Rob Bell. Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.
Chapter 5: Dying to Live (pages 121-37)
1. Animal Sacrifices
“Just the thought of such practices and rituals is repulsive. So primitive and barbaric. Not to mention unnecessary. It doesn’t even cross our minds to sacrifice animals.” (p. 123)
Observation: God instituted the sacrificial system in the books of Exodus and Leviticus. They are symbols of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. To call what God instituted barbaric, primitive, and repulsive is an attack against God.
2. Hebrews 9
Concerning Hebrews 9: “Whole cultures centered around keeping the gods pleased. This was obviously a very costly, time-consuming ordeal, not to mention an anxiety-producing one. You never knew if you’d fully pleased the gods and paid the debt properly. And now the writer is announcing that those days are over because of Jesus dying on the cross. Done away with. Gone. Irrelevant.” (p. 124-25)
Observation: Wrong - - Hebrews 9 is not about all sacrifices in all religions. In Hebrews 9, the author speaks of the fact that the Jewish sacrificial system is no longer needed because of Christ’s sacrifice.
3. Atonement Language
“There’s nothing wrong with talking and singing about how the ‘Blood will never lose its power’ and ‘Nothing but the blood will save us.’ Those are powerful metaphors. But we don’t live any longer in a culture in which people offer animal sacrifices to the gods. People did live that way thousands of years, and there are pockets of primitive cultures around the world that do continue to understand sin, guilt, and atonement in those way. But most of us don’t. What the first Christians did was look around them and put the Jesus story in language their listeners would understand.” (p. 129)
Observation: “Blood” is not just an image limited to the ancient world, but is still relevant today. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13). Jesus did not shed symbolic blood, but literal blood!
4. Resurrection
“. . . resurrection after death was not a new idea. In the fall in many parts of the world, the leaves drop from the trees and the plants die. They turn brown, wither, and lose their life. They remain this way for the winter—dormant, dead, lifeless. And then spring comes, and they burst into life again. Growing, sprouting, producing new leaves and buds. For there to be spring, there has to be a fall and then a winter. For nature to spring to life, it first has to die. Death, then resurrection. This is true for ecosystems, food chains, the seasons—it’s true all across the environment. Death gives way to life.” (p. 130)
Observation: Frankly, Jesus is not an ecosystem. Furthermore, Bell’s example does not accurately describe the resurrection of Jesus unless dead leaves reattach themselves to trees and live once more. Jesus’ resurrection is a miracle, not a natural process.
5. The Gospel
“A gospel that repeatedly, narrowly affirms and bolsters the ‘in-ness’ of one group at the expense of the ‘out-ness’ of another group will not be true to the story that includes ‘all things and people in heaven and on earth.’” (p. 135)
Observation: The Bible explains that there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who follow Christ and those who do not. Jesus said, He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters (Luke 11:23).
25:31 "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 25:32 "All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;
25:33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
25:34 "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. . . .
25:41 "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matthew 25:31-34, 41)
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