As an author that travels and speaks in evangelical circles, I read constantly. About two books a week, along with subscriptions to 10 or more magazines and the usual diet of blogs and news. It's a busy pace, but I have a good reason for it. I speak to about 100,000 evangelical Christians a year, and people are always asking me what I think about the latest book.
Over the past few months, one of the most common questions I get is what do I think about Rob Bell's book "Love Wins." Is Rob Bell right that hell is figurative and might not be forever? Or is John Piper right that everyone that hasn't personally accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will be eternally tormented in literal flames of fire?
I don't appreciate it when people duck important issues by being wishy-washy, so let me say upfront that I lean toward the belief that hell is a real place for those that reject Jesus. The nature of hell is less clear, but the reality that the scriptures teach of something very bad happening after death to those who consciously reject Christ is quite clear.
Unlike most authors who write on this site, I actually -- cue the boos! -- like John Piper. Love him or hate him, Piper is an excellent expositor of Scripture. He knows how to build his case from Scripture, and how to remain firm in his convictions. I admire that in a person.
I also appreciate what Rob Bell has done with "Love Wins." I pre-ordered the book long before the date of its actual release, so when Amazon delivered the book to my door, I ripped open the box, started reading -- and couldn't put it down. One of the things that struck me was how similar Rob Bell's approach to Scripture is to John Piper's. Both authors present diametric opposite views of hell, yet both authors rely heavily on Scripture to prove their case. John Piper relies on one set of Bible verses to prove his case. Rob Bell relies on another set. Bell's critics like to say that he doesn't believe in the authority of Scripture, but I didn't get that impression at all after reading "Love Wins." I think that Rob Bell takes the Scriptures very seriously. I don't think he's trying to sell a watered-down version of the Gospel so that he can make a name for himself, as some of his more cynical critics claim. I think that Rob Bell is as firm in his convictions as John Piper is, and for all I know, he could be right.
Actually, I hope he's right.
Something that's been troubling me lately about this whole discussion is how often Christians have come up to me and said things like, "What if Rob Bell is right? I mean. If everyone gets into heaven eventually, then what's the point in talking about Jesus to people?" Some of them even look disappointed at the possibility that hell might be empty and heaven might be full. It's almost as if they want God's grace to be limited to Christians only. My question is this: WHY does it matter? Would it actually change how I live my life if everyone is saved in the end?
I would like to think that it wouldn't.
A well-known pastor/theologian said of Rob Bell's book, "If you adopt universalism, then we no longer need the Church, we don't need Christ, or the cross."
Really??
So the only reason Jesus came is to die? Clearly Jesus died and rose again, and that's important, but is that the only thing Jesus came to do? What about his life? What about his teachings? What about the way he taught us to treat outsiders? Or how to treat the least of these? Isn't that important too? I like to ask people, "What if it turned out to be true that everyone will make it to heaven in the end, would that de-motivate you? Would you still attend your weekly Beth Moore Bible study? Would you still talk about Jesus with others? If not, then are you telling me that the only reason you're in church is because others aren't making it to heaven?"
It's true that some people are motivated by fear. I would assume that some people do begin to follow Jesus because they are afraid of going to hell. And I would guess that some of my Christian friends are motivated to share their faith so that these others will NOT go to hell. But overall, fear is a poor long-term motivational force. Love is the greatest motivator of all. I'm sure this is a controversial point, but we need to get beyond whether John Piper or Rob Bell is right. Loving God and loving people is the greatest commandment and far more important than whether or not there is a literal hell. Our motivations for wanting hell to exist (or not) might expose something inside of us that needs to become more like Jesus. After all, the one thing that Jesus clearly and always focused on were our internal motivations.
Whether people without a relationship with Jesus go to hell and burn, or go to some other place without God or simply cease to exist -- that's not good. Perhaps if we spent less time thinking about what and where that place is, and more time loving our neighbor, and even our enemies, the ones who might go "there" won't.
Carl Medearis is the author of 'Speaking of Jesus: The Art of Not-Evangelism.'
LOVE WINS - Rob Bell - YouTube
Rob Bell's Bridge Too Far | Christianity Today | A Magazine of ...
