Heaven, Hell, Universalism and Rob Bell - Part 1

A Look at the Theology of Rob Bell & “Love Wins”
Part 1

What are we Talking About?

On March 15, 2011, HarperOne
publishers releases Emergent
Church leader Rob Bell‘s new
book ―Love Wins‖.

The promotional video for the
book immediately raised
speculations in Christendom that
Rob Bell was a universalist, and
what has followed since then has
been one of the largest theological
firestorms in some time.

www.confidentchristians.org

What are we Talking About?

Everything started with a
promotional video that was
released of Bell‘s book ―Love
Wins‖. The video prompted
Justin Taylor of the Gospel
Coalition to speculate that Bell
was embracing and teaching
universalism.

Taylor‘s blog post on Rob Bell‘s book elicited a large response from
many people including Dr. John Piper who simply remarked,
―Farewell Rob Bell.‖

Piper‘s comments communicated that Bell had finally and fully set sail
from orthodox Christianity.

I was asked by gotquestions.org to write
a response to Bell‘s book and the concept
of universalism in general, which I did. It
was posted on the gotquestions.org
website, and I also posted it on my
personal blog. But not everyone agreed
with my conclusions.

The media frenzy caused by the
major discussions happening in
the Christian world caused Time
magazine to do a cover story that
asked the question ―What if
There‘s no Hell?‖

Speaking about the traditional
view of Hell, the article says,
―Bell, a tall, 40-year-old son of a
Michigan federal judge, begs to
differ. He suggests that the
redemptive work of Jesus may be
universal — meaning that, as his
book's subtitle puts it, "every
person who ever lived" could
have a place in heaven, whatever
that turns out to be.‖

Bell‘s book ―Love Wins‖ and
its accompanying
controversy has landed him
on Time‘s 2011 ―100 most
influential people in the
world‖ list.

The reach of Rob Bell has
far outgrown the 10,000+
members of his Mars Hill
church, and therefore it is
important we understand
what his teaching is and how
it affects people‘s spiritual
thoughts and lives.

Defining Terms and a Look Back at its History

What is Universalism/Ultimate Reconciliation?

Universalism (universal salvation),
or its more technical term
―Ultimate Reconciliation‖ is a
teaching that says every human
being, at some point, will
ultimately be reconciled to God.
Because Jesus died for everyone
(satisfying God‘s justice), each
person will – either in this life or
the next – be won over by God‘s
love and spend eternity with Him.


The Teachings of Origen

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 A.D.) is
widely thought to have been a
universalist. The African theologian, who
took an allegorical approach to Scripture
and was heavily influenced by Greek
philosophy, did not believe in the eternal
suffering of sinners in Hell. For Origen,
all created beings, even demons and the
devil, would eventually achieve
salvation, no matter how long it took in
the current life or in the life to come. He
reasoned that because God‘s love is so
powerful, it will eventually soften even
the hardest heart.


―No one can resist God‘s
pursuit forever because
God‘s love will eventually
melt even the hardest
hearts.‖
-Rob Bell
(pg. 108)



―So then, when the end has been restored to the
beginning, and the termination of things
compared with their commencement, that
condition of things will be re-established in which
rational nature was placed, when it had no need
to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil; so that when all feeling of wickedness has
been removed, and the individual has been
purified and cleansed, He who alone is the one
good God comes to him ‗all‘ and that not in the
case of a few individuals, or of a considerable
number, but He Himself is ‗all in all‘. And when
death shall no longer anywhere exist, nor the
sting of death, nor any evil at all, then verily God
will be ‗all in all‘.‖
-Origen
De Principiis, 3.6.3


―And so, beginning with the early church,
there is a long tradition of Christians who
believe that God will ultimately restore
everything and everybody, because
Jesus says in Matthew 19 that there will
be a ―renewal of all things,‖ Peter says in
Acts 3 that Jesus will ―restore
everything,‖ and Paul says in Colossians
1 that through Christ ―God was pleased
to. . . .reconcile to himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in
heaven.‖
- Rob Bell
(pg. 107)



Origin‘s restoration of all beings,
known as apokatastasis, is the Greek
word used in Acts 3:21 for
'restoration', and can be traced back
to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus,
who stated that ―the beginning and
end are common‖. Origen‘s belief in
ultimate reconciliation were
eventually refuted by Augustine and
condemned in 553 A.D. in a council
at Constantinople.


