Universalist?

Rob Bell is causing quite a stir in the blogosphere this past week. The pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI, and author of the controversial book Velvet Elvis is releasing a new book on March 15 called Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

Bell is part of the emergent church movement, which is a widely varied group, marked primarily by questioning traditional views of propositional truth, epistemology, and church. Bell embraces a number of post-modern tenets. Some of his questions are thought-provoking and worth discussing. Some of his thoughts, in my opinion, lead Christians away from knowable, Scriptural, propositional truth.

What has caused the stir is Bell's own promotional video for Love Wins (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODUvw2McL8g). In the video, he asks question after question that call into question our traditional views about Heaven and Hell. The words are carefully crafted - he certainly seems to be promoting universalism (i.e., all will be saved, no matter what they believe), but he never comes right out and says it plainly. But he clearly wants the viewer to at least suspect that he's a universalist.

The buzz in the blogs is whether he's truly embracing universalism, or merely perpetrating a clever campaign to sell his book. If he's embracing universalism, he's clearly promoting an unscriptural view. If his book is orthodox, but he's promoting sales with a provocative ad, then he's running dangerously close to deception and manipulation. Either way, the ad is disturbing. (I find some of his counterarguments in the video to be unfair "straw man" arguments - inaccurately representing the opposing view, then tearing down the misrepresented view.)

Either way, we should wait until March 15 to see what's really in the book before leveling specific criticisms. Many have launched severe criticism based on the video, without having the book to read. We should wait, but the early indications don't look good.

The challenge, however, is that views like universalism are easier to swallow than the harsh reality that some will endure God's wrath forever for rejecting His revealed grace. Because universalism is easier to swallow, people are embracing it. Meanwhile, Jesus is clear about the reality of Hell, with passages like Matthew 8:11-12. It's not an easy truth, but it's the only way that Scripture's call to believe in Christ has any importance.

What if we really believed that...

What if we really, truly, deeply believed that Hell is just as horrible as Scripture describes?

What if we really believed that God's Word has its own power, once it's shared?

What if we really believed that God hears and answers prayers according to His will?

What if we really believed that God draws people to Himself?

What if we really believed that we can't do anything on our own to convince one's soul that it needs Christ?

What if we really believed that as we reach out to love others in faith that God will do things beyond our own abilities?

What if we really believed that apart from Him we can do nothing, but if we abide in Him, He will bear much fruit through us?

What if we really believed that the only way to save our lives is to lose them?

If we really, truly, deeply believed these things, would we live differently?

I'm not suggesting that none of us believe these things. It's not hard to find people who completely agree with all these ideas. But the question is what if we trusted these truths so much that we lived in a way that depended on them being true? In other words, what if our actions were based primarily on the faith that these truths are exactly as the Word tells us they are? What if we lived so dangerously that if any of these statements weren't true, we would be the world's biggest fools?

What if what we believed is what we completed trusted?

I never advocate "blind faith" - faith without knowledge. God gives us reason after reason to trust Him - faith in Him is a rational act. When the Word exhorts us to "walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor 5:7), it means that based on God's known character, we can live "dangerously" - we can live trusting that all these ideas are really, truly, deeply true.

Does He Love Something Because It's Good, or is Something Good Because He Loves It?

A clever college student recently asked me this question. He was in a philosophy class studying Plato's account of Socrates' trial, and the question came up in class - is the virtuous thing virtuous because God loves it (i.e., His love of it makes it virtuous), or does God love the virtuous thing because of the fact that it's already virtuous (i.e., it possesses virtue, therefore God loves it).

On the one hand, if something is made virtuous by God's love for it, then the "goodness" of something is not an absolute attribute - it is not good apart from God's love for it. Furthermore, whatever God chooses to not love would thereby be made "bad," and God becomes the cause of evil.

On the other hand, if God loves something because it is good, then we have something that is good apart from God. This would mean that something other than God defined it to be good, and then we would have someone telling God what to consider good and what to consider bad. Someone would have taken away one of God's attributes.

Either way, we end up with a scenario we don't like.

After tossing this idea around for a bit, realizing that learned philosophers could very quickly and easily show me where my ideas are full of holes, I came to the opinion that my friend was facing a false dichotomy. He was given "A" and "B" as the only two possible answers - that it must be "A" or it must be "B." I think there is a better option than these two.

