Ken Silva at Apprising Ministries has begun a series of posts reviewing an advance-reader copy of Rob Bell’s Love Wins: Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (2011, HarperCollins), and he confirms that what Bell is teaching is a form of universal reconciliation–that yes, unbelievers go to hell, but will eventually be reconciled to God. Read Silva’s first post here.
Silva writes, “[Bell] makes no apology for his declaration that while Hell is a real place, and people will go there, it’s not forever. Ultimately, God’s love will prevail for every person and they will be restored” (emphasis mine).
The Wikipedia entry on “Universal Reconciliation,” to which I linked above, explains, “The concept of “reconciliation” is related to the concept of Christian salvation — i.e., salvation from spiritual and eventually physical death — such that the more [sic] (presumably, “mere”) term, “universal salvation,” is functionally equivalent. Univeralists [sic] espouse various theological beliefs concerning the process or state of salvation, but all adhere to the view that salvation history concludes with the reconciliation of the entire human race to God.”
See? We alarmist conservatives who are up in arms about Rob Bellion told you so.
Rob Bellion is as the sin of Witchcraft!
It sounds logical, and very familiar to me. Also read Dante for more of the same line of thought.
Blessings,
The Watcher
“If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol (hell), you are there!” (Psalm 139:8)
If God is so omnipresent that he is even present in hell, then he is eternally present there, and that minus his common grace which allows the world around us to hide his utterly holy and just presence from us sinners–and minus his special, saving grace in Christ for his repentant, believing people.
No man may see the Lord and live (Ex. 33:20). Any unrepentant sinner, thus deprived of a mediator between himself and God will experience eternal torment. “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5 ESV).
Please, make the Jesus of the Bible, not Rob Bellion, as confessed in the orthodox creeds, your mediator, while you still can.