Those who will not accept the Biblical teaching of Hell have usually not grasped the righteousness of God. Even in the first century of the Church there were those who would not accept the God of the Old Testament because He was not the loving God of the New Testament that they wished to worship.
God has revealed Himself to us through His Word, both Spoken and Incarnate. This revelation is ours to understand, not reinterpret to suit our own whims and desires.
Rob Bell is simply advocating an unsound doctrine not based on Scripture. The Lord is a Just God and everlasting punishment is as much a part of His Almighty Plan as is eternal happiness in His Glorious Heaven.
Interestingly, the early Christians didn’t really believe in Hell. Instead, they believe in the Jewish Sheol, a zombie-like place where the dead went for eternity.
They believed that Satan and his minions would be cast into the lake of fire eventually, but not man.
The link doesn’t work.
Actually, Bell doesn’t say in his book that there is no hell, nor is he a universalist. Your parenthetical addition in the headline is wrong. This is about a bunch of neo-Calvinists who got their panties in a knot before they even read the book.
Bell does have a cessationist view of hell, which is an orthodox view within evangelicalism. However, the neo-Calvinists (Justin Taylor, John Piper, and others) are bent on deliberately misquoting Bell to try to destroy him.
Bell’s teaching style is to ask hard questions rather than just hand out easy answers. Then the neo-Calvinists take the difficult questions he asks and decide that means he must believe x, y and z. Frankly, if their reading comprehension is that low, how can anyone trust their reading of scripture or even of John Calvin.
Somehow I feel a Coke commercial is needed here.
No hell?
Then there must be no heaven for him either?
Just for fun for someone who enjoys doing this.
Do a comparison between the word ‘heaven’ and the word ‘hell’ in the Bible and find out which is mentioned more often.
Don’t forget
Gehenna, Hades, netherworld, under the earth and all the other names for hell used in those days.
I think you will be surprised!
And who believes the NY Slimes anyway? LOL!
Rob Bell is a major leader in the “emergent church” actually his teaching does not differ a lot from CS Lewis and John Stott, teachers that many evangelicals disagree with without calling them heretics .. but Bell is on the edge on so many things most of the evangelical church now sees Bell as a false teacher and apostate
All things work together for the purpose and glory of God, the result of Bells book is a renewed interest in the doctrine of hell ... many sermons are being played on the internet and I suspect books will be written about hell and I would bet that some sound theology on hell emerges
>> In a book to be published this month, the pastor, Rob Bell, known for his provocative views and appeal among the young, describes as “misguided and toxic” the dogma 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.” <<
Actually, St. Augustine (with great support from more ancient traditions, including Enoch) wrote that only Christians would find the eternal ecstatic bliss of the divine vision of Heaven. While he called the alternatives “Hell,” (”Hades,” in Greek, which was itself a translation of “Sheol,” in Hebrew), several hells were not at all Hellish. Those who strived to live righteously, and sought out a God they did not know by name would live in an afterlife which, although deprived of the beatific vision, would have many pleasures, joys, and companionship. Tartarus and Gehenna (metaphorical names) were reserved for the wicked and disobedient.
This notion of all Hell being a place of eternal torment stems from two false notions:
1. Poorly catechized Catholics, taught to fear the sufferings of purgatory, imagining that Hell had to be still infinitely worse. (This isn’t exactly false: the Hell of apostate Christians is not the benign hell of those ignorant of Christ.)
2. Calvin’s notion that all those who aren’t saved are totally depraved, and utterly incapable of any virtue.
Tag line
Few people balk at the devil going to hell because they assume the devil is bad enough and God just enough to warrant it. Only when it comes to us do we question its justness. But if it is just for the devil, can we assume it is never just for those of us who are “like” the devil in attitudes and actions, especially as they are directed toward God?
Hell must also be in full harmony with the love of God. God loves justice, holiness, and righteousness so much that He created hell. The love of God for His own nature, His law, His universe, and His people, makes hell a product of love as well as justice.
This is an abomination. Frankly, I think people are crazy to let anyone other than themselves teach their children anything unless they’ve been strictly vetted. I home schooled my children and I save myself a lot of grief. This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen on the internet.
What a loving god. To Hell with you for being wrong....even if you chose out of misunderstanding and ignorance. No forgiveness for you...no.....not a snowball’s chance. Rigid, unyielding....unforgiving.....after two-thousand years of supposed absence.....unless, of course you knuckle under and say you believe.
The Bible plainly talks of hell, but if you ask what hell is, some one will tell you it is the lake of fire.
What is the lake of fire? is it like a lake of water?
no, its a place of punishment.
The point i am trying to make in my simple minded way is that i do not know what hell is no more than i know what heaven is.
The only thing i do know is that i believe that God sent his only begotten son into this world so that those who believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Not an everlasting life of this body but an everlasting life of the spirit, and then what? i don,t know.