Well, I’ve been trying to resist the urge to put my two cents in about the new book from Rob Bell, but I just couldn’t take it any longer. I am putting forth this post focused mainly on false teaching in general, but the situation with Rob Bell is probably the loudest of the most recent examples.
As I established in the title of this blog and its first post, the path less traveled is just that – less traveled. As I mentioned in my first post, Jesus said “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Matthew 7:13-14.
Kind of ironic (as I’m on the topic) that the very next passage says, “Beware of false prophets that come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits.” Matthew 7:15-16a.
And the next passage displays even further how few find the path that leads to life:
“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never new you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23.
For the entire history of the Church, there have been countless false teachers proclaiming the way to eternal life as much wider and well traveled than it is. As Solomon points out to us, “there is nothing new under the sun.” Bell
For centuries, man has taken the black Sharpie highlighter to Scripture and blotted out what he doesn’t like; what doesn’t fit into his idea of who God should be. This isn’t an option as there is one true God and you can’t just mold Him into what you think your god should look like. The one true God is unchanging. The path is narrow and few find the way to eternal life.
The thing that is so serious about this type of false teaching is the number of people an influential character like Rob Bell will drag through the “wide gate” by dragging God’s just and holy name through the mud. Let’s make one thing clear here: the God of the Bible takes justice, holiness, and the glory of His name extremely seriously. We could go to passage after passage about God’s passion for His name and His punishment for Israel
God justly punishes those who sin against His holy name and the just punishment is eternity in Hell. Praise Him that by His grace He was pleased to provide salvation through His Son. But as we’ve seen in the Scripture we’ve looked at (and the many other passages we could), the way is narrow and it is obvious not everyone is going there. If “love wins” in the sense Rob Bell is saying it does, God is speaking to open air in Matthew 25 when He says to those on His left “Depart from me you cursed” and “these will go away into eternal punishment.” This passage, along with many others on the final judgment, allows no room for inclusivist, universalist, or whatever else you may choose to call Bell
All this being said, we must also be diligent to handle false teaching in the way the Bible has commanded us to. Let us follow the instruction of 1 John 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” So we test the teaching of a person against the very Word of God. When we examine Scripture and determine that a teacher is teaching “a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness” (1 Timothy 6:3), then we must be diligent in obeying the Word of God in Galatians:
“there are some who distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let them be accursed.” (Galatians 1:7-9)
We must stand for truth. The Church has been so undermined by false teachers and un-Biblical views in this age. What is popular in our culture is not what determines truth. There is one reality, one truth, and that is God, our Creator, King, Lord, and Savior.
As you may have noticed in my reading list to the right, I just finished reading the book “Christ Among the Dragons: Finding Our Way Through Cultural Challenges” by James Emery White. I want to conclude this post with a very apt quote from that book:
“…what do we mean by truth? If we, as Christians, cannot determine the answer to this question, all is lost, for the heart of our faith is the proclamation of the One who is not simply the way or the life, but the truth.”
And it is that Way, Life, and Truth that is cheapened and undermined by false teachings.
For further reading on Bell’s book, I recommend the following review of the book as he quotes from the advance reading copy of the manuscript (in other words, if you are going to respond with “you haven’t read it yet” please read this first and see direct quotes from the book that are pretty clear on where Bell stands):