Cathleen Falsani: The Heretical Rob Bell and Why Love Wins
Rob Bell's 'Love Wins' Bad for Christianity? - US - CBN News ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjRcO1Sm0HU
www.whatthehellbook.com
Paul was clear that the message of an innocent Healer, rejected by His own nation, jeered by mob sentiment, stripped of every possession to die naked and de-humanised by a torturing execution, was foolishness to the Greeks. The philosophers of today hold Christ in the same contempt. How could an all-powerful God, revealed in human form, endure such a humiliating defeat? Surely, His dignity would exact immediate retribution on an epic scale. Surely, that kind of weakness is unworthy of God. Yet, the gospel portrays the God who reveals an important aspect of His nature by enduring injustice.
'They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?"' (Rev. 6:10)
Those words echoed the sentiment of the victims of Roman bloodlust, as Nero attempted to exterminate anyone who embraced Christianity. Today, they might easily be on the minds of Norwegian families. They may be scandalised by the idea that Anders Behring Breivik's accountability will end with a much milder death than the 77 murders (lives that begged to be spared) that he is accused of inflicting, after several decades of imprisonment at the taxpayers' expense. God's promise is that every human choice is respected in this life. He also promises that His justice will prevail as He respects the choice of the remorseless in the next.
Jesus being fully man was the discontent which led to the betrayal by Judas. Every word that Jesus spoke was given to Him by God to speak. In other words, He spoke not from His own authority but God's. Upon His return it will be by His authority to measure out justice.
And, I personally feel that He will avenge the deaths of innocents of all races and beliefs who suffered at the hands of tyrants, madmen, etc. As we learned with the death of Abel by the hands of Cain, that it was the blood of Abel which cried out to God. And, it is the blood of the innocents, past and present, which cries out to God even as I write this.
We are taught that not even a sparrow falls from the sky which God is not aware of. So, it should be easily understood that the death of an innocent man, the most beautiful of God's creation due to being created in His own image, will be avenged.
My problem with Piper - or rather, one of my very many problems with Piper - is not that he believes in eternal punishment, but that he is a Calvinist and professes double-predestination. It seems to me that you cannot have a good God if you both believe in hell and predestination. You must either be a universalist (like Barthes) or reject predestination (like the Catholic Church) if you do not want to turn God into a petty, spiteful, and arbitrary tyrant. A Catholic would be less willing to talk about an individual "relationship with Jesus" as the basis of salvation, too, and the inherently 'catholic' vision of Catholicism makes it easier, I think, to imagine that redemption might extend to all people.
God could have easily destroyed them, the ones who rebelled, in less than a fraction of a second. However, how would this have looked to the other angels who had not rebelled? So, in order to make those, (i.e., the non-rebellious angels), who had not rebelled against Him aware of His compassion he chose to not destroy them but cast them from Heaven.
When those rebellious angels still believing that they could equate themselves with God sought to pervert His new creation, (i.e., man), hell was created as a final judgement. Thus, giving the hosts in Heaven and man the opportunity to witness the justice of God.
In my estimation, God has been more than fair. How fair have you been with God?
God doesn't need you or your love. He may want you to love Him, but He gives you that as an option. Why are you so angry with God? God didn't create evil. Evil came as the result of free will. If you were God and you created a Heaven filled with beings, (i.e., angels), and you knew prior to creating them that some would rebel, as you have, and hate You would that stop you from going ahead and creating it? Do you not ever go to the beach just because you know you might get sunburned? Have you not ever got into a relationship with someone just because you think they might be wrong?
Would you have rather God created you as a mindless little robot who could do nothing more than love Him? Have you ever loved someone who didn't love you in return no matter what you tried to get him/her to love you? Were you evil for having loved that person? Do you not believe in the existence of evil? And, if you do what is it for you?
is flushed through their gills.
And the wind salutes the leaves.
They rest in earth's embrace.
And empty I sit before you.
With a fire raging inside me.
And I collapse Into the wind
My body gathered by the sea.
The wine cask is abandoned
Emptied of intoxicating ambrosia
Its pieces lay upon the shore.
Stroked by the sand.
Ah! What is greater than this rapture
Into which all things fall?
I know of neither heaven nor hell
Only this resplendent love."
Ishq, the Hidden Love
Ashik Jaya
Alas, I am not familiar with Rilke or Neruda. I will have to open up to their verses in time. I will comb the bookstores at some point for anthologies of both.
It is time for me to explore these poets besides Shelley, Byron and Keats and Yeats and Wordsworth, and beyond the Romantics across the Atlantic. My summer list is growing long and will take a few summers to traverse the prosaic depths of their prosody.. (pun intended)! Of course it will have to be in translation and not the German or Spanish original. (sigh)!
