Chan vs. Bell

Just finished Francis Chan's Erasing Hell.  I was excited for it's release, although I now have some mixed feelings about it.   In interviews since its publication, Chan has said that he wanted this book to be able to stand alone ten years from now,  so although he responded to Rob Bell's Love Wins several times, that was not the main thrust in his work.  Having said that, I can basically divide his book up into two categories 1) Things that were great about the book and 2) Things that were not great about the book.

Things that were great about the book.
I think the biggest thing that impacted me was his research on the word gehenna which is where we get the word hell from.  He claimed in the book that gehenna was the Hinnom Valley.  No evidence, either literary or archeologically has been found to support Bell's view of hell being a burning trash heap outside of Jerusalem during the life of Jesus Christ.  Besides that, he took a test drive of Bell's interpretation and applied it to Scriptures:
"Whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the 'garbage dump' of fire. Matt 5:22
"It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into the 'garbage dump." Matt 5:29
"Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in the 'garbage dump.' Matt 10:28
"It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the 'garbage dump' of fire." Matt 18:9   (page 58 in Erasing Hell)
The reductio ad absurdum was brilliant here and well played.
He goes further in showing the significance of the Hinnom Valley.  This was the place in the Old Testament where the Israelites used to sacrifice their children to the Canaanite gods of Molech and Baal.
"When Jeremiah began to preach, the Hinnom Valley started to take on a metaphorical reference for the place where the bodies of the wicked would be cast (Jer. 7:29-34; 19:6-9; 32:35) "Behold, the days are coming...when it will no more be called..the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter" 
(Jer. 7:32)" pg. 61.
 It truly makes sense that Jesus would have this in mind, since he was the AUTHOR of the Scriptures.  When speaking in His time, Jesus was warning mankind, that apart from Him, one would end up in the Valley of Slaughter.  This was a metaphor for the lake of fire, which Jesus Himself later expands on in the book of Revelation.
These things I thought Francis Chan did really well on.

Things that were not great about the book.
The biggest thing was that he did not call out Rob Bell.  Even though he said it was not a direct response to Bell's book, he cited him enough times for the reader to know that he did have him in mind.  Here's the thing, Bell's ideas are not Christian.  They are not in step with the Scriptures.  His ideas are the things that Paul tells us to guard against.  They are heresy.  Chan seemed to bend over backwards at times in complementing Bell.  On page 23 he says that Bell puts his position forward with "creativity and wit." This is unfortunate.  When Paul was warning the church of heretics in 2 Timothy 2, he called their teaching 'gangrene.'  Last time I checked gangrene wasn't creative or witty.
Secondly, he says that there are three types of Universalists: one that is non-Christian, and two that are Christian.  In other words Christian Universalists (pg. 24-25).  Chan is just plain wrong here.  Those two terms are mutually exclusive.  If you are Christian (a follower of Christ), by definition you hold that not all will be saved (regardless of what people claim today--a Christian means a particular thing and not something else.)  If you are a Universalist, by definition, you believe that all will be saved.  Those two terms cannot go together.  It's like saying square circles, or married bachelors.  This is not helpful coming from Chan.
So overall, good Biblical defense on the doctrine of hell.  However, in leaving the church to think that Bell is still on 'our team', I think he didn't go far enough in protecting the church from gangrene.

Review of Rob Bell's 'Love Wins' Part 5

Chapter 4:  Does God Get What He Wants?


