In the Speech & Reasoning class at the Living Faith Bible Institute, students are required to write an argumentative essay from a selection of philosophical topics. We’ve chosen a handful of these essays to share as blog posts and hope they serve as helpful resources in this modern age.
The word love is mentioned 310 times in 280 verses in the Bible. It is used in multiple different contexts: to show the love different people have for one another (one of God’s commandments), to show the love people have for God, and to show the love God has for us. We see in 1 John 4:16 that God is love: “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”
God is love, but in recent years, a concept of “God is only love” has become a central belief amongst some Christians today. They believe that God is not to be feared, not one to rebuke, not one to judge, and ultimately, this results in them believing that he is not to be glorified. These are the same people who proclaim God's love but are offended by the judgment seat and hell being a real place. Really, this belief has caused them to denounce the gospel entirely, because they believe if God is only love, then everyone is safe and everyone will go to heaven. God, who is all-loving, wouldn’t send his people to a place like hell.
Concerning this way of thinking, these same people begin to turn their focus from God’s word and his kingdom and find ways in the secular world — Satan’s domain — to promote the love that God is. Social justice becomes their gospel and their mission becomes finding ways to show all people love. The focus shifts from bringing glory to God to glorifying oneself as a “good person.”
This way of thinking is called universalism. Universalism is defined as “a theological doctrine that all human beings will eventually be saved.”[1] Though it is popular today, universalism is not a 20th-century idea. Origen of Alexandria, dating back to 185, was a strong advocate for universalism; he discussed it greatly in his work First Principles.[2] In this work, he discussed how he believed that everyone was sinful but everyone would eventually be saved. There would be punishments at different levels for people to be restored back to God. Origen claims that this was all a part of God’s plan from the beginning: people would sin, and he would make them learn how to be better and ultimately be right with him to enter into heaven.
In 2021, this belief is still present. Christians (who often don’t even prefer to be called Christians) have deconstructed their faith enough that they have allowed themselves to ignore the truths in God’s word. People who hold this belief would prefer to acknowledge and proclaim man’s words over God’s. They would prefer to sit in a fleeting feeling of happiness, acceptance, or whatever positive feeling they conjure up than finding their promised joy found in the Lord. People who hold this belief would rather promote their own version of love than proclaim the gospel and see people saved. They would rather ignore Jesus’s sacrifice and their own sinful nature.
One of the most influential people currently promoting universalism and the statements above is Rob Bell. Rob Bell was at one point a pastor in Grand Rapids, Michigan; he pastored a megachurch that he founded in 1999 with his wife. At one point, he preached the Bible. Over time, throughout the deconstruction of his faith, he fell further from God’s word and more into his own opinions. He now lives in Los Angeles where he runs a podcast and can be found at comedy clubs discussing Jesus and his own personal thoughts.[4] Throughout this journey, he has used the things of this world (Mark 4:19) to denounce who Jesus is and argue that his idea of love is all the world needs.
In 2011, Bell published his book Love Wins. In it, he focuses on how God is only a loving God. His book begins by sharing specific situations that caused him to question the idea of salvation. He states that he simply cannot believe that an all-loving, all-knowing, omnipotent God would allow anyone to spend eternity in hell. Throughout the rest of the book, he argues that everyone is born with a “God-given goodness,” gives reasons for hell not being a real place, why being a good person is enough for God, how humanity should get what they want out of life, and more topics that have a central focus on self.
Bell claims that if salvation is a free gift, then nothing needs to be done to claim it. He says that accepting, confessing, and believing are all verbs and therefore actions, which go against the idea of salvation being free.[5] He also claims that we have a “God-given goodness.”[6] Therefore, we are good to go, and no sin lies within us.
Genesis 3 outlines the fall of man and how from the beginning, we chose to sin. Eve was beguiled by the serpent and chose to fall into temptation, as did Adam. This led to the rest of humanity being born into sin (Rom 5:12). God’s word also tells us that the wages of sin is death unless we choose to accept the free gift of salvation (Rom 6:23). Now, accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior isn’t a “work”. Accepting the free gift simply requires faith in what Jesus Christ did to save us from our sin. We have to believe in Jesus Christ — that he was God in the flesh, he came down to earth and lived a perfect life, took our sin upon him (1Jo 2:2), was crucified, buried, and resurrected on the third day. This is our free gift of salvation. No longer do we have to be bound to sin. We are made new (Col 3:10). Bell’s argument that everyone is already saved doesn’t add up biblically because as we see above, God outlined how one becomes saved. And, if we were already all saved, then there is no need for saving and therefore no need for Jesus Christ.
