
saved or will God not get what God wants? (p.
98). Once, RB even poked fun at the very
idea that God would fail to save, by jokingly suggesting that God might end up
saying, 'Well,
I tried. I gave it my best shot, and sometimes you just have to be okay with
failure.' Will God shrug God-size shoulders and say, 'You
can't always get what you want'? pp. 102-103. The
author displayed the total salvation view with such pleasant objectivity that some
reviewers of LW actually believe Bell himself to be a full-orbed universalist.
But Bell is not, and he looks at future events in a different manner
than do the universalists. RB believes God, based on His great love for mankind,
has put the highest premium on human free will. If any person repents and believes on Jesus, that
individual will, of course, be saved, whether now or later. But Bell speculated that there will be some
individuals who, in their head-strong rebellion against God, keep right on
resisting His grace. In His great love, God will grant those people their
desire--to remain permanently separated from Him for as long as they choose,
presumably even forever. But RB's view is not supported by the barrage of
scriptures he quoted. Those passages show instead that God's punishments are
remedial and temporary, drawing people to God, even as Saul of Tarsus was
dragged into God's presence while walking the Road to Damascus where he wanted
to execute Christian families. But instead of getting what he wanted, Paul
received what God wanted!
Dr. Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological
Seminary where RB undertook graduate study, has come to this same conclusion
about Bell's ideas. Mouw wrote on-line, that
Bell had ...not
crossed the theological bridge from evangelical orthodoxy into
universalism...Bell is calling us away from stingy orthodoxy to generous orthodoxy. Mouw himself evidently holds a view that he calls salvific generosity, which is similar to
the ideas of Billy Graham and certain others. Bell demonstrated that he is not
a universalist in these remarks: God gives us what we want, and if that's hell, we can
have it
(p. 72) Will
everybody be saved, or will some perish apart from God because of their
choices?
(p. 115) Now
back to that original question: 'Does God get what God wants?' is a good question,
an interesting question, an important question that gives us much to discuss.
But there's a better question, one we can answer, one that takes all of this
speculation about the future... and brings it back to one absolute we can
depend on in the midst of all this, which turns out to be another question. It's
not 'Does God get what God wants?' but 'Do we get what we want?' And the answer
to that is a resounding, affirmative, sure, and positive yes. Yes we get what
we want. God is that loving (pp. 116-117)! That's how love works...It always leaves room for the
other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins (p. 119). RB penned
numerous other statements like these on pp. 104, 115, and elsewhere, elevating
human freedom to a location higher than God's irresistible grace. RB elaborated
extensively on the idea that God and love will both win only if God lets people
choose and then gives them exactly what they themselves want. But RB's approach
contradicts the biblical view presented earlier in LW, namely, that
God's love expressed through Christ, remediates people and enables them all to
finally want what they ought to haveGod Himself.
IV. Some Changes Needed
While LW has great value,
it contains some peculiar problems and annoying shortcomings that ought to be
modified if and when a second edition is produced. A book of this caliber should
not go to press without an index, reference list, and/or a bibliography--and
yet, LW has none of these. When verses of the Bible are cited or quoted
in print, it is always customary to supply the verse numbers along with the
book and chapter. Yet in most cases, RB did not provide verse numbers, a
troublesome omission prevailing throughout the whole book. Sometimes, as on p.
7, the author cited and quoted another author without supplying the number of
the page from which that quotation was taken. In dealing with this complex
subject, RB did not reveal the background sources he used. There are many
classic and current volumes about these themes, books that Bell might have
mentioned. Doing so would have helped interested readers pursue the topic
further and might have assisted them in understanding the ideological bases
from which Bell has worked. As far as I can tell, Bell did not cite or quote
any of the volumes that he later listed in the section entitled Further Reading.
While the literary style of LW may have appealed to many
readers, it will surely frustrate others. There was the recurring use of incomplete
sentences like All
this, on a website. (p.
96) or Gehenna,
the town garbage pile. Sentences
were often split into segments, and then these short sections were printed on separate
lines, one after the other, as if LW were some kind of poetry, which it
is not. Certain of the chapter titles in LW are clear and descriptive
while some others, like the one for chapter 2 (Here Is the New
There),
shed little if any light on what the chapter might contain. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the writer
interjected off-the-wall remarks, like the following: ...the woman who wrote the book of Hebrews p. 10. This controversial
phrase was inserted without the benefit of scholarship supporting it and
without any apparent reason for including it. Although Hebrews may have been
written by a woman, no one really knows. Some workers suggest that its author
was a man and a
few still attribute authorship to the apostle Paul. Whatever the truth may be,
dogmatic, irrelevant, unnecessary, and unfounded statements like this one detract
from LW's value.
The terms poem, metaphor, and story received unwarranted usage in LW. On p. 133,
for example, RB classified the Genesis creation account as a poem. Bible
translators have put biblical poetry into the English poem format. They found
no reason to do this with Genesis chapters 1 and 2 because those chapters are
clearly prose, not poetry. Salvation through the blood of Christ should not be
described as ...merely
a metaphor,
like RB did on p. 128. Rob Bell showed an unfounded propensity to designate
many direct Biblical statements, such as this one concerning the blood of
Christ, as metaphors or simply stories, a word that carries
fictitious overtones, and even implies, whether intended or not, that the event
being discussed is nothing more than a story.
V. Conclusion
In my 27 years of studying
salvation after death, I have seen no other book on this theme (with the
possible exception of The Gospel According to Peanuts by Rev. Robert Short) that experienced such wide
circulation and popularity. May its wonderful message of God's love reach many
more readers who need to know that God's judgments will come to a permanent end. And may its talented author learn that God wills all
people to be saved, and that what God wills, will happen, always.
George F. Howe,
Ph.D., botanist and student of biblical universalism. georgefhowe@sbcglobal.net.