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Currently Browsing: Salvation

Jesus: Here, There and Everywhere

Where were you when you accepted Jesus as your Savior? I was in the Mojave desert under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs crying out for God to deliver me. Regardless of my experience,  I refuse to tell others if they want to find Jesus, take several tabs of LSD, Mescaline and Psilocybin and He will appear to them. God forbid!

While I am aware Jesus comes to us in the strangest of places and circumstances, I am hesitant to say things like, “You can find Jesus in Hinduism, Buddhism or any religion that mentions the name of God or gods.”  Quite the contrary, each encounter we experience when we find Christ needs consistency and fundamental aspects.

Different Ways People Come to Know Jesus

In Rob Bell’s  book Love Wins, a work of exploratory theology, the pastor reports different experiences people had when they found Christ. One person was knocked off his chair and fell prostrate to the ground totally overwhelmed by God’s unconditional love for him (pg. 139).  I encountered the same exact sense of God’s love for me in the Mojave desert.  Yet as soon as I realized the depth of God’s unconditional grace, I repented of my sin before His holy presence.  (more…)

Jesus is the Only Path to God; You Just Don’t Know It

There’s not a Christian alive who does not know the contents of John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

What is there not to understand about this verse?  How much clearer can Jesus be about the fact men and women come to the Father through Him alone?  Yes, it is an exclusive statement that excludes the validity of other religious figures (and their followers) like Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna and every other so-called deity or religion.  John 14:6 is everything but inclusive.

Is Jesus actually a backdoor Redeemer?

Leave it to Rob Bell to find a loophole in what I call a  “Christianity 101 Bible verse”.  Bell says on page 154 of his widely read book Love Wins, “What He [Jesus] doesn’t say is how or when, or in what manner the mechanism functions that gets people to God through Him. He  doesn’t even state that those coming to the Father through Him will even know that they are coming exclusively through him. He simply claims that whatever God is doing in the world to know and redeem and love and restore is happening through him.”

When I think of all the off-the-wall theological comments Bell makes in Love Wins, this is the worst.  Would Acts 4:12 make it clearer for Bell?  “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

For Bell to claim Jesus doesn’t “even state that those coming to the Father through Him will even know they are coming exclusively through Him,” is heresy or just plain mental confusion. Is Bell saying a person who places his faith in Buddha is actually saved through Jesus; he just doesn’t know it. What about Satan worshippers?  Where is this taught in the Bible?  Are people who worshipped Molech or Baal in the ancient Canaanite culture actually worshippers of the God of Israel; they just didn’t know it. Why didn’t the God of Israel instruct Israel to enlighten the Canaanites instead of tearing down their altars and wiping them out? (more…)

Can Modern Christianity Be Too Loving?

Is is possible that a Christian can be too loving?  Can a follower of Jesus emphasize the love of the Lord so much that he or she leaves out other essential qualities of the Lord in their theology?

In Lynne Hybels’ recent blog on God’s Politics she asks, “What is an evangelical?” In one of her summary statements, Hybels notes:

I am a Christian today because of what I found in Jesus.

In the lover of my soul and the radical activist, I found the Christianity my mind and my soul had longed for.

In my humble opinion this is what it means to be an evangelical.

But whatever the label, I believe it’s the Christianity that our world desperately needs to see.

Hybels focuses on God’s compassion for others and the compassion of Christians towards other people as the true meaning of what it means to be a Christian.  In essence I agree with her.  Still I question any Christian writer who focuses mainly on love as the main description of Christianity.

Focusing Only on God’s Love Can Be a Formula for Theological Disaster

If  the most important expression of God is love, then what shall we make of the afterlife?  Will a loving God go so far as to express His love in such a way as to make sure everyone enters heaven?  If God’s chief character is love and His sense of holiness and justice is ignored, then what else can one conclude? If that’s what a person believes, that person is a universalist.  He or she believes everyone will be saved.  There is no other alternative. How can a God who is all loving send anyone to hell? 