Something is "good" only as much as it resembles God's character. An act of kindness is only as good as its resemblance to God's kindness. A generous act is only as good as its resemblance to God's generosity. Love is only as good as it resembles the God of love. By the same token, something is "bad" to the degree that it departs from God's character. A lie departs from the character of the God of truth. Hatred departs from the character of the God of love.

The goodness of something does not exist apart from God, but is defined by God's character. Goodness is not a quality that exists apart from God's existence and nature. God loves something because it resembles His own character, not because it possesses its own good character apart from Him.

So, neither option is true. Something is not made good because God loves it. God doesn't love something because it has the independent quality of being good. The goodness of something is determined by its resemblance to God, and God loves the things that have that resemblance.

What does this matter? Is this just a philosophical treadmill, upon which you run and run, but never get anywhere?

I believe it's important at least in the point that God also loves us sinners, but not because we're good! That's how amazing grace is! He loves us anyway. He love us despite the fact that we don't strongly resemble His character. We are naturally quite unlike His character, and yet we are still the objects of His love. Furthermore, if we become more "good" by resembling Him more, He loves to see that, but He doesn't love us more because of it. He already loves us completely. We cannot garner more of God's love by becoming more "good" (even though He loves to see us become more "good").

Grace, then, allows us to be treated as perfectly "good," perfectly like God's character, even though we don't resemble Him that much (yet!). And then in Christ, His love for us will eventually make us that good - He will cause us to resemble Christ (1 John 3:1-3).

God's grace is truly amazing! Scandalous even.

More on Structure

Last week, we looked at Eph 1:3-14 to see how seeing the structure of a passage can help us to understanding it more fully. In that passage, we saw a threefold structure to highlight the work of each Person of the Trinity. I mentioned then that the next article would look at Eph 2 to look for a structure and see how it helps us understand the passage.

First, read Eph 2. Some of your Bibles likely have some section headings, which were added by the translators or publishers. They are not part of the original text, and sometimes they are not always placed where I would place them. They can be helpful at times, but always check to see if perhaps you think they might be misplaced.

Answer the question (without the help of the added section headings): What is Eph 2 about?

Eph 2 has two main parts to it. Look for them. They might be marked by a topic change, by a phrase that starts a new idea, or other clue that helps the reader know that there's a new thought coming. Try to find the two major sections before continuing.

In this case, most of your section headings are likely correct. The first section is from v. 1 through v. 10, and the second is from v. 11 through v. 22.

These two sections have parallel structures to each other! Each half of the chapter has two subsections. In this case, there's a repeated idea in each section to mark off the beginning of the second half of each section. Look for a repeated key idea that subdivides both vv. 1-10 and vv. 11-22. Try to find it before continuing.

The repeated key idea is "but God..." (in v. 4, "but God," and in v. 13, "but now in Christ Jesus"). So now we have the main structure: vv. 1-10 (with subsections 1-3 and 4-10) and vv. 11-22 (with subsections 11-12 and 13-22).

Now, look at the subsections, and look at how the "but God" idea changes things from one subsection to the next. What was true in vv. 1-3 and 11-12? What is now true in vv. 4-10 and 12-22? What is it that God did so that "but God" changes us from what was true to what is now true?

Now, re-answer the question. What is Eph 2 about?

The Other Valuable Lesson on Bible Study

In my previous article, I talked about one of the toughest classes I ever had, and the valuable lesson I learned about studying the Bible by learning how to ask good questions about the Scripture. There are plenty of ways to find the answers, but asking good questions first will help lead you to the most valuable answers. I mentioned that this was one of two highly valuable methods I've learned to study the Word.

The second method sounds more scary than it really is. I have learned that finding the basic structure of a passage is tremendously helpful in studying what it means. Yikes! That's sounds hard and complicated! It can be, depending on how deep you want to go, but it doesn't have to be all that complicated.

Learning how to do this is more than a single article can teach, but I want to at least give you a favorite example of mine. Read Ephesians 1:3-14. Take a second to answer the question, "What is this passage about?"

There's a three-part structure to this passage. In this case, the three-part structure is marked by a phrase that is repeated. Look for it - see if you can find a phrase repeated three times in the passage. It's not verbatim the same, but it's close, and it's important to the passage. (Look for it on your own, but if you get stuck, keep reading for a hint.)

(Hint: Look in verses 6, 12, and 14.)

The repeated phrase is "to the praise of His glory," or something similar. If you didn't find it, stop and look for it until you see it.

Now, who is each one of these phrases talking about? (It's not the same person in each case.) Take a look before continuing.

