Although this really is not about the books I am reading, I cannot pass up the opportunity to advertise good, thought-provoking, Biblical, and encouraging Christian literature. War Psalms of the Prince of Peace: Lessons from the Imprecatory Psalms by James E. Adams is a wonderful read! It is useful for learning about how all of Scripture is God-breathed and "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16) (including the imprecatory Psalms), how "Christ himself prayed them (the Psalms (including the imprecatory ones)) through his forerunner David" (Dietrich Bonhoeffer), and how we too should "pray for our angry enemies, not that God protect and strengthen them in their ways, as we pray for Christians, or that He help them, but that they be converted, if they can be; or, if they refuse, that God oppose them, stop them and end the game to their harm and misfortune" (Martin Luther). Adams' book is very helpful, not only in regards to the imprecatory Psalms, but also in regards to many facets of the Christian walk, to include: prayers, worship, evangelism, reading Scripture, and more. I highly recommend it to you all.
The other book that I am reading is Rob Bell's Love Wins: A book about Heaven, Hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived. Why in the world are you reading that? See, I know what you're thinking. Spooky, huh? I am reading Rob Bell for several reasons: 1) I am writing a paper for school on the Emergent Church, and Rob Bell pastors a large emergent congregation and has written several books that are advancing the emergent movement. 2) It is a controversial book with many ideas that several scholars and people have deemed heretical. I always want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I am not one to take hearsay and believe that the book is heretical or all that dangerous unless I read it for myself (by the way, I can concur with all the hype...not good theology...not Christian for sure...). 3) Finally, it scares me when Andy Crouch of the New York Times writes that "Rob Bell is a central figure for his generation and for the way that evangelicals are likely to do church in the next twenty years." If this is where the church is headed, I better be on top of my Rob Bellism so that I can properly refute its position on so many central characteristics of the Gospel.
Now, to the good part.
Oh no...
I am beginning to write...
Like him.
Just a little bit of literary style humor. I know, I am the only one that thought that was funny.
If you have Bell's book, I invite you to follow along in this adventure of four-wheeling through the bumpy and muddy chasms of Rob Bell's exposition of beautiful, clear, glorious Scripture. Why do I say that? Because Bell has a tendency to make clear, articulate passages of Scripture ambiguous, puzzling, and unclear. Don't just take my word for it. Read it for yourself. I am starting in the third paragraph on page 26:
"In Matthew 19 a rich man asks Jesus: 'Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"
Now, before we go further down Bell's road, let's take a break and see what passage in the Scriptures he is referring to:
And behold, a man came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The young man said to him, "All these I have kept. What do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Then Peter said in reply, "See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?"Okay. Now back to Bell's interpretation and exegesis on this passage. Rob Bell grasps that the man is asking Jesus how he can get to heaven and have eternal life. As Bell (2011) writes, "The rich man's question, then, is the perfect opportunity for Jesus to give a clear, straightforward answer to the only question that ultimately matters for many" (p. 27). Bell then follows a sarcastic and facetious tangent about how Jesus is going to give the man a lesson about salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and in Christ alone. After Jesus tells the man that, he will then take the man aside, invite him to confess his sins, repent, and accept Jesus Christ as his savior. I think Rob Bell is poking fun at something. I cannot quite put my finger on it, though. "Jesus, however, doesn't do any of that," (p. 27) Bell continues to exposite.
Matthew 19:16-27
He quotes Jesus' response: "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments" (v. 17). Again, in sarcasm, Rob Bell acts surprised and writes, "This wasn't what Jesus was supposed to say" (p. 27). Jesus changes the subject and answers the man's question about obtaining eternal life by asking him a strange question (the emergent church likes answering questions with more questions) and bringing up the subject of the commandments. The man then asks which commandments he should follow. Bell then shares a bit of Bible knowledge that I didn't know: "There are 613 [commandments] in the first five books of the Bible" (p. 28). After giving us this information, he continues to dance around the point of Jesus' answer. It is like a fast ball right in the sweet spot, and he swings and misses terribly.
Continuing on...