My answer to that question is the same as Bell's which is yes.  The problem is, his god desires mankind as his highest end, and the Scriptures have God's glory being his highest end.  Two different starting points and two different ending points.
He opens the chapter by saying that you can check out what a church believes by going to their website.   On three such visits for him, he found the following statements:
"The unsaved will be separated forever from God in hell"
and
"Those who don't believe in Jesus will be sent to eternal punishment in hell"
and
"The unsaved dead will be committed to an eternal conscious punishment." --pg. 95-96
Quickly after making these observations he makes this statement:
"Yet on these very same websites extensive affirmations of the goodness and greatness of God, proclamations and statements of belief about a God who is 'mighty,' 'powerful,' loving,'  'unchanging,' 'sovereign,' 'full of grace and mercy,' and 'all-knowing.' pg. 96-97
That word 'Yet' there tells it all, and so does the rest of this chapter.  First of all the Scripture, which Bell denies, affirms all of those statements. 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 says
For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.
and Revelation 20:10,15
And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever...and if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
These scriptures clearly and unequivocally shut the mouth of the "christian" skeptic.  Now Bell tries do do Scriptural acrobatics to get around these, but they fail.
Secondly what Bell is doing here is creating a false dilemma.  "Do people go to hell or does God get what he wants?"  "Do people go to hell or is God good?"   God's word seems to have no problem answering that question. The problem is Bell thinks this God is a monster, which should tell all of Christendom that this guy is clearly outside of the "stream" of orthodoxy.
Thirdly, Bell here is clearly claiming universalism again.  He doesn't use the word, but the idea is there.
"Will all people be saved or will God not get what he wants" pg. 98
Again false dilemma.  He quotes 1 Tim 1:2
"God wants all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth."
He rips it out of context.  Verse one speaks of praying for kings and those in authority (as well as the common man), "all men" or better yet "all types of men." So verse two: "God wants all people (all types of people-not just the poor but kings and politicians alike) to be saved.  The reason why I can say that is the proper translation is because of the rest of Scripture.  All of Scripture must be consistent with itself otherwise it has error and God is a liar--2 Timothy 3:16.  Romans 9:19 says
"...who resists his will?"
It's rhetorical.  No one can.  If God ultimately wills something to happen.  It will happen.  Every time, all the time.
Even if you don't accept my interpretation which has been the historical interpretation, think about this:  Why aren't all people saved if God wills it, and He is God?
Answer: He must have other desires higher than this one, which is really what this whole book is trying to suppress.
God's highest desire is the glorification of Himself.
Everything else is subservient to that.
That is Christianity.
Bell deduces that God's highest desire is man
The Bible declares that God's highest desire is the glorification of Himself.  Romans 11:36 says
For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
Bell's basic premise is that God is man-centered.  This would be idolatry on God's part because He would be putting something over and above Himself which he prohibits in His Word.

Review of Rob Bell's 'Love Wins' Part 1

Better late than never...

I know that this book came out about 7 weeks ago, but I have been occupied with other things and could not get all the way through it until now.

One prefatory remark before I start.  I do not know Rob Bell.  I'm not writing this because of my like or dislike of his personhood, or the size of his church or the labels that have attached to his name.   I'm critiquing his propositions or his ideas not his personality or his ego.  That's an important distinction to make because the Scripture makes it.  We are not to judge the person's soul, that is God's job; but we are to test all things and hold fast to what is true.  Please remember that.  Everybody's ideas are supposed to be held up to the ultimate standard of truth, being the Scriptures, and we shouldn't be afraid of doing that. To say critiquing somebody's ideas is off limits or divisive is to nullify Luke's commendation of the Bereans for searching the Scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true. (cf. Acts 17:11)

Having said that lets begin.

Preface Millions of us

Everybody has a systematic theology.  Even people who claim that they don't. Everybody has a lens in which they look through the Scripture.  Even Rob Bell.  His shows up, not only on the back of the dust jacket, but also on the first page of his preface.  He says that God loves everybody, everywhere.  It's important to ask what type of love Bell is talking about.  If he's talking about a common grace type of love, the love where God loves his own image in mankind then I totally agree (cf. Isaiah 43:7, Psalm 145:9).  If he means that God loves everybody in the redemptive, children of God type of sense.  I disagree.  Over and again in scripture there is a division between the children of God and the children of the wrath.  

Secondly he attempts to paint Christianity as a exceedingly broad and diverse stream in which these type of disagreements have existed amongst Bible-believing-christians for hundreds of years.  This is ok, according to Bell, because they are not essential issues.  He says on page x

"Much blood had been spilled in church splits, heresy trials, and raging debates over issues that are, in the end, not that essential."

I find this quote unsatisfying because it begs the question.  What are the essentials?  More frustrating than that is the fact that he never answers that question yet this is a foundation piece in his work. 

Just a teaser.  
This book about heaven and hell is more about God's glory and holiness than it is about our eternal destiny.  The cross, our eternal state, and God's character are inextricably linked together in such a way where if you start to pull the string the whole fabric comes apart.  It's not just a "system" that comes apart, it's the very righteousness of God that proves to be wanting.  The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3:21-26 that God sent Jesus to the cross to absorb his wrath in order to demonstrate his own righteousness.  Four times this phrase is used in these six verses, 'God did this to demonstrate his own righteousness.'  Apparently this idea of God being vindicated in front of the entire universe is fairly important.  But more on that later...