Rob Bell’s Problem with John 3:16

Review:
Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell,
    and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
Rob Bell
HarperOne, 2011
198 pp; pb.

 
    Rob Bell has always been an innovator. He began questioning the traditional way of doing church during his seminary days at Fuller Theological Seminary, and in preaching class he was always looking for new and different ways of communicating the message. He eventually became the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, MI. By 2011 the church was getting between 8,000 and 10,000 in attendance on Sundays, and Time Magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Love Wins is his fifth book.

Rob Bell at the Time 100 gala

    And what a controversial book it is! Mr. Bell pretty much rejects the orthodox understanding of the gospel, arguing that both hell and the atonement are metaphors.
    Mr. Bell begins his book by quoting John 3:16:
            "That's the story,
             'For God so loved the world . . .'
             That's why Jesus came.
             That's his message.
             That's where the life is found." (p. vii).
He then goes on to say that the orthodox view that some go to heaven and others go to hell is "misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear" (p. viii). He emphatically denies the idea of eternal punishment. He says that God loves us unconditionally, and says that
            "Our trusting,
             our change of heart,
             our believing God's version of our story
             doesn't bring it into existence,
             make it happen, or create it." (p. 188).
But what really was Jesus' message? Significantly Mr. Bell did not quote the second half of that most famous verse: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (NKJV). The verse, in fact, says something quite different from what Mr. Bell would have us to believe.
    The verse does, of course, state that God loves the world. But how does God express that love? By giving His only begotten Son. And why did He do that? So that we "should not perish but have everlasting life," a reference back to Daniel 12:2. And what must we do in order to receive "everlasting life"? We must "believe in Him."
    The context of the verse makes its meaning clear. The world is under "condemnation" because "the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest their deeds should be exposed" (vv. 19,20). As a result, "he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (v. 36). In other words, God is most definitely angry with us because of our sin and rebellion, and that is why we need an atonement, which God Himself provided in His Son, Who was "lifted up" (v. 14) – and allusion to the crucifixion. And thus the necessary precondition for salvation is clear: Christ is the Savior; we must believe on Him.
    Mr. Bell, in developing his theory of universal love and salvation, passes over in silence a great deal of what he Bible says on the subject. He chose not to discuss the holiness of God, the justice of God, or the wrath of God. He does not mention the last judgment. Hell and the atonement, as we have seen, he treats as metaphors. And he nowhere does he answer the question of what happens to people when they die.
    For all practical purposes Mr. Bell is a theological liberal with a repackaged version of "the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man." And his theology contains the fatal weakness of all liberal theology. By cherry picking texts of scripture and treating others as metaphor, he is, in effect, superimposing on the Bible his own perceived notions about God. But in the end all he has to show for his efforts is a theology he made up himself. In the final analysis it is nothing but an exercise in self-delusion.
    When it comes to the questions of life after death, of heaven and hell and the way of salvation, we are completely dependent upon what God has told us in His Word. We have no other avenue of knowledge about these things. The warnings of Scripture need to be taken seriously, for they come from God Himself. We ignore them at our own peril. We need to look at all that the Bible says on the subject, and not just cherry-pick the ones that suit our fancies. Mr. Bell can do better than that!

Related articles:
The Problem with Liberal Theology 
Letter to a Unitarian Minster 

WHAT ARE “RELIGIOUS TRUTHS”?

    Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, in his recent article in Newsweek magazine entitled "The Myths of Jesus," concludes by saying that the gospels of the New Testament "are books that meant to declare religious truths, not historical facts." But this raises a perplexing question: what kind of "religious truths" can exist apart from "historical facts"? Can a narrative be historically false but nevertheless theologically true? What exactly is a "religious truth"?
    Dr. Ehrman attempts to explain: ". . . for those with a broader vision, a more generous appreciation of literature, and a fuller sense of theological meaning, the story of the Christchild and his appearance in the world can be founded not on what actually happened, but in what actually does happen, in the lives of those who believe that stories such as these can convey a greater truth."

