With the fervor over Rob Bell's book Love Wins dying down a little bit and having read much about Bell's view of hell , I have to wonder how he can proclaim the gospel with any clarity or urgency ? The answer is he cannot. He might say he must but then again the gospel he chats about with his cool rimmed glasses and hip hair cut, resembles little of the orthodox gospel of classic true evangelical history.
The gospel is the a proclamation of good news. Now in order for it to be good news , one has to have some bad news as well to deliver . Bell really doesn't have bad news or even some kinda unpleasant news to bring because its all good in the end. In reality what Bell brings is a kinda of neutral news . Its great if you get on the Jesus train in this life , but hey ,eventually you will get on the ride sooner or later. The problem is it doesn't gel with the Bible unless you do what Bell does , cheery pick and reinterpret many passages. Check out Pastor Kevin DeYoung's excellent critique at http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/03/14/rob-bell-love-wins-review/ to see how Bell manipulates scripture.
The truth is one cannot read the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus and not see clearly that unless we repent and trust in Jesus , we will face a holy God in judgement. If there is no real hell other than the one we make for ourselves , the life ,death and resurrection of Jesus makes no sense . Just read the words of Jesus and see if you can find any hint of a second chance or the idea of hell eventually being empty. You cannot. The same with the rest of the New Testament . Unless you do some crazy gymnastics , the Bible clearly states that God's wrath and eternal judgement rest on all who die without Jesus Christ .
Bells views lowers the cross , dumbs down the work of Christ and makes light of the seriousness of sin , the holiness of God and the real truth of hell . To be honest ,if I held the same view of Bell , I would be like , well why should I worry about my family , neighbor or missions if its all good in the end. But that is not the truth , there is really tragic , horrible news but there is also amazing, tremendous , grace filled news in the gospel of Jesus Christ . That is good , good news.
Verse Of The Day : [10] And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. [11] For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
(Luke 2:10-11 ESV)
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