Rob Bell: Leading People to Hell?

Is hell real?  Would a loving God really send people to hell?  The Bible and Jesus provide point-blank, crystal clear answers to these great, honest questions.  It is vital you learn the answers.  But be careful who you trust.  Popular teacher, Rob Bell, appears to be trying to convince people there is no hell despite what the Bible and Jesus say.  That's like telling a blind man walking toward a cliff not to worry because there is no cliff.  Read what one learned scholar who received his doctorate from Cambridge wrote on the issue:

What happens to those who do not believe in Jesus Christ? Will everyone eventually go to heaven? Is hell a real place? And if it is real, would a loving God really send people there?

Rob Bell is asking these questions in a book set to come out later this month, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Bell is a hugely popular emergent pastor and author. Some 50,000 (mostly young) people download his sermons and some 96,496 people “like” his Facebook page as of this morning.

And now Bell seems to be embracing universalism [all go to heaven no matter what they believe].  Is this a problem? Short answer: Yes.

For one thing, [Bell]’s amazingly influential. He is a captivating communicator and many will follow him. HarperCollins must be delighted with the uproar that is rising weeks before the book is released. This is sure to translate into huge sales numbers.

For another, universalism is wrong, dead wrong. If we believe that Ghandi or any other unbeliever can be saved without trusting in Christ, as Bell suggests, then we have abandoned biblical Christianity for another religion. We have left the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.

It’s not as if the Scriptures are vague. Jesus spoke openly about hell. For instance, he warns us that everyone will stand before Him for judgment when He will reward God’s people but condemn all others.

⁴¹ "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴⁶ …and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (Matt 25:41, 46)

Since Jesus thinks hell is real, warning us is a very loving thing to do. And if hell is real, it is unloving to tell people there is no danger.

Likewise, Paul loved the young believers in Thessalonica enough to warn them about hell and the final judgment. When Jesus comes again, He will come

⁸ …in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. (2 Thess. 1:8-9)

Being banished from Jesus’ presence and glory is a fearsome punishment. He is the eternally satisfying, unspeakably beautiful Son of God. To be with Him is to be in Heaven. To be banished from Him is to be in hell—away from all light, life, love, joy, peace, comfort, pleasure, beauty, order, safety, and every good thing. It is eternal torment.

The vision John saw in Revelation is very graphic.

⁹ …If anyone worships the beast… he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. ¹¹ And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night… (Rev. 14:9-11)

It is passages like these that lead us tearfully to describe hell as a place of eternal conscious torment for those who do not love Jesus Christ. To deny the doctrine of hell we have to contradict Jesus, the Apostles, and the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures.

We can’t treat this like just an academic question. If this is true—if hell is real—we can’t go on the same way. If we believe that hell is real,

• we will have a healthy fear of God’s judgment. We will run from sin.
• we will love and treasure Christ more dearly. He is such a great Savior who delivers us from the wrath to come.
• we will cling to Christ more firmly for the strength to obey.
• we will do all we can to carry the gospel across the street and across the world. (emphasis added)

It would be unspeakably tragic if we evangelicals rallied to defend the doctrine of hell and were not moved to tears—and moved to action—by the fate of unbelievers. Which is worse: orthodoxy without love or love without orthodoxy? God preserve us from both.

More on this same topic tomorrow.