Bell then talks about how the man wanted to know which of the 613 commandments Jesus was telling him to keep. He goes off on another tangent, but I won't follow that one because it leads me to another study of Sabbath keeping and another passage exposition. Bell writes, "The Ten Commandments were central to this discussion because of the way in which they covered so many aspects of life in so few words" (p. 28). I wish I could abridge Bell and write, "Bell writes, 'The Ten Commandments were central to this discussion because of the way in which they [concisely summarized the entire Law of God] in so few words." That's not what he said, though. He is not wrong, the law is a crucial aspect of our life, but that is not why they were central to the discussion between Jesus and the rich man. However, this is not the place for my commentary. I apologize. I'll let Bell finish, and then I will say my peace (or write it, rather).
Bell notices that Jesus lists five of the six laws in the second table of the Law "dealing with our relationships with each other" (p. 28). However, he does not complete his thought. He notices one is missing, but he doesn't pin point which one is missing. Let's look: "You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (vv. 18-19). Quiz yourself before you look up the answer. Which one is missing? Honor father and mother? Check. Do not murder? Check. Do not commit adultery? Check. Do not steal? Check. Do not bear false witness? Check. Do not covet your neighbor's belongings? Check? Certainly loving your neighbor as yourself is part of not coveting your neighbor's belongings, but it is mostly a summation of every law in the second table. Remember Jesus' answer to the Pharisees about the greatest commandment in the law (Matt. 22:36-40)? So, it would seem that Jesus does not mention the commandment about not coveting your neighbor's belongings. More about this later (because it is important concerning proper exegesis of the passage (oh man, I gave it away. Now everyone knows that I don't like Bell's exegesis...)).
Right after Bell notes that Jesus only lists five of the six commandments in the second table, he briefly records the man's answer that he has kept them all, and then he comments about Jesus' response to the man's answer: "Go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." He is right, that is partly what Jesus said. The ESV reads:
Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."
Matthew 19:21
That will come to play later in my understanding of the passage too. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Bell then writes (somewhat sarcastically again), "Shouldn't Jesus have given a clear answer to the man's obvious desire to know how to go to heaven when he dies?" (p. 29). He follows that by poking fun again with the statement "Jesus blew a perfectly good 'evangelistic' opportunity" (p. 29). Are you ready for the bumpy, muddy road of Rob Bell theology? Here we go. "How does such a simple question -- one Jesus could have answered so clearly from a Christian perspective -- turn into such a convoluted dialogue involving commandments and treasures and wealth and ending with the man waling away?" (p. 29). I personally do not find Jesus' response to the man that confusing (especially if you look at what the man is really asking), but if Bell will make an enigma out of it then let's see where he goes with it...
Rob Bell then approaches his grand finale'! Bell has a tendency to take a clear passage of Scripture, make it seem convoluted (which sometimes seems to work with all of his convoluted exegesis and confusing tangents), and then when you just about give up on the passage, he pulls the rabbit out of his hat and says, "Tada"! The problem being that this Tada moment is often characterized by something that Bell makes up out of thin air rather than from the Biblical passage. For example, thanks to the all-knowing Rob Bell, we finally have the answer to this very convoluted, unclear, and confusing dialogue about how to get to heaven (sarcasm is a two-way street sometimes)! Rob Bell concludes:
When the man asks about getting "eternal life," he isn't asking about how to go to heaven when he dies. This wasn't a concern for the man or Jesus. This is why Jesus doesn't tell people how to "go to heaven." It wasn't what Jesus came to do. Heaven, for Jesus, was deeply connected with what he called "this age" and "the age to come" (p. 30).Like I said, I am very glad that Bell has some inside knowledge into the text that the rest of us don't have. I don't know what copy of the scriptures he has, but it seems to be an annotated copy from God. Otherwise, I don't know where he comes up with the conclusion that neither the man nor Jesus are concerned about how to go to heaven (that is, unless he's making it up).
