Fear and Punishment (or “Love Wins” Continued)

Several months after reading Rob Bell’s “Love Wins”, the Christian Community is still up in arms over this book. From the responses to the book that I have read, objections mainly fall into two camps: first, that Jesus is the only way to God (““I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”, John 14:6); and second, a need for justice, based upon the belief that God is a holy God who cannot tolerate sin. The first argument contains a grain of truth, but in my opinion, completely misses the point. The second argument is very common, but it’s also flat-out wrong. Allow me to explain.

I’ll start with the first argument, that there is no way to God but through Jesus. This is, by far, the best argument against Bell’s position in “Love Wins” that I have yet found. It is based on Scripture, albeit a misinterpretation of Scripture. People often suffer from a common fallacy of logic, that the way they interpreted a phrase is the only way to interpret a phrase. Unfortunately, oftentimes what we hear is not really what the speaker (or writer) intended to say. I cannot count the number of times that I have said one thing, but what someone else heard was radically different. I believe John 14:6 is one of those phrases that everyone has heard and that everyone thinks they understand…but I am not quite sure that most of us really do. Most Christians that I have spoken with take Jesus’ words in this passage to mean, “Unless you come to me, you will not come to the Father.” But is that what He actually said? Jesus spoke these words to His disciples immediately before going to the garden where He was betrayed and crucified. In the context of this passage, He was preparing His disciples for the pain and shock they were about to experience. In my opinion, Jesus was telling His disciples that His death on the cross was necessary for mankind to be reconciled to God; not that only those who “hear, believe, repent and are baptized” will be reconciled! Yes, the only way to God is through Jesus…because only Jesus could atone for our sins! Buddha won’t save you (even though one may find some degree of wisdom in Buddhism), nor will Mohammed (ditto) nor any other religious leader. Only Jesus could pay the price, only through His death could we be reconciled with the Father, and only through His resurrection do we have a hope in eternal life. This, I believe, is what Jesus was really saying in John 14:6.

The second argument is even more insidious and more evil, because it seems right to us. “God has given us His laws, and those who break His laws will face His wrath on the day of judgment!”

Yeah…be careful there. Romans 2 says some very interesting things about God’s judgment. verse 7 says that “To those who by persistence in doing good…He will give eternal life.[emphasis mine]” Did you catch that? Those who “declare their faith in Jesus and…” Wait…no, that’s not what it said. It says, “to those who by persistence doing good…”

“Yeah! Those who hear, believe, repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus are those who are doing good!” one might argue.

And one would be wrong:

For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles…do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) [emphasis mine](Romans 2:13-15)

Wait…Even the Gentiles, who do not have the law, still follow the law because God has written it on their hearts? Yep. That’s what Paul said. Kind of deflates the argument that God only loves believers, doesn’t it?

This second argument is evil because it claims that God, who is holy and just and in all ways perfect, condemns men to Hell simply because they have never heard the Gospel and therefore have never pronounced faith in Jesus…whom they have never heard of. And we like that because it makes us, the Christians, feel good because we think we are better than everyone else because we do a better job of following God’s law than those who have never heard the Gospel. And we use that to justify ourselves, even though we know we have fallen short of perfection, because at least we are better than those heathens! “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers…” Ugh…If that is what is in our hearts, then we will be justified in exactly the same way that Pharisee was.

A young man in my youth group was moved to tears one day while talking about his grandparents. They weren’t evil. They went to church every Sunday, but they didn’t get involved in ministry. They had their spot on the pew in church, and after church, they went home and lived life like normal. A few years ago they died. And this young man was positive they were in Hell, because they weren’t “real Christians”.

In this young man’s theology, God separates us into the lukewarm and the hot, the sinners and the believers, the evil and the righteous, the lost and the saved. He spends his entire life trying to make sure he is on the hot, believer, righteous, saved list, not out of love for who God is but out of fear that he will end up in Hell. Like his grandparents.

I nearly cried when I was talking to him, because he SO missed the point of the Gospel. Do you really think it is “Good News” that your ancestors are in Hell, but if you follow Jesus, you can escape their fate? Do you think it is “Good News” that “…small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it”?

I don’t.

Fortunately, I don’t have to, because that isn’t who God is. That is a lie of the devil, and that is the lie that Bell is arguing against. God, who IS just and holy and all that, doesn’t judge us based on a standard that is impossible to meet.

In fact, I don’t think He judges us at all. Revelation 12:10-11 tells us that the accuser has been hurled down, overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. But wait…if the accuser has been hurled down, then God can’t be the one accusing us. And if God isn’t accusing us, then of what is He going to judge us? How can you judge someone with no charges levied against them? Have you ever seen a court room where the judge pronounces the sentence “Guilty!” when there was no prosecutor to accuse the defendant? Does that even make sense?

“I declare you guilty, even though there are no charges against you because there is no one here to accuse you!”

I don’t think so.

It never ceases to amaze me that the very same people who are proclaiming God’s wrath and judgment against the lost of the world can recite 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Yet fear of punishment is what motivates many of those same people to follow Jesus! How does that make sense? How can you claim that “God is love” (1 John 4:8 and 1 John 4:16) and “perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment” while still proclaiming a message of hellfire and damnation? Is that not fear of punishment?

Thank you, no. I believe “Love Wins” because God is love, God is sovereign, and “God works all things for good…” (Romans 8:28). And I defy you to find any way that Hell is good.

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