What is Universalism/Ultimate Reconciliation?
―A universalist is someone who believes that
every human being whom God has created or will
create will finally come to enjoy the everlasting
salvation into which Christians enter here and
now. Universalism is the recognized name for this
belief. . . .
Among Christian theological options it appears as
an extreme optimism of grace, or perhaps of
nature, and sometimes, it seems, or both. But in
itself it is a revisionist challenge to orthodoxy,
whether Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or
Protestant evangelical; for the church has
officially rated universalism a heresy ever since
the second Council of Constantinople (the fifth
ecumenical council, A.D. 553), when the doctrine
of apokatastasis (the universal return to God and
restoration of all souls) that Origen taught was
anathematized.‖
- J. I. Packer


The Teachings of Socinus

An Italian theologian named Laelius
Socinus who lived in the 16th
century, and his nephew Faustus,
revived the 4th century heresy of
Arianism - officially condemned at the
council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 - and
taught that the Trinity was a false
doctrine and that Christ was not God.
In that sense, they were ―Unitarian‖ in
their teaching.


The Teachings of Socinus
But Socinus went further and said that some
of God‘s attributes (e.g. His omniscience,
immutability, etc.) were optional and not
necessary, meaning He didn't have to
manifest them if He chose not to. Socinus
claimed that God‘s justice was optional, but
His mercy is mandatory. In other words, God
always had to be merciful, but He didn't
always have to be just toward offenses
committed against Him. Therefore, the logic
of Socinus progressed as follows: if God's
justice is optional, but His mercy is
mandatory, and if God loves all the world and
Christ died for everyone who would ever live,
then all people will be saved by God. In this
respect, Socinus and his nephew were
―Universalists‖.

The Majority Opinion on Hell
―Until the nineteenth century almost all
Christian theologians taught the reality of
eternal torment in hell. Here and there,
outside the theological mainstream, were
some who believed that the wicked would be
finally annihilated. . . . Even fewer
were the advocates of universal salvation,
though these few included some major
theologians of the early church. Eternal
punishment was firmly asserted in official
creeds and confessions of the churches. It
must have seemed as indispensable
a part of the universal Christian belief as the
doctrines of the Trinity and the
incarnation.‖
-Richard Bauckham
(―Universalism: A Historical Survey,‖ Themelios 4.2 [September
1978]: 47–54)


Recent Poll: Is Universalism True?


What Purpose Does Hell Serve in Universalism?

Origen saw the church as the great ―school
of souls‖ in which erring pupils are instructed
and disciplined, but for those who do not
choose God in this life, they would continue
their ‗tutelage‘ in the next through an atoning
and sanctifying process of purging fire.
Origen believed that Hell cannot be
permanent for any soul because God could
not abandon any creature. Since God
respects human freedom, the process of
winning over His created beings may take a
long time in some cases, but God‘s love,
Origen believed, will ultimately triumph.

Or as Rob Bell puts it, Love Wins (pgs.197-8).


―There is a Hell because we see Hell
everyday. Yeah we can resist and we can
reject what it means to be fully human and
good and decent and compassionate. So
yes, there is. And we have that choice now.
And I assume we have that choice into the
future. Yes.‖
-Initial promotional book interview

―We can create all sorts of Hells right now if
we want…‖
-ABC News Interview
(never asked the question if he believed in a literal Hell)

―A heretic is someone who is able to
choose…‖
-MSNBC News Interview
(never asked the question if he believed in a literal Hell)


Bell: ―To the question ‗are you a
universalist‘, first and foremost, no…‖

Question: ―Is it irrelevant as to how you
respond to Christ in your life now to
determine your eternal destiny?‖

Answer: ―It is terribly relevant and terribly
important. Now, how exactly that works out
and how exactly it works out in the future
now when you die, we are firmly in the realm
of speculation.‖

