Answering Rob Bell #5

One of the major premises in Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins, is that it always has been God’s purpose to reconcile all creation to himself. On page 98 he says, “God has a purpose, something God is doing in the world, something that has never changed, something that involves everybody…. Will all people be saved, or will God not get what God wants?” Again, Bell has committed a logical fallacy by presenting a question with a faulty premise. It works like this: God wants everyone saved; God always gets what he wants; therefore, everyone will be saved.

Bell argues throughout the next several pages that history proves the minor premise, that God gets what God wants. The problem is that the major premise, God wants everyone saved, is never proved. Bell implies that the only way God can be glorified, vindicated is by meeting Bell’s standard of reconciliation. Bell quotes verse after verse to show that all the earth will see the salvation of the Lord; all the nations will know that God is Lord; every knee will bow. The mistake Bell makes is to assume that seeing, knowing and bowing must absolutely involve partaking in the benefits of the salvation of God.

We must understand that in ancient cultures, vanquished foes bowed before their conquerors; they did not afterward step into wealth and comfort. Most often, they entered into slavery or enforced servitude of some kind. They paid homage, but they proceeded to live with the punishment they had earned by losing the war. The vanquished became reconciled to their new masters in the sense that they stopped fighting them; they bowed to them. Sometimes they were summarily executed after bowing. Seldom did they enter into a life of ease.

The idea of subjecting defeated foes to slavery or slaughter is not politically correct in this century, but it was the way of the ancient world; it still is in much of the third world today. It certainly is in the parts ruled by radical Muslims. Bell errs by applying his delicate modern sensibilities to the God of the ages. Changing the analogy, Bell assumes that when a criminal goes before a judge, the only way to be reconciled is if the judge sets him free. This need not be true. The law and the judge are proved right when the criminal becomes reconciled to his punishment, even though it may be the death penalty. Justice is served, we say. Restoration takes place: civil society is restored when criminals are removed.

In the ages to come, truth will be vindicated; God will be proved righteous, his justice exercised. All the earth, all peoples will see this. This will bring glory to God. The fact that Rob Bell does not like the way God has chosen to do things does not make God wrong, it makes Bell wrong. He is wrong to assume that he knows God’s purpose for creating humans in the first place. He makes the mistake Isaiah points out: “Will the clay say to the potter, ‘Why have you done this?’” (Isaiah 29:16) He would do well to consider God’s question of Job, “Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4)

Rob Bell is remaking God in Rob Bell’s image. And even though Bell says his god-image is all about love, by ignoring the revealed biblical character of God, Bell diminishes the value of the love he so desperately wants to “win.” If everyone eventually ends up in a state of eternal bliss, then the God of the Old Testament is a spiteful ogre. The entire story from the Flood onward reveals a holy, jealous God. His “reward” for those he loves is only meaningful if there is a contrasting group of those who spurn his love and miss the reward. I am reminded of youth sports today where every child gets a trophy, win or lose. This is the mindset Bell applies to our eternal “trophy.” It renders the prize meaningless and the love valueless. Continuing the sports analogy, Bell’s love “wins” only when measured by his own rules. Measured by a Bible standard, Bell’s love loses.