Love Wins

I just finished reading Rob Bell's controversial book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. I read some stuff about the book before I read the book itself, and I was under the impression that I was supposed to disagree with him. Not only that, but I should now be proclaiming him a heretic.

In actuality, while he and I do not seem to see eye-to-eye on every point of this book, overall, I cannot disagree with him. As I wrote several posts ago, I do believe in the all-transcendent LOVE of Jesus. In contrast to what Bell seems to write, I do believe hell is a literal location reserved for those who have yet to accept this love. But, I cannot reject the notion that God's love is big enough, eternal enough, eventually to rescue all from hell.

This is by no means a universalist argument. The Bible clearly makes the case that no one deserves God's love and that Jesus is the only way to forgiveness and salvation. But, as a Christ-follower, as one who understands the significance of living freely forgiven and transformed by God's grace, should I not rejoice at the thought that all will one day - in this age or in the age to come - experience this same freedom, forgiveness, and transformation through Christ?! No one will get there without Jesus, but, if everyone, of his/her own freewill chooses life through Jesus Christ, HALLELUJAH! PRAISE GOD! AMEN. Let it be.

Finally, I really love Bell's depiction of salvation as accepting God's story for our lives, abandoning our own. Is that not what true confession, repentance, submission (three steps that pretty well sum up the Sunday school definition of salvation) are: to agree with God about who we are and who He is? To accept God's story. Beautiful.

-mo