Rob Bell and Eternal Destinies

I know I'm really late to the party, but I had a lot of thoughts last week about the whole Rob Bell "Love Wins" controversy (for more info, click here, here, and here), and I wanted to share them, in case anybody wanted to read them.  I guess the central fear here is that Rob Bell, who has been called a "rock star" in the Christian world, is now teaching universalism, or that everyone will eventually be saved.  He also seems to suggest that good people in other religions, Gandhi specifically, can gain salvation without a Christian conversion.  The caveat here, of course, is that the book hasn't come out yet, so I'm not going to address Rob Bell specifically, but instead express some of my thoughts (guided, I think, by the Spirit through prayer and by Scripture) about some of these issues.

1) No one I know is a strict exclusivist

What I mean by this is that no one I know of is teaching that no one will reach heaven except those who have explicitly expressed faith in Jesus Christ by name.  To teach this idea would be to exclude Moses, Abraham, David, and all other Old Testament believers from salvation, as well as those who die as children or are otherwise mentally incapable of understanding the gospel.  When we say we believe that Jesus' death is effective for the Old Testament faithful as well as those of us on this side of the cross, we say that Jesus' sacrifice is applied to some who never encountered the New Testament gospel or knew the name "Jesus."  How relevant that is to people on this side of history, I don't know.  But it is certainly logically possible and arguably consistent with Scripture (see Acts 17:30) that in places where the gospel is unavailable, that God would not hold people accountable to it in the same way we who have heard are held accountable.  But this type of logical conjecture starts a vicious circle that I will address a little later.

Jesus is clearly the central figure in God's redemptive history; there is no other sacrifice for sins (Hebrews 10:26), no other mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), no other judge (2 Timothy 2:4), no other lord (Philippians 2:10-11).  It is inconceivable, then, that there could be any other means than through Christ for salvation.  Every Christian I know is, to some degree, an "inclusivist," meaning they believe that Jesus' blood is applied to some, even if it is just the Old Testament faithful, who did not know his name.  (Many or most would not consider themselves inclusivists, however, but when we who consider ourselves "exclusivists" attack others for greater degrees of inclusivism than our own we should keep that in mind that it really is a matter of degree). But "pluralism"--that salvation is also found through other religions or other good works--seems to me to be unequivocally unbiblical and false.

2)  The Bible teaches that people will go to hell.

Universalism is also unbiblical.  I don't like the idea of hell, and neither do you.  At different times, I've wanted to believe that instead of hell, there was annihilation (people would cease to exist) or that it was somehow redemptive (that people would eventually come out of hell).  But every time I look at Scripture, I just can't get past the clear witness that hell is forever, an eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46, Jude 1:7, Mark 9:48, for example).  Hell makes our mission as "ambassadors of Christ" pleading with people to be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20) all the more urgent--we are God's delegation in front of the coming wrath, showing people God's terms of peace before it is too late.

3) The wrath of God is difficult to understand

Recently I have been thinking about the wrath of God and how to come to grips with what it means that God could desire all to be saved and then also have to appease his wrath somehow.  One thing I came up with is that I think that our difficulty with it comes from our tendency to anthropomorphize God and equate his emotions to our own.  God's anger is not our anger.  It is the burning need for justice to be done.  Our sin is rebellion and blasphemy against our good and kind Creator who gave us life, refusing the life he gives to name ourselves our own creator and attempting to build our own life.  And this rebellion has ruined creation, ruined our race, and causes us to tear and devour each other, each person being someone God loves deeply.  God is not just annoyed by this; his very nature demands justice be done.  Our God is a consuming fire, and impurity is burned up in his presence.  When we die, if we have not been purified by Jesus before entering his presence, we ourselves are "impure" and the fire (wrath) of God will break out against us.  The point is that God cannot just "cool off and get over it" (like I might be able to do when my son makes me angry) and still stay true to his nature.  And to let impurity into the new heaven and new earth would be to break his promise to free us from suffering and pain and sorrow and death, which come from sin.

4) All this is a point of discussion, not conclusion

I can't grasp eternity.  It blows my mind to try to imagine dying and then some other existence beginning, to meet Jesus and stand before God in judgment.  The Bible gives us a glimpse of what it will be like, but it's only a word picture that is a shadow or reflection of the reality.  I can't stand on this side of eternity and pronounce certainty about all of these issues.  It's certainly OK to discuss issues about the salvation of those who do not have access to Christ or even what spectrum of people will be saved.  As someone has said, we should certainly hope that more people will be saved rather than fewer, but the bottom line is that we only have what has been revealed to us.  God, I think, left it vague for a reason, and if we claim to make it crystal clear and start trying to win others to agree with our conjectures, we are off base.  This, I think, is where we make the distinction between brothers and sisters with different viewpoints with whom we can have disagreements but stay on the "same team" and the "heretic" who is recruiting people to viewpoints that change our basic understanding of God and how we relate to him that becomes an enemy of the cross of Christ.  I have had lots of unorthodox thoughts here and there (and probably still have a few), but I'm not out there teaching them or writing books about them.  When we ask interesting questions, that's good, and good discussion and study can result.  To then take those answers, especially if they are out of line with what the church has taught from the beginning, and begin to teach them as truth is narcissistic at best and diabolical at worst.

Speculation and discussion about those who do not come to know Christ is not our earthly task.  Preaching salvation through Christ, urging people to know him and the abundant life--both now and in the world to come--that is in Christ should always remain our focus.

Bottom line: I am not authorized by Scripture to teach that anyone can enter into eternal life with God without putting his or her faith in Jesus.  We can ask the other questions, but any conclusion we come up with is just another point of discussion, not a conclusion, and should certainly not ever enter into anyone's foundational understanding of God and salvation.

5) Our job is to obey

This heading is a shout-out to my mom, who would ask us as kids, "What is your job?"  The correct answer: "to obey."  I think the primary danger of coming to firm conclusions about how the blood of Christ might be applied to those without access to the gospel is that these conjectures are based on logic rather than revelation and almost always lead to murky waters when it comes to the ethic of evangelism. 

For example, if those who are ignorant of the gospel are not responsible to its contents, are they all brought to salvation?  If so, is it then ethical to present the gospel to them since they will be tempted to reject it, placing their previously secure soul in jeopardy?  If not, how then is salvation determined?  On the basis of works?  Scripture is clear that no one can be saved by those means. 

How about this: Do babies who die before birth go to hell?  If so, how could they be guilty of sin?  If not, there are only two alternatives: one is that God, in his foreknowledge, did not create them as eternal beings and so they are not resurrected for heaven or hell.  Second is that they will all go to heaven.  Either scenario then casts doubt on the evil of abortion or even infanticide, because in the first scenario, these fetuses really are not human after all, and in the second scenario, killing the child ensures that child eternal life in heaven.

Scenarios like these seem to be one reason why God commanded the church to preach Jesus as the only way and trust his justice and compassion with the rest.  God has revealed only one answer to who will be saved: "there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."  God has given us one name and one truth upon which to act: that Jesus Christ, who is effective for salvation both in this life and the life to come, is worthy of the worship of all people and extends to everyone an offer of life. 

Any speculation that dilutes the urgency to exalt Jesus and to act and speak in his name is harmful to the mission of the church.