In this whole debate I think Rob Bell’s opponents have taken some serious mis-steps. I think Bell is wrong on a number of key points but because of the subject matter at hand (people spending eternity in hell) then you need to think a little bit about how you respond to this one.

Bell is accused of being a universalist that essentially everyone will end up in heaven and at some indeterminate point in the future that there will be no one left in hell. Now its perfectly reasonable to have a good healthy debate about how to interpret key biblical texts, to wrestle with the questions this raises about the nature of God, sin, justice and eternity but those debates rarely make it onto TV networks and front pages of news magazines. This one has.

If you’re not careful this is how this whole thing can look. On the one hand you have a preacher who is being called to account because he wants everyone to go to heaven and more than that it seems like he’s talking about a God who wants everyone to go to heaven too. And that’s supposed to be bad is it? In the other corner we have some people who sound very disappointed by the fact that not more people are going to burn in hell. Now I’m not saying that Bell’s opponents think this but it can easily sound like they do.

Who are those angry people who keep on talking about judgement and burning and hell? Remind me again why I would want to listen to them? If they both say they’re preaching good news, who are you going to listen to?

Now we don’t need to capitulate to the spirit of the age to disagree with Rob Bell on this but we can box a bit smarter than that surely.

As Steve Holmes puts it,

What is Bell actually saying, first? If we read the passage carefully, the core claim is about proportion: the offence is in the ‘select few’ who are saved – not the nature of heaven, nor the nature of hell, but in their relative populations. The message of God’s love demands that we hold that God saves many, or most, or all – that the gift of grace is not given parsimoniously. And this is not about the nature of hell, but about who God is – the claim of the book is that love wins.

and then points out that,

I suppose that Bell does not even know that the position he is defending is traditional Reformed theology – surely, he would have mentioned it if he did know this? It remains the case, however, that on this point, on the question of the relative proportion of the saved to the lost, it happens that Bell is on the side of historic orthodoxy and his many zealous detractors are not.

There’s a twist. Because Bell’s opponents have gone about things in a heavy-fisted way they are seen to be ones who are basically arguing that in the afterlife there are two nations, two populations if you like – there is the population of heaven and the population of hell and yet these guys seem to be arguing that to be truly Biblical you must think that the population of hell is going to be the far larger, massively larger than the population of heaven and that will remain the case for eternity. And oh by the way God is still all powerful and all loving. Bell is right to ask, who would want to worship a God that damns the tens of billions and saves only the hundreds of millions?

I think this question is especially pertinent if you believe in the doctrine of election, what does it say about God if he only elects the few but damns the many? Who are we to question God, I know, I know but you still need to answer the question.

So for those who think Rob Bell is wrong to argue effectively they would be wise to clearly show how the ‘right’ way more effectively demonstrates God’s loving purposes in salvation and the effect that has on eternity.