A Whole Lotta Hoopla About Hell

Rodin's Gates of Hell in Paris

Since the firestorm this past weekend surrounding a new book by Pastor/author Rob Bell, and the self-appointed heresy police, heaven and hell seem to be on everyone's minds...at least everyone in Twitterland and the Blogosphere who follow certain emerging or neo-calvinist leaders and pastors.  I've read several blogs and takes on the events, so I'm not sure I'm adding anything original here but I thought a few things might be helpful as we navigate these areas.

1.  Is Rob Bell a universalist?  I don't know the answer to that question and I'm not sure we'll even know once his book comes out and we're able to hear his own words on the subject of Heaven and Hell.  

2.  Is it wrong to hope that all or at least most or many will make it into God's kingdom in the end?  It sounds suspiciously like the New Testament.  2 Peter 3:9 states: "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." I'm not sure we'd consider Peter a universalist nor the Lord he infers here.  

3.  What is Hell and who goes there?  While we have neatly defined systematic theologies set in place, the Scriptures aren't nearly so well-defined.  Matthew 25 is one of the most well-known passages where Jesus talks about Hell.  But the point of the passage is not Hell, but what a righteous person in God's view is...one who feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, etc.  So we have to extrapolate a view of Hell from a lot of sources that allude to some place of judgment that is certainly less than clear from the context of Scripture.  And the second question about who goes there is even more dicey.  Taking the Matthew 25 passage, it is the ones who fail to feed the hungry etc.  How many in our churches would be on the wrong side of this equation?  In the story of the Rich Young Ruler....the criteria is giving up wealth.  Again, I fear that most of us, myself included, would fail this test.  And then of course there's that great example of when Jesus is exercising judgment and people come to him and say, "Lord, did we not prophecy in your name...." So now the preachers are in trouble.  All of this leads me to extreme caution when dealing with issues like heaven and hell.  

4.  Lastly....though I'm sure there is more to say on this...I want to share the perspective of a friend of mine.  We were discussing Jonah and how after God saved the people of Nineveh, Jonah was irate at the Lord.  This is truly unbecoming behavior of a prophet of God (and that's the subject for another post).  Revival in Nineveh should have been the highlight and shining moment for this prophet and instead it was his biggest blunder.  What if we are faced with the same dilemma over the people in our time?  What if we are to express deep sadness about the lost and preach and pray on their behalf that maybe, just maybe the Lord will save them?  That is a vision I could get excited about.  "The Lord, the Lord is a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving the iniquity and transgression and sin for the thousandth generation yet will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation" Exodus 34:6-7.