Rob Bell: Leading People to Hell? Pt. 2

This is part two on the danger and reality of hell, and the danger of the false teaching that there is no hell.  Jesus declared John the Baptist the greatest prophet of all (Matt. 11:11).  When John saw religious leaders coming to hear his open-air preaching, which included a plea that the crowds "repent," (Matt. 3:2), John proclaimed something very significant to them and to the onlooking crowds:

"Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. . . .  The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." (Matt. 3:7-8, 10).

God sent John as yet another of many loving messengers warning people of the judgment to come in order that people might repent, turn back to God, the author of life and forgiveness, before it's too late. 

Just as John and Jesus faced false teachers, satan continues to raise up false teachers today.  The following is a second excerpt from a learned doctor from Cambridge responding to the apparent heresies of Rob Bell:

Would a loving God really send people to hell?  An upcoming book by Rob Bell suggests that the answer is no.

My goal is to show you that universalism [the false teaching that all will go to heaven no matter what] is wrong and warn you of some of the dangers.

Like classic liberals of the early 1900s, Bell is dangerous because he continues to use biblical words like God, Jesus, love, salvation, heaven, hell, lost, saved, etc. We are entering the same situation that J. Gresham Machen wrote about in 1923.

…the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology. (Christianity and Liberalism, 2)

Let’s start with the most basic term Bell uses: God. Bell says, “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.” That’s exactly right. So which God are we talking about?

We can’t pick the things we like about God and pretend the rest doesn’t exist. The Bible says more than God is love. It also teaches us that God is holy. He loves righteousness and hates sin. God is just and does not overlook evil.

² The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. ³ The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. (Nahum 1:2-3)

Yet He is also loving and compassionate (Ex 34:6). He is a God of love and of wrath, of mercy and punishment, of grace and judgment. We are always tempted to make God into our image, the kind of God we want Him to be. But we have to accept everything the Bible says about Him.

How could a God who punishes people still be considered good? Denny Burk put it well on his blog post.

You are asking how can God be good if He sentences sinners to eternal damnation, but I think you have the question backwards. The real question is how can God be good if He doesn’t send sinners to judgment. In other words, how can God be good while forgiving sinners?

This is the question Paul wrestled with in Romans 3, and he concluded that God set forth His son Jesus as a propitiation for sin. That means that all of the wrath and anguish that would have taken us an eternity in hell to endure, God poured out on His Son in the moment of the cross. God is good because He settles our sin debt in the cross of Jesus Christ, our substitute.
This is good news because God clears away guilt through the cross and offers eternal life through the resurrection of Jesus. Anyone who believes in Jesus in this way can have forgiveness and eternal life. This is more than good news; it’s the best of news.

Bell coined the catchy phrase, “Love wins.” That is true. But here again we have to ask, what is love? We can’t start with our 21^st century, American, upper middle class understanding of love and decide this is how a loving God must be. The Bible defines God’s love; we’re not left to imagine His love the way that seems best to us.

Right after John tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8), the Apostle writes,

⁹ In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9-10)

Christ’s death for sinners ultimately defines what God’s love looks like. God did not show His love for the world by ignoring sin, sweeping it under the carpet and pretending it never happened. He showed His love by dealing with sin through the sacrifice of His own Son, giving Himself for us at the cross.

Love wins because the cross wins. The cross is victory for those who love Jesus and defeat for those who do not.

The writer of Hebrews asks the right question, How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? (Hebrews 2:3) How indeed?  At the end of the day, there is no salvation outside of personal trust in Jesus Christ.

         Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life,
         but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:36)

Are you trusting in Jesus’ death and resurrection to save you from God’s judgment, from His fair and accurate judgment on your sin? If you have, God has given you life.

If you do not follow and obey this Jesus, you do not have God’s life. You don’t love Jesus. You are condemned to hell already. I beg you to trust in Jesus. He died and rose again to save you from God’s wrath and from your sin. He offers full forgiveness—glorious, complete pardon from every wrong you have ever done. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.