Rob Bell, in his book Love Wins is a universalist as I understand him. In the fourth chapter of his book, he asks whether God gets what He wants? If God wants everyone to be saved, as Bell asserts, then the all powerful God will make sure everyone will be saved. If not, then either God is powerful enough to save us all despite His loving desires or He is not truly loving if He refuses to exercise His power to guarantee everyone a spot in heaven.

Since the Bible does not teach universalism, I interpret this belief as one in which the Christian ends up being too loving.

Since ScriptureSolutions is committed to biblical teaching and preaching, it is important that Christians are hearing the truth being taught from the pulpit. If one’s pastor is teaching universalism then the congregant has every right to ask whether their minister is being faithful to the Word of God.

Salvation Calls For a Personal Decision to Drink the Water of Eternal Life

To prove his position on universalism, Pastor Bell gathers together all the passages that refer to the Lord’s intent to ultimately restore “everything and everybody” (pg. 107). For instance, he quotes from Colossians 1:19-20: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”  To Bell this verses and others like it provide us the evidence God will be reconciled with all people. (more…)

Which Jesus Should You Believe In?

The book that has pushed the most hot buttons with Christians this year is Pastor Rob Bell’s work Love Wins. It’s not surprising a book that questions the existence of hell and hedges on whether all people go to heaven would make the front cover of Time Magazine.

Crazy Christians Getting in the Way of Jesus

In the initial chapter Bell puts forth the question: When it comes to accepting Jesus, which Jesus do we invite into our lives?  The author puts this important question in his own distinct way,  “. . . think about the many who know about Christians only from what they’ve seen on television and so assume that Jesus is antiscience, antigay, standing out on the sidewalk with his bullhorn, telling people that they’re going to burn forever” (Love Wins, pg. 8).

I think Bell makes a good point.

Here’s why.  I am a NY Yankee fan – the most hated team in baseball, especially by Boston Red Sox fans.  And the feelings are mutual. Yet if you were to become a Yankee fan based on what a Red Sox fan claims about the Bronx Bombers, you’d never consider wearing a dark blue baseball cap with a NY insignia on the front.

I’ve known the NY team since the days of Mantle, Berra and Whitey Ford.  I can tell you a lot about the great achievements of the team.  In addition, I also have a lot of respect for many past Red Sox teams and players.

Let’s face it. You’ll never become a fan of the Yankees by speaking to a fan of the LA Dodgers, Anaheim Angels or Boston Red Sox. Instead,  I’d tell you to interview real Yankee fans.  Go to a Yankee game at Yankee Stadium. Read the history of the team.  Learn about the Yankees from people who love the team and not from people who wear the NY caps to be stylish or pretend they’re Yankees fans immediately after they win the World Series.

I’d tell you the same thing about Jesus. Speak to people who truly know Him and have walked with Him for a good portion of their lives to truly learn about Christ. (more…)

The Salvation Controversy That Won’t Go Away

Pastor Rob Bell’s best-selling book Love Wins has come and gone despite being plastered on the front cover of Time Magazine in April 2011.  The focus of the dilemma raised by Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, MI,  is whether hell is a real place and is God going to “send anyone to hell” in the final scheme of things.

Bell’s controversial views attracted the hearts of people who would rather not think about hell and their eternal destiny and just hope for the best when it comes to the afterlife.

In addition, Love Wins caused an upset among evangelical Christians who believe the pastor is denying the fundamentals of traditional Christian doctrine.  Samaritan’s Purse  President, Franklin Graham even went so far as calling Bell a “heretic and a false teacher” on FOX-TV’s Bill O’Reilly show.

Though the heart of the conflict is no longer in the lens of the media, Christians cannot allow Bell’s denial of Christian truth to be ignored. However, the real controversy is not about Bell’s view on hell, but rather on his teaching on salvation.

In his book Bell asks a series of rhetorical questions that would ordinarily come from a fifth grade student inquiring about God’s fairness.  In today’s blog, I’d like to respond to some of Bell’s juvenile questions. (more…)

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