Interviewer: ―What you‘ve done is you‘re
amending the gospel, the Christian
message, so that it‘s palatable for
contemporary people who find the idea of
Heaven and Hell very difficult to stomach.‖

-MSNBC News Interview


Bell‘s view of Hell:

• There are ―all kinds of hell because
there are all kinds of ways to reject
the good and the true and the
beautiful and the human now, in
this life, and so we can only
assume we can do the same in the
next‖ (pg. 79)
• A ―period of pruning‖ (pg. 91)
• ―An intense period of correction‖
(pg. 91)


In Context:

―The goats are sent, in the Greek language,
to an aion of kolazo. Aion, we know, has
several meanings. One is ―age‖ or ―period of
time‖; another refers to intensity of
experience. The word kolazo is a term from
horticulture. It refers to the pruning and
trimming of the branches so it can flourish.
An aion of kolazo. Depending on how you
translate aion and kolazo, then, the phrase
can mean ―a period of pruning‖ or ―a time of
trimming‖ or an intense experience of
correction. In a good number of English
translations of the Bible, the phrase ―aion of
kolazo‖ gets translated as ―eternal
punishment,‖ which many read to mean
―punishment forever,‖ as in never going to
end. But ―forever‖ is not really a category the
biblical writers used.‖


What does the Greek Text Really Say?
The word ―aion‖, in context, does not refer to simply a long time and ―kolazo‖ is
nowhere to be found in the way that Bell describes… καταργέω means the waste of a
tree, lose its power, or cause something to come to an end.


What does the Greek Text Really Say?
The word ―kolazo‖ means to punish or penalize and can be used to speak of
a punishment in Hell.


An important look at the Emerging Church’s view of Scripture

Bell on the Clarity of the Bible

―The Bible is still in the center for us‖,
Rob says, ―but it‘s a different kind of
center. We want to embrace mystery,
rather than conquer it.‖ ―I grew up
thinking that we‘ve figured out the Bible,‖
Kristen says, ―that we knew what it
means. Now I have no idea what most
of it means. And yet, I feel like life is big
again – like life used to be black and
white, and now it‘s in color.‖
-Rob & Kristen Bell
Interview in Christianity Today


Tony Jones on Truth and the Bible

―We must stop looking for
some objective truth that is
available when we delve
into the text of the Bible.‖
-Tony Jones
Emergent Church Leader


―In the book, I write about
how some have believed
that all will be reconciled
and while I long for that as I
think everybody should long
for it, I don‘t take a position
of certainty because, of
course, I don‘t know how it
all turns out.‖
- Rob Bell
Interview with Time
Magazine


―Will everybody be saved, or will
some perish apart from God forever
because of their choices? Those are
questions, or more accurately, those
are tensions we are free to leave fully
intact. We don‘t need to resolve them
or answer them because we can‘t,
and so we simply respect them,
creating space for the freedom that
love requires.‖
-Rob Bell
(pg. 115)


But is that what Bell really thinks?

―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 and toxic and ultimately
subverts the contagious spread of Jesus‘
message of love, peace, forgiveness, and
joy that our world desperately needs to hear‖
-Rob Bell
Pg. viii, emphasis added


But is that what Bell really thinks?

Remember Bell entitled his
book ―Love Wins‖. That alone
communicates which side of the
fence he falls on, which is the
same side as Origen and
Socinus.

A Warning from Edwards

―It is by the mixture of counterfeit religion with true, not discerned and
distinguished, that the devil has had his greatest advantage against the cause
and kingdom of Christ, all along hitherto. It is by this means, principal, that he
has prevailed against all revivings of religion, that ever have been since the first
founding of the Christian church. By this, he hurt the cause of Christianity, in and
after the apostolic age, much more than by all the persecutions of both Jews
and Heathens. The apostles, in all their epistles, show themselves much more
concerned at the former mischief, than the latter.‖
- Jonathan Edwards

We’ll examine that in Part 2 of this series…

Heaven, Hell, Universalism and Rob Bell - Part 1

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