There has been much stir over Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Bell will tell you he does not want to be labeled a universalist [check out Bell’s interview’s with MSNBC and Relevant], however his book seriously and dangerously advances the cause of universalism from a popular and influential level.
Yesterday, I perused Love Wins at a local bookstore because I was unsure I wanted to buy it. To say it simply, Bell promotes an unbiblical picture of a God without wrath and a skewed portray of His love and justice. He gives unclear indication that man needs salvation from God’s wrath now, nor faith in Jesus Christ in this life to have salvation in eternal life. Bell states his beliefs in heaven, hell, judgment, the cross, and salvation, but takes a quasi-philosophical approach rather than biblical approach to Jesus’ teaching on the subjects.
Bell historically likes to ask questions and create discussions, but again leaves you unsatisfied with answers and in this book leaves you with more questions about God, salvation, and His understanding of the authority of God’s Word. I am not one to bash people particularly other pastors, however, as a pastor it is my obligation to protect Christ’s church from potential false teaching that could distract His sheep. Rather than writing another review, I thought I’d pass along some great reviews already circling around from faithful followers of Christ and intricate exegetes of God’s Word.
Great Reviews of Rob Bell’s, Love Wins:
- God is Still Holy and What You Learned in Sunday Schoool is Still True: A Review of Love Wins [Kevin DeYoung]
- Love Wins – A Review of Rob Bell’s New Book [Tim Challies]
- Revising Hell into the Heterodox Mainstream [Denny Burk]
- We Have Seen All This Before: Rob Bell and the (Re)Emergence of Liberal Theology [Al Mohler]
- The Blood-Drained Gospel of Rob Bell [Russell D. Moore]
- Bell’s Hell [Michael Horton]
- Bell’s Slandered [Dennis Burk]
- Love, Holiness and Eternity [Ed Stetzer]
- Rob Bell’s Bridge Too Far [Christianity Today, Mark Galli]
- Read what Tim Spivey wrote before he read “Love Wins” when the controversy was growing: PREVIEW, PART ONE, PART TWO, PART THREE
Great article on Hell:
- Hell: Eternal Sovereign Justice Exacted upon Evildoers (Chapter 29 of If God Is Good) [Randy Alcorn]
- Speaking Seriously and Sensitively about Hell to the Sons of this Age and the Next [Ligon Duncan]
- Toward a Better Understanding of Hell [Collin Hansen]
- To Hell with Hell? [Mark Driscoll]
Great Books on Hell:
- D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 1999).
- David Clotfelter, Sinners in the Hands of a Good God: Reconciling Divine Judgment and Mercy (Chicago: Moody, 2004).
- Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, eds., Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004).
- John Piper, Jesus: The Only Way to God: Must You Hear the Gospel to Be Saved? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010).
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