http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/love-wins-a-review-of-rob-bells-new-book
My comments are based upon these reviews being accurate to what is in Rob Bell's book.
Here is a summary from the first review I posted, "Here’s the gist: Hell is what we create for ourselves when we reject God’s love. Hell is both a present reality for those who resist God and a future reality for those who die unready for God’s love. Hell is what we make of heaven when we cannot accept the good news of God’s forgiveness and mercy. But hell is not forever. God will have his way. How can his good purposes fail? Every sinner will turn to God and realize he has already been reconciled to God, in this life or in the next. There will be no eternal conscious torment. God says no to injustice in the age to come, but he does not pour out wrath (we bring the temporary suffering upon ourselves), and he certainly does not punish for eternity. In the end, love wins."
His redefinition of Hell causes a few problems for me. Theologically, by reducing Hell into an option you can choose for yourself, that logically means you can opt out of salvation to live in Hell (I am using Bell's definition). Conversely, if you can opt out of salvation, you MUST also have a choice to opt in. Saying one implies the other. However the problem lies in the fact that if you can choose salvation, then it is no longer God's grace but your choice i.e. a thing you can do i.e. salvation by works and the Law. If Bell wants to stick by his guns, he must also deny that salvation is by grace and that it is not God's choice (and technically not in God's power) to save anyone.
Save them from what is another question. If all hell is is temporary suffering here and a bit in the next age, just put people out of their misery now and watch them go to heaven. But even Atheists believe that once you die, suffering is over and that sin has no real consequence and in fact boast in them. I am not sure why you would even bother with God or Christianity if your main concern was the injustice of eternal suffering. Atheism is much cleaner than this castrated God and theological nightmare. Why not rather say, "If God didn't want anyone to be punished eternally, maybe he should relax a bit and stop getting all bent out of shape every time someone does something he doesn't like. Yea sometimes we hurt each other and suffering exists in the world, but God loves us and doesn't want to hurt us anymore than we've already hurt each other."
You don't need Jesus the Son of God to go out of his way to die on a cross for that because ultimately, sin doesn't matter because love wins. God didn't need Jesus to die to forgive sins. God's been forgiving the sins of David and countless others in his forbearance way before Jesus died on a cross. Jesus died on the cross to that God's righteousness would be proven because in his forbearance he had left the sins of Israel unpunished and thus appeared to be unjust to the victims in his mercy and compassion to the sinners.
Herein lies the irony: If in fact everyone is saved by God in the end (love wins), then no can be as God does not have that power to bring you to salvation (love fails). By attempting this method to universalism, he in fact achieves the opposite: only those who are able to opt in are saved but since no one is righteous, no one is able to opt in. Jesus's death had no power to save and we are back to life under the Law of Sin and Death once again.
Of course, Bell would deny this, but he cannot have his cake and eat it too. If it is Jesus's sovereign choice to bring people to salvation, it must also be his choice to condemn them. He has that right and it will not and cannot be taken from him. It is God who hardens hearts and softens them for his purposes. Either Jesus is Lord and Savior, or he is not, but not even Bell would go so far to deny Christ for the sake of universalism (which is pointless without Christ anyway). Romans 9:14-24 says:
It's hard to argue anything other than God's choice in salvation. Bell wrestles with the same question as Paul's imaginary debate partner, "Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will? God is good and wills that no one should perish so he must bring everyone to salvation." We already know Paul's answer to Rob Bell contained in vv.20-24.
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
Bell argues from a perspective that "God is Love" and "God is good" so therefore "God would never subject anyone to eternal punishment", but he uses human argument and logic to circumvent what he cannot accept. He limits God on what God can or cannot do based on what sense of justice, love, and goodness he imposes on God. God is love only how I want him to love, God is good only by what I think is good and God is just only by my definition of justice and last I checked personal gods made in one's own image are worthless idols. You cannot rob God of his sovereign choice. Whatever His judgments, I trust they are fair, good, and righteous as God has proven himself to be time and time again. If God were not righteous than no one has any hope, but I for one trust God knows what he is doing better than I do.
PS If you want to read a bit more about some of the thoughts I've had on salvation, you can read my previous post here: http://jqdao3.blogspot.com/2011/03/secular-salvation.html
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