That phrase occurs once for each person of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that gives us a basic structure of Eph 1:3-14 (vv. 3-10 are about the Father, 11-12 are about the Son, and 13-14 are about the Holy Spirit). Furthermore, each section tells us something about the unique ministry of each one. Plus, the passage as a whole shows us the Trinity (without even using the word "trinity").

Now, re-read the passage and re-answer the question we asked before, "What is this passage about?" Did the structure give you a deeper answer to the question (even a little)?

Finding the structure of a passage can help us understand it much better. Next week, we'll look at the structure of chapter 2 and how that helps us understand it better.

The Hardest Class I Ever Had

The hardest class I ever had was also the best class I ever had. Dr. Wilkins' class on the study of the text of the Gospels ("exegesis" of the Gospels). Before every class began, my fellow students and I would compare how much time we spent that week on the homework for that class. The average was about 18 hours. And still, it was the best class I ever had.

The class had a lot of requirements before you could take it. You needed to have taken three semesters of Greek and two semesters of Greek exegesis. You needed to have hermeneutics (the discipline of interpreting the meaning of the text) under your belt. You needed these because in the class, we did our translations and analysis, grammatical diagramming, and exploration of each passage along several categories (textual, historical, theological, and pastoral). It was brutal, but we learned more about these passages than we would have with spending only a couple of hours with each passage.

But Dr. Wilkins' taught us one of the two most valuable Bible study techniques I've ever learned. For the first half of the semester, one of the most important parts of our assignments was to do one simple thing: Ask good questions. Each of our assignments had to include several good questions - questions about the text, questions about the historical background, questions about theology or application, and so on. Just questions.

We didn't have to come up with any answers to the questions! Before we worried about finding answers, we had to learn the discipline of asking good questions. During the second half of the semester, we then had to worry about finding answers using various resources, but that was actually easier than coming up with the questions.

It was hard for me to put unanswered questions in a homework assignment. That goes against my background. But once I started to follow his instruction, I found it to be invaluable for understanding a passage.

Try this: Spend some time in Scripture each day. Pick a book of the Bible to go through, and don't worry about getting through the book quickly. Pick a smaller book to start off, if you want. Just your Bible, a notebook, and a pen. Pick a small, complete unit, such as a paragraph. Read it. Read it again. Read it at least one more time. Then read it twice more. Then in your notebook, write down questions about the passage - questions about the words and phrase, about the historical context, about the theology involved, and questions about how the passage applies to us today. Don't worry about finding the answers - just practice asking excellent questions. If it takes you more than one day per paragraph, that's OK! Be sure to pray before and after each exercise. Work your way through the book, and then look back and reflect on what new insights you have into the text just by asking good questions.


I'll tell you about the other highly helpful technique next week.

Penitential Psalms

You've blown it. Again. The same sin. Again. And what's worse, it's bugging you less each time - and that bugs you. You worry that you're becoming insensitive to sin, and you worry that you'll never get this sin behind you. To be honest with yourself, you're really not all that motivated to repent. Again. What do you do?

Been there? I have.

There is no easy fix to persistent sin. If I found an easy fix, I could make a fortune on book rights. But there is one thing that I've found that helps. It helps rekindle the sensitivity to sin, and it has even helped rekindle the desire to repent. When I'm stuck in this kind of situation, I like to read the penitential psalms.

The penitential psalms (6, 25, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143 - depending on whose list you follow) are those psalms in which the psalmist confesses his own sin. Several are by David, but a few are by other psalmists. For whatever reasons, these men wrote psalms as part of how they processed through the sin itself. And we are the benefactors of them pouring our their hearts to the Lord.

When I'm stuck in that rut, I slowly read through each psalm, and reread them, until my hard heart begins to melt. I can't make it melt, but reading God's Word often does have that effect. Eventually, my resistance to prayer and confession eases away, and before too long, I'm in prayer with the Lord about my sin. Again.

This is not a miracle sure. If you approach this like a recipe, it won't "work." But if you turn to God's Word with the sense of just dwelling there until God softens your heart, I have found it to be very helpful. This won't necessarily "cure" you from ever committing the sin again. It may be an approach that does nothing you at all. As a fellow traveler, this is one thing that has benefited me.

Write down these psalm numbers in your Bible. I put all of my on the page with Psalm 51, because that's the psalm that speaks to me most about repentance. I know where to turn to in order to find my list of all the other penitential psalms.