Universalism, Hell and the Bible Dr. Les Lofquist IFCA International Executive Director Many of you are familiar with the controversy, maybe from reading the blogs or seeing him on the cover of the April 14, 2011 edition of TIME magazine. Most of you have at least heard of Rob Bell, Senior Pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church of Grandville, Michigan. Rob grew up in Grand Rapids in the historically important IFCA church founded by IFCA Charter member M. R. DeHaan which hosted six IFCA Annual Conventions. He is from a godly home with a father who faithfully taught Sunday School in that IFCA church and who contributed a well-received article that was published in VOICE. [1] After graduating from Wheaton College and Fuller Seminary, Rob returned to his home church as an Associate Pastor. Then after serving for two years as an Associate Pastor, in 1999 Rob planted Mars Hill Bible Church which grew to 4000 attenders in a couple of months. A little over a year after its founding, Mars Hill moved into an abandoned mall one hundred yards across the street from the IFCA Home Office. The church quickly grew to 10,000 attenders. His fame grew as he spoke all across the country and produced the widely distributed NOOMA videos and wrote four best-selling books. As a communicator, Rob Bell is brilliant, a master of clever words, intriguing questions and thought-provoking stories. Recently Rob released his fifth book Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. In this book Rob has written: A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided, toxic, and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear. [2] In Love Wins, Bell argues that the church has allowed the story of Jesus love to be perverted by other stories. The story of an eternal hell is not, he believes, a good story. He suggests that a better story would involve the possibility of a sinner coming to faith in Christ after death. Reading Rob s book left me saddened beyond description. Rob has been headed in this direction for a number of years. But his newest book now confirms in writing that he has arrived at a destination where many feared he was headed. Bell s View of Scripture Where did Rob Bell s views on heaven and hell originate? Ultimately the controversy surrounding Love Wins goes back to Rob s view of the Bible. He does not believe that Scripture alone is authoritative and our final guide for faith and practice. This is clear from the following quotation in Rob s first book Velvet Elvis: It wasn t until the 300s that what we know as the sixty-six books of the Bible were actually agreed upon as the Bible. This is part of the problem with continually insisting that one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that Scripture alone is our guide. It sounds nice, but it is not true. In reaction to abuses by the church, a group of believers during a time called the Reformation claimed that we only need the authority of the Bible. But the problem is that we got the Bible from the church voting on what the Bible even is. So when I affirm the Bible as God s Word, in the same breath I have to affirm that when those people voted, God was
somehow present, guiding them to do what they did. When people say that all we need is the Bible, it is simply not true. In affirming the Bible as inspired, I also have to affirm the Spirit who I believe was inspiring those people to choose those books. [3] It is clear from that quotation that Rob Bell does not see the Bible as his final authority. The Bible alone is not his guide. And with that view, Rob is able to go any number of directions in his theology. And so he does in Love Wins. Bell and Universalism Most of Love Wins lays the groundwork for Christian universalism, especially the chapter titled Does God Get What He Wants? Basically, Rob espouses the theory that those who have chosen something other than God (such as self, injustice, evil, greed, tyranny) will be given an eternity of opportunities to accept God s free gift of reconciliation. Rob presents the theory that God s gift is so good, so loving and so compelling that eventually hell will be closed and all people will be fully reconciled to God through the saving power of Christ s life, death and resurrection. Rob insists that people who believe in Christian universalism should be considered just as orthodox as any other type of Christian. I heard Rob say in an interview that he is Evangelical and orthodox to the bone. [4] But what does Rob mean when he uses these terms? At its most basic level, Evangelicalism has been a movement that teaches the necessity of personal salvation by faith in Jesus Christ in order to go to heaven after death. Yet Love Wins does not reference salvation with that type of language despite what Rob may assert in his interviews. And what does he mean by orthodoxy? Theologians define orthodoxy by pointing to what the Bible says and what the classic Christian councils declared to be essential truths about the Bible and theology, from Nicea in A.D. 325 onward. An orthodox person is someone who believes the Bible and believes what