For many, universalism and the idea that everyone is already saved comes from the fear of what being unsaved brings. According to Romans 6:23, the result of unrepented sin is death. Compare Romans 6:23 with Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” It says “the fearful, and unbelieving” will have their part “in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” This is a description of hell. Hell is a real place, and it is necessary because God gives us the choice on whether or not to believe.
Yes, God is love, as we see in 1 John 4:16. But we get to choose whether or not we love God back (John 14:15). God’s love for us is incomprehensible. We will not begin to understand how vast it is if we chose to follow our own ways, which will always result in us coming up short. God loves us so much that he chose to sacrifice his only begotten son so we could be in right relationship with him. He seeks after us even when we choose to ignore him. He is there in our most difficult and our most joyous times.
God does love us. There is no denying that. But we cannot dismiss the fact that God doesn’t want to force us to love him. The Bible is clear that we have to choose to believe in Jesus and love God back for what he’s done for us. Revelation 3:20 says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” God wants to be in relationship with us, but we have to open the door. There is a place for those who choose to not be in relationship with the Lord: hell. If there is a place for those who choose to believe, there has to be a place for those who don’t.
Rob Bell argues that hell isn’t a physical place people go to if they choose to not be in relationship with the Lord. He instead states that “God gives us what we want, and if that’s hell, we can have it. We have that kind of freedom, that kind of choice. We are that free.”[7] He is stating that people will have hell on earth if they choose to go their own way. God will punish them as they live their life, but they will still go to heaven when they die. Now, if God is love and that is it like Rob Bell claims, then why would he punish people on earth? God does allow consequences in our life to point us back to truth. But there is not a place in God’s word that states hell is a metaphorical state of existence. Instead, it is a place one goes to if they choose not to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
The flaws in universalism are grand, especially concerning how Bell teaches it and claims it is seen in God’s word. One of the biggest fallacies with Bell’s argument for universalism is his use of private interpretation. He takes either a verse or a part of a verse and interprets it with his personal thoughts. God gives a warning of this in 2 Peter 1:20: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” When believers begin to privately interpret scripture, they disregard what God says and decide what they want it to say. Men (including Rob Bell) didn’t like the idea of people spending eternity in hell, so they found verses that supported the idea of universalism.
Once accepting Jesus Christ, we are called to live out the Great Commission (Mat 28:19-20). The Bible is clear that we will be judged by the way we have decided to live. Did we live for ourselves, or did we live for the Lord and bring glory to him? 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”
God didn’t create us for our own pleasure as Rob Bell claims in Love Wins when he says, “Do we get what we want? Yes, we get what we want.”[10] God doesn’t owe us anything. But he does desire for us to be in right relationship with him, which requires us to share the gospel and live a sanctified life unto Him. If we were all already saved, then there would be no need for the Judgment Seat of Christ. At the Judgment Seat of Christ, we want to account for how we brought glory to God with our lives, not how we got what we wanted out of it. It isn’t about our love winning. Jesus wins, and that’s it.
Hannah Hatton is a Bible study leader and discipler at Midtown Baptist Temple in Kansas City, MO and the Registrar for Living Faith Bible Institute.
Bibliography
[1] Bell, Rob. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.
[2] "Bible Search and Study Tools." Bible Search and Study Tools - Blue Letter Bible. Accessed February 27, 2021. https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv.
[3] Briscoe, Brandon. "On Christian Deconstruction — LFF." LFF. Last modified August 8, 2019. https://www.lffellowship.com/blog/2019/8/7/on-christian-deconstruction.
[4] "Definition of UNIVERSALISM." Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America's Most-trusted Online Dictionary. Accessed February 20, 2021. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/universalism#h1.
[5] Thornton, Ed. "Heresy, Holiness, and Oprah: Rob Bell Interviewed." The Church Times - News, Comment, Features, Book Reviews and More. Last modified June 14, 2018. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/15-june/features/features/heresy-holin ess-and-oprah-rob-bell-interviewed.
[6] Walls, Jerry. "Universalism in Origen's First Principles." EPLACE: Preserving, Learning, and Creative Exchange | Asbury Theological Seminary Research. Last modified 1981. https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1634&context=asbur yjournal.