'Be not deceived: God is not mocked; for whatever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap.
For he that sows to his own flesh, shall reap corruption from the flesh; but he that sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit shall reap eternal life' - Galatians 6:7,8
Two people who lead lives of relatively the same level of "goodness" for seventy or eighty years end up with an eternity close to God or an eternity of torture. Perhaps the person who just gets into heaven was brought up in a family that was filled with love and still just barely made it. Possibly the other person was abandoned as a child.
When we read about humans who are made in God's image, it does not mean we physically resemble an invisible God. It must mean that we are able to think, reason, and love in somewhat the same way God does. In what way does this separation of numbers 70,000 and 70,001 in the afterlife make sense? A further problem is that people seem to be welcome to accept Christ at any time before death. Why should a death that may be completely accidental cut off any chance at further redemption? Why does the body, in effect, determine the fate of the soul?
God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit. Man is a trinity: body, soul, and spirit. Created in the image of God, Triune. When a man dies his body is dead, his soul is dead, and his spirit, which is the life force and a non-thinking entity goes to a holding place which it is unaware of. The soul is the cognitive nature of man...it thinks, loves, sins, etc.
When we die we are unaware that we are dead...because we can't think it or know it. Since, we can't think we are not aware of the passage of time. When we die we are neither in Heaven nor in Hell. We are simply waiting unconsciously for the return of Christ. We may be dead in our graves for hundreds of years...but, we won't know it. When Christ returns and calls the dead from the graves it will be in our estimation the passage of no time. In other words, from the second we breathed our last breathe until we are called by Christ will seem instantaneously...as if we hadn't died. Our lifeforce, (i.e., spirit), will be reunited with our body and soul.
If we had an eternity to choose whether to believe or not, without death accidental or otherwise being a faction, would that still be enough time for some people?
"It's true that some people are motivated by fear. I would assume that some people do begin to follow Jesus because they are afraid of going to hell. And I would guess that some of my Christian friends are motivated to share their faith so that these others will NOT go to hell. But overall, fear is a poor long-term motivational force. Love is the greatest motivator of all. I'm sure this is a controversial point, but we need to get beyond whether John Piper or Rob Bell is right. Loving God and loving people is the greatest commandment and far more important than whether or not there is a literal hell"
1 John 4:17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
1 John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
http://www.truechristianityevangelism.org/hell.html
http://www.truechristianityevangelism.org/koranhell.html
We expect punishment to be levied by our courts for crimes. So, the concept of punishment for wrongdoings is not strange to us but rather expected. We wouldn't let a criminal just run free to commit these same crimes over and over...would we?
Yet, many people expect God to just ignore the same situation and not meter out any punishment, (i.e., hell) in an afterlife. So, in essence many people are not wanting to allow God the same "rights" to punish as they give themselves.
b) Nobody, as far as I know in any modern society, is arrested and tortured for the non crime of unbelief.
God created man in His image. God is a trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Man is a trinity: body, soul, and spirit.
Most of the sins man commits are of a corporeal nature, (i.e., of the flesh). God will forgive all sins of a corporeal nature. However, there is one sin which God will not forgive and that is blasphemy.
Why? Most people think of it as a "mental" sin, (i.e., conscience sin of the soul). And, you would think to yourself where's the harm it's just a thought. Blasphemy encompasses the trinity of man. When it is just a thought it is directed only against God the Father, but when the atheists profess their lack of belief to others it becomes a corporeal sin against Jesus. When an atheist lives his/her life without fellowship with God it becomes a sin against the Holy Spirit. And, the atheist has not only sinned against the Trinity of God...but, has sinned against his own soul, body, and spirit.
Never, visit Iran or Saudi Arabia where atheism might get you stoned or beheaded in public. On some flights to those countries they will distribute visa forms for you to declare your belief. If you mark Jewish or atheist they will forbid you to enter the country.
I do think however that there is life beyond our 'death', and that we will be held accountable for our acts. It is the dual-principles of reincarnation and karma which provides for this. The priciple of reincarnation is that we come back to life as a human (not a bug or an animal) after a period of rest in order to 'play out' the karma that we have created in our various incarnations. As such, our 'heaven and hell' are right here on earth - based upon what we have previously sewn. Nothing remains 'eternally unchanged', and nothing is left unbalanced. We evolve over time. Pure cosmic order - but which to us doesn't always appear so.