those historic formulations said about the Bible. Rob attempts to prove that Christian universalism is just one of many orthodox thoughts in Church history. But his appeal in Love Wins to several early church leaders is somewhat misleading. [5] Church history demonstrates that many of the perceived universalist concepts of those early leaders (especially in the case of Origen) were rejected outright. [6] Throughout Church history there have been various views on heaven, hell and the fate of every person who has ever lived. They may be summarized as follows: Universalism is the general belief that all will be saved, regardless of religious beliefs. According to this view, the Muslim and the Christian are on the same basic path. And for universalists, all will be saved. [7] Universalism is related to pluralism. Pluralism focuses on the legitimacy of each religion and belief system and that each of them prepares a person for final existence with God. For pluralists, there is no unique saving place for Jesus Christ. [8] Christian universalism is a bit different. Christian universalism contends that all will be saved, but only through the saving work of Jesus Christ. Many in other religions simply don t believe such a thing, and in fact may say they don t want to be saved through Christ. But the Christian universalist contends that whether they know it or not, God saves everyone through Jesus Christ. [9] Evangelical universalism is a more recent teaching. It argues that God saves exclusively through Christ and that those who deny Christ, or who have not heard of Christ, or who have rejected God s natural revelation to them, will be judged and will experience hell. [10] But they believe hell is not eternal. Instead it is temporary. And once someone has experienced the judgment for his sins, by the
grace of God and through the merits of Christ, they will have an opportunity to respond to the Gospel. And this news will be so good and God s offer so gracious that eventually hell will be emptied and all will find redemption in Christ to enjoy God s salvation forever. [11] This seems to be Rob Bell s position in Love Wins, but the imprecision of his language leaves interpreting him and defining his particular view difficult. In Love Wins Rob Bell teaches that there is some sort of post-mortem, after death salvation. He wrote: [There will be] endless opportunities in an endless amount of time for people to say yes to God. At the heart of this perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God s presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most depraved sinners will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God. [12] Annihilationism or conditional immortality is another view. This view teaches that there still must be an evangelistic appeal and presentation of the gospel of salvation through Christ alone. This view maintains an exclusive claim of Christ as Savior and those who don t respond to the Gospel will be judged and will experience hell. But this view teaches that eventually the unbeliever s punishment will run out and they will be utterly destroyed and annihilated and cease from existence. When God s justice runs its course, the unbeliever will be utterly extinguished. Instead of an eternal consciousness of separation from God, this view teaches there are only eternal consequences. [13] Inclusivism is another view. This is the view that those who have never heard of Christ will experience the wideness of God s mercy. God s mercy will be wide enough to include those who have never heard of Christ but have responded to the light they have comprehended and will be judged on the basis of that light. [14] For some inclusivists, this number is few so that billions will suffer eternal and conscious separation from God. Other inclusivists would contend that many, if not most, humans will be finally saved. In contrast to the above views, countless other people throughout Church history have held to a different view of heaven, hell and salvation. Their view of hell has been based on what the Bible literally says and they strongly contend that orthodoxy demands such a view. This is where IFCA International stands. The Bible s View of Hell In the New Testament, hell is a destiny, the place where all who are outside of redeeming faith in Christ as Savior will eternally remain. Our culture, with its human-centered, self-absorbed, feel-good, secular mind-set tries to deny the awful reality of hell. Belief in reincarnation is rising. Many believe there is no absolute truth and relativism would certainly dismiss any notion of eternal judgment. And for those who are kinder and gentler, hell-talk is most unpleasant. It doesn't make people feel good. So some Evangelicals are a bit ashamed of hell. Many pastors avoid mentioning the subject in sermons, even though they may realize it is clearly revealed in the Bible. Some seem to believe that the concept of an eternal hell is unjust and unfair and so they apologize for the doctrine or explain it away. That s what Rob Bell is attempting to do, while asserting some sort of hell-on-earth-of-ourown-making.