Friedrich Schleiermacher

    The suggestion is not new. Ever since the days of the Enlightenment the literal truth of the biblical narratives has been challenged by skeptics. It was the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher who tried to find a way around the problem by appealing to "feeling" as the basis for religion. In his view faith does not depend on the literal truth of the Bible, but on subjective feelings or inward intuition. This basic approach, with various modifications, has been typical of liberal theology down to the present day.
    While this solution is certainly appealing, it nevertheless has some serious problems. First of all, it rests on a dishonest reading of Scripture.. Dr. Ehrman tells us that "these are books that meant to declare religious truths, not historical facts." But the biblical writers themselves did not see it that way.. They insisted that they were describing what God had actually done in real space and time. In the prologue to his gospel, the specific gospel that Dr. Ehrman attacks as unhistorical, Luke specifically states that "it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught" (Lu. 1:3,4; ESV). In so doing he specifically appealed to eyewitness testimony. In other words, Luke self-consciously set out to write history, and now some "good news" that was based on metaphors and myths, and his aim was specifically to let his readers know what had actually happened.
    And so did all the biblical writers, from Moses in the Old Testament to John the apostle in the New. A major part of their polemical argument against polytheism was based on the fact that the Lord God of Israel really does act in history. This is what distinguishes Him from the dumb and useless idols of the surrounding nations. If the events described did not actually happen, however, then the all argument falls to the ground.
    But more importantly, if our faith rests on nothing more substantial than figures of speech and subjective feelings, then it becomes impossible to distinguish our "broad vision" and "fuller sense of theological meaning" from pure fantasy. Our faith is disconnected from objective reality and amounts to little more than wishful thinking. This, in fact, apparently turned out to be the case in Dr. Ehrman himself. We understand that he now considers himself to be an agnostic. His grasp of "theological meaning" appears to be slipping through his fingers.
    In short, "religious truths" that are not related to actual events in history are nothing more than fairy tales – make-believe stories about things that exist nowhere except in our own imaginations. Something is either true or it is not true – it either corresponds to reality or it does not. If the literal truth of who we are and where we got here is evolution, and if the Bible is nothing more than a collection of ancient myths and legends that reflect an obsolete pre-scientific worldview, then it is useless to pretend that the Bible has any relevance for us today. The biblical writers did not know what they were talking about and were just plain wrong about a lot of things.
    But what if they were telling the truth about what they claimed they saw?

Other blogposts related to the issue:
Are the Gospels Historically Reliable? 
The Problem with Liberal Theology 
Letter to a Unitarian Minister 

Letter to a Unitarian Minister

The following is an extract from a letter we once sent to a Unitarian minister, whose sermon "Where Is Our Holy Text?" we happened to hear one Sunday morning. The minister was emphatic in denying that the Bible is a divinely inspired text, and cited a canon of several feminist authors as her own "holy text."

 

    "I appreciate the candor and frankness with which you expressed your opinions, but I do feel that they call for some sort of response. I was fortunate to have attended an evangelical seminary (Westminster, in Philadelphia), and to have been exposed to a body of conservative biblical scholarship that has examined liberal critical objections to the Bible and nevertheless found the Scriptures to be trustworthy. I was especially privileged to have taken courses under Leon Morris and Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, both of whom have written a number of very fine commentaries on various books of the New Testament. Personally, at the end of the day, I can see no reason to question the veracity and authority of the Bible.

    "I might also point out that the 'Sunday school faith' you described in your sermon was the faith of Athanasius and Augustine, of Thomas Aquinas and the Protestant Reformers, of Jonathan Edwards and the great Princeton theologians of the 19^th century. It is the historic faith of the Christian Church. It deserves to be treated with more respect than you gave it in your sermon.

    "I think that you probably approached the crux of the issue when you quoted a statement from the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 to the effect that 'All reality is self-creating.' If this statement were actually true, then you would be perfectly justified in your attempt to marginalize God. The statement, however, is palpable nonsense. If something does not yet exist, then by the very nature of the case it lacks the power to do anything. It can cause no effect, and it certainly cannot bring itself into existence. Or, to rephrase the question in more concrete biological terms, we might ask 'How did life begin'? Under a strict evolutionary scenario that excludes the possibility of 'Intelligent Design,' at some point what amounts to spontaneous generation must have occurred, which, as we know from scientific experiment, is impossible. This, then, brings us right back to the inescapable question of God. If, in fact, we have been created by a Supreme Being, then the Westminster Shorter Catechism is absolutely correct when it says that 'The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.'

