Love Wins?

This is a follow up to my last post about the promo video for Rob Bell's upcoming book release, Love Wins.

Disclaimer: I haven't read the book yet, and I'm really not making any judgements on the book itself; this is just about the video promo. If and when I read the book, I'll have a whole separate thing about it.

My Bible teacher showed us the video today. I didn't even have to bring it up, I should've known he would! Anyway, he had some GREAT insight on it. He asked the class what we thought of it, and a couple people were like "it was cool" and "it was like BAM!" haha. I said "it kind of sounded like he was doubting himself. Like when he said "Jesus saves us from God"? I'm not sure what he meant by that, and I've never heard it put that way..." and my teacher said, "That sounds to me like a man who beats his wife, drives her to the hospital and says 'look, I saved you!'" I LOVED that by the way. A boy brought up that Rob could've meant Jesus saved us from God's wrath in which case Rob just needs to be careful how he words things.

The main part of the discussion, though, was about Rob saying "But what kind of God is that, that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good? How could that God ever be trusted? And how could that ever be Good News?" My teacher set up a scenario. We're in a courtroom. Say I kill someone. Judge (God) says, "Did you kill this person?" I plead guilty. Judge: "You're sentenced to life in prison." Jesus: "Don't punish her, I'll take her punishment." This is what happens. What Rob is implying is that a loving God would never sentence millions of people to death.

Well look at this:
"Did you kill this person?"
“Yes."
“Oh, ok. Well you can go free and keep on doing whatever you were doing.”

Is that loving? Is that anything like the character of God? No! God is a just judge (Psalm 145:17). Besides, if He just let everyone go free, what would be the point of missions? What would be the point of Jesus? The whole thing just crumbles if you go Universalist.

The reality is: God is Holy (1 Peter 1:16 and countless other verses). Holiness: separation from everything profane and defiling; and at the same time, it is dedication to everything holy and pure (Spirit Filled Life Bible 171). See, sinners are literally separated from God. Way back when sin entered into the world, the world became cursed. Adam and Eve and their children and everyone who was to be born from then on were cursed. Sin nature took over. We are born sinful beings. God can’t even look at us because of His holiness. It was impossible for us to be with God. That’s why Jesus comes into the picture. He had to take the punishment for us. When Jesus was up on that cross with all of the world's sin upon Him, darkness covered the earth, and Jesus asks God why He has forsaken Him. (Matthew 27:45-46). But once the sacrifice was made, there was a way! (John 14:6). Once we accept the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are born again. God sees us holy. That’s love. That. is. LOVE.

So that is why a loving God sends people to hell. It’s impossible for something unholy to coexist with something that is holy. Hell is a place of eternal separation from God.

Does that make sense now?

I just went off on a huge tangent. I’m pretty sure I’ve never used 2 Bibles and a concordance to write a blog post, but I quite enjoyed it. I should do this again.

Now back to the book. I still don’t know if Rob Bell is a Universalist. He could’ve just spoken without thinking in that video and the book explains sort of what I just explained. I don’t know though. I can’t know until I read it. Either way, just pray for him during this. If anything, pray that he’ll see his error and somehow offer an explanation or something.
Thanks for reading!