Others are more bold: they outright deny the existence of hell. As J.I. Packer observed twenty years ago: "Some Bible-believers have shifted their ground with regard to the assertion of hell. At one time, evangelical Protestants stoutly maintained the unending agony of those who leave this world without Christ against all suggestions of universal salvation or the post-mortem annihilation of the godless, and they enforced the missionary imperative from the viewpoint of such as Hudson Taylor and Amy Carmichael- namely, that all need to hear of Christ because without him all are lost. Today, however, universalism, the doctrine of a finally empty hell, is rampant, and so are theories of salvation through non-christian religions and of unbelievers being finally snuffed out. Anyone who forthrightly affirms the older doctrine is likely to find himself an embarrassment to his own evangelical friends. Emphasis on the lostness of the lost has come to be almost taboo. The shift is startling. They know that, because of the world population explosion, more non-christians are alive today than ever before: will all those billions go to hell? The modern passion to find dignity and worth in all religions presses upon them, and their imaginations have been contaminated with the world's disgust at Jonathan Edwards's attempts to make vivid the thought that without Christ we are sinners in the hands of a wrathful (angry) God. Small wonder, then, if current evangelical declarations and delineations of the lostness of everyone without Christ are sometimes shaky and muted. Swimming against the stream can be hard, and being put on the defensive can cause failure of nerve. Yet the teaching of Scripture stands." [15] The teaching of Scripture stands indeed! In thirty-one different passages in the Gospels alone (not including parallel passages) we read about references to hell. The awful reality of hell is the subject of detailed teaching all throughout the Bible, and most explicitly in the New Testament. Some biblical descriptions of hell include the following: outer darkness (Matthew 8:12) weeping, gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8;12, 13:42, 50; 25:30) fiery furnace (Matthew 13:41-42, 50) darkness (Matthew 25:30) eternal fire (Matthew 25:41) cursed (Matthew 25:41) eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46) hot, agonizing flame (Luke 16:24) conscious regret (Luke 16:27-31) wrath of God (John 3:36) wrath, fury, distress (Romans 2:3-9) no escape (1 Thessalonians 5:3) separated from God's presence (2 Thessalonians 1:9) prison (1 Peter 3:19) blackest darkness (2 Peter 2:17) torment (Revelation 14:10-11) no rest (Revelation 14:11) fiery lake of burning sulfur (Revelation 21:8) second death (Revelation 21:8) This place of judgment, separation, eternal punishment, conscious torment, and indescribable regret is a bitter and troubling truth to swallow. Yet it is clearly taught in Scripture nonetheless. No wonder many attempt to explore any conceivable way to deny this terrifying destiny.
But as those redeemed from hell by faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, how are we to respond to the awful reality of hell? First, we must fall prostrate before our holy King and worship Him for His righteous judgment, His sovereign grace, His redeeming blood, and His offer of mercy through Jesus Christ, His Son our Savior. This kind of worship is the theme of heaven where the multitude of saints and angels sing, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain" (Revelation 5:12), and where they repeat "for You were slain and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation" (Revelation 5:9). We will rejoice that on the Cross our Savior bore our sin, satisfied the righteous demands of the wrath of the Father, and then rose from the grave to demonstrate His victory over hell. A proper estimation of hell protects from a shallow kind of worship. Second, we must shudder with the deepest sense of gratitude that we are saved from the horrors of hell and all pretense of self-righteousness will dissipate. Like John Wesley, you will refer to yourself as "a brand plucked from the burning" (a double reference to his rescue from a house-fire as a child and his rescue from hell as an adult). There will be no sinful arrogance in the life of a man who rightly understands hell and how close he was to its fire. Third, we must be sobered by the eternal consequence of sin and impassioned to earnestly present the awful reality of the hell that awaits the unredeemed. In other words, we will be aggressively evangelistic because after death follows judgment. But as Packer elsewhere has written: "To announce the reality of hell is a testing and grueling task. The compassion and fellow-feeling that should mark all Christian communicators required us to do it, not with gloating and contempt, but with tears, if not in our eyes, then in our hearts. Any appearance of offhandedness in our manner will surely discredit our matter, just because it discredits us as human beings. It is hard to take seriously a message from a messenger who does not appear to take it seriously himself, or at any rate not to feel about it as a good man should. R. W. Dale once said that D. L. Moody had a right to preach about hell because he so clearly did so from a weeping heart." [16] Conclusion The essential foundation for Christianity is that there is a God and He has truthfully, authoritatively revealed Himself in written form. All of our Christian faith is based upon the fact that the God of creation has given to us His accurate revelation which we call the Bible. Yet Rob Bell s view is that although it may sound nice, it is not true that Scripture alone is our guide. [17] And this view of Scripture has allowed Rob to deviate from what the Bible teaches. In one online interview, Rob asked: I don t know why as a Christian you would have to make such declarative statements. [Why would you] want there to be a literal hell? I am a bit skeptical of somebody who argues that passionately for a literal hell, why would you be on that side? Like if you are going to pick causes, if you re literally going to say these are the lines in the sand, I ve got to know that people are going to burn forever, this is one of the things that you drive your stake in the ground on. I don t understand that. [18] Well then, let me be clear. I don t want there to be a literal hell. In fact, I shudder whenever I seriously consider this subject. But this theological debate has nothing to do with my desire. The reason I am driving my stake in the ground on this issue is because God revealed this truth, and I am seeking to defend His revealed truth.
