FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS….. ‘LOVE WINS: CHAPTER SEVEN

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 11:15 pm by Guest Contributor

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS….. ‘LOVE WINS: CHAPTER SEVEN 2015-03-13T23:15:20-04:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

[Note: This continues the chapter-by-chapter review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins. To catch up on the series so far, read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, and Part Six]

I like Rob Bell’s pastoral spirit. And I love the story he tells at the beginning of the Seventh Chapter of this book. Rob knows how to deal with abused persons and broken persons in compassionate ways, in the spirit of Christ’s own dealings with such persons.

There’s no doubt that Rob is a creative interpreter of Scripture, and nowhere is that more evident than in Rob’s dealing with the famous parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 (pp. 164-70). Rob thinks this story tells us something about heaven and hell, and God’s or Jesus’ approach to those places. I must admit that on first blush, this sort of approach to the parable comes out of left field. Surely, this dog won’t hunt, as we say in the South. This line of interpretation, while creative, won’t fly. Surely this parable is about Jesus’ ministry with ne’er do wells like the prodigal son and the negative reaction to that ministry by the faithful pious Jew who is steamed that Jesus is accepting prodigals as followers. Surely this parable is about the all too human chess match going on and critique going on about Jesus’ ministry—an in-house discussion by early Jews who find Jesus’ ministry shocking, especially in its claim that the least, last, and lost have just as much claim to their Jewish inheritance as the faithful pious ones, or at least, have just as much a chance of being received and changed by a gracious God as anyone does (indeed their might be a hint of a critique that the piety of the older brother could actually get in the way of his making it to the messianic banquet).

But let’s go with the Bell flow for a moment and see where this argument leads. One of the better insights in Rob’s interpretation of this parable has to do with the self-talk and story-telling of each brother, and the way the Father reconfigures their self-talk in a more gracious way. Rob points out that we have a choice about whether we believe the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, or the story the Father tells us about ourselves— a much more gracious version of our story. This insight, how God reconfigures our self-image, self-talk, our very story and the way we view it, is worth the price of going with the Bell flow in this line of approach to the parable. Rob wants to say that Hell in the present tense is refusing to believe God’s version of our story, and instead believing our own or the world’s version of our story. I think there is some real truth in this.

The question then Rob wants to ponder in this chapter is does God suddenly become a different person the moment you die. That is, if God is like the Father in this parable loving unconditionally both the prodigal and the faithful, why would death itself make God change his approach to, say the prodigal, if he had not yet returned to the Father, and died before he did so? It is any interesting question, and we will say more about it in a moment, but perhaps you will notice that Rob is not sticking to the story when he asks this question after interpreting Luke 15, because this story is about a prodigal who does repent and return to the Father and is received graciously by the Father. It is not a story about the man who never repented or believed, and died before he could change his mind.

Let me be clear that I think in one sense Rob is right—- God is not quixotic. He is not gracious and loving one moment, and cruel the moment after you die. I think that is true— indeed I believe wholeheartedly in what Hebrews says— that Jesus himself is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The character of God does not change. The problem here with Rob’s equation is that the character of God is that he is always both holy and loving, always both just and gracious, always both fair and merciful. The problem is— Rob is forcing us to choose between the moral attributes of God, and suggesting that one of them, God’s love, erases or trumps the other ones. And this frankly is not the Biblical view of God.

The great mystery of God, which makes God’s grace and love all the more astounding, is that God doesn’t take a pass on his holiness or justice for a while in order to be loving and kind. And nowhere is that clearer than on the cross— God loves the sinner but hates the sin that separates us from God, and rightly so. And the reason he is so hard on sin is precisely because he has such a deep desire to have an everlasting loving relationship with us, and is inalterably opposed to anything that gets in the way of that.

Take for an analogy the doctor dedicated to saving lives at all costs. That doctor has a passionate dislike for cancer, indeed he is doing everything he possibly can to eradicate it. But there is a problem. Believe it or not, some people would rather keep their cancer and die an early death, than have to go through the painful arduous changes required of them in order to become a new person who is cancer free. You may be thinking, I’ve never met a person like that. Well, let me tell you, I have as a pastor, and it is heart-breaking. The point of this analogy is some people, no matter what prefer, the cancer of their sin, to a relationship with their God. They really do. And so God allows them the consequences of their choices. This is not because God is wooing them in this life, but mean and cruel thereafter. It is not God who is mean and cruel—- it is this very person who is destroying himself.

And precisely because God is all about ‘freely given and freely received’ which is the very nature of love, God let’s them go. With great sorrow, he allows them to have the consequences of their choices— and the devastating part is those consequences are permanent. This life matters ultimately— it really does have everlasting consequences for all of us. This is what the vast majority of Christendom has always believed about the Grand Story, and rightly so. It is a morality play as much as it is a love story, frankly, because we have a deeply ethical God who structured reality in a moral manner. Indeed, I would say that real love, love that is holy, and redemptive, and sanctifying and life changing in a positive way, could not exist if God were not both holy and loving, and had not set up reality in that fashion.

On the other hand, Rob is perfectly right that the Good News is better than just being a ticket to heaven, or a get out of jail free card. Yes it is, it is much more than that, indeed it is about a loving and joyful relationship with God forever, but at the same time the Good News is not less than that. It does include that. Does Jesus then rescue us from the scary judgmental Father? No, in fact. He rescues us from ourselves. Because we are our own worst enemies. God is just being God who is holy love always, all day, all the time. We on the other hand are quixotic, changeable, unreliable, and self-destructive. That’s the truth about us. Without a radical rescue, all would perish, and none would be saved— and it would be all our own fault.

Of course it is true that many people project their loathsome and toxic image of themselves on God, but frankly, that is just projection and then perception. It is not reality. Here is where I say we do not get to re-create God in our own image. That actually is idolatry. A no fault religion actually is not Christianity. A no condemnation for those who are in Christ religion (Rom. 8), is another matter. It’s no good blaming the man with the mop on aisle three who is doing the clean-up for the mess that was made there by someone else, in this case, us. We need to look ourselves in the mirror and accept that we have created our own hell, and Hell is the logical and proper consequences for doing so, unless of course we accept that radical rescue plan from the Stranger who comes in the night like a thief.

At the end of this chapter, Rob quite rightly points out that both the prodigal and the faithful son were wrong about themselves. The prodigal was wrong that he had so badly blown it that his Father could only possibly accept him back as a slave. And the elder brother was wrong that his Father’s approval and love and his own inheritance was conditional on his good behavior. Wrong, and wrong. The Father says to the older brother, ‘you are always with me and all I have is already yours’. Just so. But the focus of the story is on the prodigal’s home run and the Father’s acceptance. To those of us who have grown up in the church, never drastically strayed, and get a little envious of all the attention returning prodigals get from God and others when they give their testimonies, we need to hear the words, ‘you are always with me’ or better ‘I am always with you, and all I have is already yours’. The only way to make sense of a God who accepts both the returning lost and the found is to recognize we have a God of holy love. Not love without holiness, and not holiness without love.

[Again, to catch up on the series so far, read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, and Part Six. Also see the Patheos Book Feature for updated links to commentary on the book at Patheos and elsewhere on the internet.]

Uncategorized

Previous Post

April 1, 2011

The Lanier Library and Stone Chapel (and Cotswold Cottage)

Next Post

April 3, 2011 For whom the Bell Tolls…… Chapter Eight: Coda

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz