Love Wins

Rob Bell, a popular pastor today, recently released the book Love Wins. In this book, he openly denies the existence of Hell.

Rob says, "A staggering number of people have been taught 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. It's been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This 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."

Rob Bell has apparently rewritten the Bible, producing a more palatable version - toxic, misguided and distorting the gospel message. When we remove undisputable, clear doctrine from the Bible, teaching what we prefer to believe, we might as well be wearing a False Prophet T-shirt. Even apart from clear teaching, consider this: If there is not a Hell, why did God sacrifice His Son? What was He saving us from? Why repent from sin if death and Hell are not problematic?

The God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16) version of Scripture declares that a literal Hell does exist, a place originally designed for the devil and his angels who rebelled against God. When man sinned, he became a subject in Satan's kingdom and destined for the same place of separation and fire. This is why the Scriptures refer to man as "lost." Apart from God's redemption and regeneration, we are lost and in need of salvation.

When Christ completed the work of redemption, Hell was not removed nor did it become unnecessary. Hell continues to exist as the place where all unrighteousness will be contained. When Jesus returns, we will see a rescue of the righteous and a final judgment of the unrighteous before the earth is destroyed. That would not be true if Hell no longer exists or if God's wrath is not forthcoming.

Hell is not pleasant to think about, in that I must agree. But we cannot change truth to accommodate what we prefer to believe. Live by faith in the faithful Word of God and who God truly is. I AM WHO I AM. (Ex. 3:14) God is love. God is also righteous. Love wins but His righteousness rules.