Theologian Wayne Grudem observed that the denial of the traditional view of hell often is one of the first steps away from Biblical orthodoxy. Because the doctrine of eternal conscious punishment is so foreign to the thought patterns of our culture, and, on a deeper level, to our instinctive and God-given sense of love and desire for redemption for every human being created in God s image, this doctrine is emotionally one of the most difficult doctrines for Christians to affirm today. It also tends to be one of the first doctrines given up to people who are moving away from a commitment to the Bible as absolutely truthful in all that it affirms. Among liberal theologians who do not accept the absolute truthfulness of the Bible, there is probably no one today who believes in the doctrine eternal conscious punishment. [19] I believe what God has said about the eternal destiny of those who die outside of Jesus Christ. Our Lord spoke very clearly about hell, using language that can only be described as explicit. He warned of him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28). The reason I believe and defend this doctrine is because God has spoken very clearly on the subject. And any denial of this teaching is a denial of God s very clear words. I also believe the essential definition of Christianity is contained in the Gospel (how we get saved from the terrors of hell and who gets saved). And all theologians, pastors and churches should be measured by their fidelity to the Gospel or their denial of the Gospel because the Church s ultimate message is about salvation and how we get saved from hell and who gets saved. Anything that muddles the message of salvation is appropriately in for immediate resistance from those who hold to the final and full authority of the Bible. That s why the message of Rob Bell s book Love Wins should be strongly opposed. And being compelled by the love of Christ, we in IFCA International must be committed to the passionate proclamation of the Gospel to all people because all men apart from Christ are lost and face the horrors of eternal judgment. Read that again slowly. And then shudder at its implications in your life and ministry. This is such a serious and painful subject to consider. Yet the clarity with which Scripture addresses it demands we accept it and proclaim it. Because God said so and the veracity of His Word is at stake. END NOTES 1 Robert Holmes Bell, Sr. You, Your Attitude & Government, VOICE, Vol. 75 No. 3 (May/June, 1996), pages 14-15. 2 Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (New York: HarperOne, 2011), p. viii. 3 Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) pp. 67 68. 4 Rob Bell, March 14, 2011 interview with Newsweek s Lisa Miller. This interview may be viewed at www.livetream.com/lovewins and a live blogged semi- transcript may be accessed at http://www.timschraeder.com/2011/03/14/love-wins-rob-bell/ 5 Love Wins, pp. 106-108. 6 Ryan Hamm, Review: Love Wins by Rob Bell, RELEVANT Magazine, accessed May 20, 2011 at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/books/reviews/25070-love-wins-by-rob-bell
7 Scot McKnight, Universalism and the Doctrine of Rob Bell, RELEVANT Magazine, accessed May 20, 2011 http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/features/24878-universalism-and-the-doctrine-of-rob-bell 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Love Wins, p. 107. 13 McKnight, Universalism and the Doctrine of Rob Bell 14 Ibid. 15 J.I. Packer, Foreword in Crucial Questions about Hell, by Ajith Fernando, (Crossway Books, 1991), p. x. 16 J.I. Packer, Foreword in Whatever Happened to Hell? by John Blanchard, Crossway Books, 1995), p. x. 17 Velvet Elvis, pp. 67-68. 18 TheOOZE.beta, An Interview with Rob Bell (July 2007), accessed at http://theooze.com/church/aninterview-with-rob-bell/ 19 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), p. 1151, n.16