    "I know that the Unitarian Universalist Association is proud of the freedom of thought that it seeks to foster within its fellowship. But at some point we as human beings have to deal with questions of ultimate truth. Is there a God? Does life have meaning and purpose? Is there really a difference between good and evil? Is there life after death? At death these issues will be inescapable, no matter how hard we tried to avoid them in life. And apart from some form of divine revelation we have no means of answering these questions, and we are left in profound ignorance of the matters most important to us. Given the attitude of Unitarians toward Scripture it is hard for me to see what can save you from the kind of abject nihilism typified by Friedrich Nietzsche. You profess to believe in a very idealistic set of social principles, but they are suspended in metaphysical thin air. The ever looming danger is that someday your ethics will catch up to your intellectual skepticism, and then you will have nothing left at all to offer society. That kind of moral skepticism is, in fact, the general trend in society today. . .

    "I will probably decline any further opportunities to participate in Unitarian church services. I have no desire to give human beings the place of honor that rightfully belongs to God alone. I noticed that your responsive reading last Sunday came from the writings of William Ellery Channing. William Ellery Channing did not give me life and health, the air I breathe or the bread I eat; much less did he die for my sins. I owe Channing nothing; I owe Christ everything. I shall worship Him Who deserves my praise and no one else. 'Therefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father'(Phil. 2:9-11; NKJV)."

 

Sincerely,

Robert W. Wheeler

 

 

The Problem with Liberal Theology

    One of the strangest things to emerge from the muddled human brain is the notion that we can make up the truth. The statement is an oxymoron, of course. If you "made it up" it would not be "truth" -- it would be fiction. Yet when it comes to religion it is absolutely amazing to see how many people think that you can make up your own ideas about God!

    Astonishingly, this is what passes for serious theology in many of our leading seminaries. It is generally known as Liberal Theology, and it is very widely accepted today.

    How can that possibly be? The problem started over two hundred years ago. During the so-called "Enlightenment" critics attacked the credibility and trustworthiness of the Bible. Intelligent, educated people were made to feel that they could no longer believe in the Sacred Scriptures. Yet many did not want to give up their faith. It finally fell to a German theologian, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) to come up with what appeared to be a solution. Our faith, according to him, does not rest on the findings of science or reason, but rather on an inner sense of religious truth – an inward feeling or personal experience. We know God intuitively, and therefore it does not matter whether or not the Bible is literally true.

    But there is a problem here – a very serious one. If religion is a matter of our inward, subjective feelings, then what shapes the content of theology? What makes a theological statement true or false? For the next two hundred years German theologians devoted their attention to the problem, and came up with a bewildering array of answers. Yet the sheer diversity of opinion underscored the underlying problem: in the final analysis it was all made up. Most of it had little connection with anything that the historical Jesus actually said or taught.

    The problem of unorthodox theology is nothing new – it was existed since the very beginning of the Christian Church. And the Church was warned against this from the very beginning as well.

    The anatomy of heterodoxy is described for us vividly in II Peter 2:1-3. Here we are told that "there will be false teachers among you" (v. 1; NKJV). Ironically they will deny "the Lord who bought them" – they will claim to be Christians but will deny Christ. One might wonder, why? If one has no use for Christ (or, one thinks that the historical Jesus cannot be known) why bother with Christianity at all? Why not simply identify oneself with something else? According to the text the apparent reason is that the false teachers have ulterior motives. What drives them is "covetousness." They are in it for personal gain. In some cases it might be simply money. In other cases it might be the prestige and security of a tenured faculty position.

    How, then, do these teachers operate? The text says that they use "deceptive words," or "made-up sayings," as it might be more literally translate (the NIV has "stories they have made up"). The message is tailored for the effect.

    Whatever the motive, the results are devastating. False teaching causes "destructive heresies" (v. 1), and as a result "the way of the truth will be blasphemed" (v. 2). Christianity ends up being discredited because of something that really isn't Christianity.

    And where does it all lead in the end?: ". . . their judgment . . . is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep" (v. 3, NASV).

    Today error takes many different forms. Besides the liberal theologians in their ivory towers there are various cults and even fringe movements within the Evangelical community. Even everyday, ordinary people are guilty of making up their own theology. They pick and choose what they want to believe, and justify it all by saying "This is what I think." But whatever form the error takes, the end result is the same: the true gospel is not preached, people are led astray, and the church is discredited.

    In effect false theology is a form of idolatry. Instead of worshipping the one true and living God, we worship the various gods of our own imaginations.

    The message of Christianity, however, is not malleable, something that can be reshaped and molded at will. The objective facts stand as they are, and as they have been revealed to us. To try to invent something else is merely an exercise in self-delusion, and it dishonors God. Creativity in theology is a vice and not a virtue.