The word "heaven" is not in the question, but eternal life is an inheritance to be given to those who are resting in Christ for salvation. That everlasting inheritance is held in heaven in the person of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:4). So, if you want eternal life (which the man is asking about) then you have to go to where it is being guarded by the power of God. The man doesn't specifically ask, "Jesus, which way to heaven?" (to which John 14:6 would be the reply) but his question implies heaven because that is where eternal life is to be enjoyed.
If we look at verse 23, Jesus himself tells us that the rich man wanted to enter heaven, and it was not going to be easy. In verse 25, the disciples go on to ask about eternal life's relation to salvation and ask Jesus who can be saved. Jesus replies that eternal life, entering heaven, and salvation are impossible for man but possible for God to accomplish for man. In order to understand and grasp Bell's exegesis of the passage, one must put blinders on to the rest of the passage. The very same scripture passage that Bell uses to refute a historical view of heaven as a real place completely refutes his very own position. The saddest part, however, isn't that Bell is so obviously wrong in his views, but that many people will be completely duped by what he is proposing even though the refutation of his whole exposition follows just verses after he comes to his arrogant and boastful conclusion.
Furthermore, claiming that heaven wasn't a concern for the man or Jesus, Bell must account for why Matthew records this dialogue for us? Is this just a useless story in Scripture? Better yet, is this story misleading? Rob Bell would have us believe so. I haven't read much further in his book than that, but I know where Bell is headed with this. To begin the chapter, Bell nonchalantly proposed that Heaven is not really a place outside of this world. He disagrees with pastors who think, "it will be unlike anything we can comprehend, like a church service that goes on forever" (p. 25). Bell follows his very very poor exegesis of Matthew 19 with rapid-fire poor exegesis of Matthew 13, 28, 24; Luke 20, 21; and Mark 9, which he claims all support the idea he's about to bombshell us with: Heaven as we know it doesn't exist and Jesus has always been talking about Heaven as a state of mind in a Christian life. Some of you might be thinking, That's a bit presumptuous of you, don't you think? Considering that I haven't read to the end of the chapter (because I can only take so much of his nonsense and poor scriptural exegesis for so long before it annoys the patience out of me), you're right. However, the title of this chapter is Here is the New There, so, I'm pretty comfortable with my presumption. I'll let you know if I am wrong.
So, that was Bell's take on Matthew 19, and it is so annoying to read it because so many professing Christians do not read their Bibles and will buy into Bell's theology hook-line-and-sinker. They will buy Bell's book, read what he has to say about the Bible, take his word at it (after all, he went to seminary and he's a pastor), and then have a very wrong view of Heaven, Hell, and our eternal redemption and damnation. Overall, what is at stake is the Gospel. Bell is changing what it means to have eternal life, what it means to be in perfect communion with God the Father, and is changing the way to the Father from Christ's atoning work upon the cross to a source outside of Jesus Christ (if you wonder about this, see my third part of the Emergent Church). If he follows my hunch and proposes that Heaven is here on earth if we make it heaven on earth, then he has a contorted view on man's sinfulness and the depravity and curse of this world. If this place we call earth has potential to become Heaven, then it cannot really be all that bad. If it is not all that bad, then sin can't be all that bad. It's just a black spot on our existence that can be dry-cleaned out if we find the right cleaning solution. If sin isn't all that bad, then Jesus isn't all that wonderful. You see where I am going? I assure you that I will keep you posted on exactly what Bell has to say in his book. I am sure that there are plenty of other opportunities to come to show just how dangerous Bell's theology, Christology, hermeneutics, and beliefs are to the church.
Bell believes that God is love, as John writes so clearly in 1 John 4:8. However, he does not believe that God manifests His love for us by "[sending] his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:9-10). For Bell, God is a concept to be grasped and not our Holy Father that reaches out to a fallen and sinful creation through the blood, death, and resurrection of His only begotten Son. Unfortunately, he will contort and poorly exegete scripture in order to persuade Biblically illiterate "Christians" to jump on his bandwagon full of error. More about this later, though.
I would like to persuade you of another exposition of Matthew 19. Scroll up, and re-read the passage and let's see if we can understand why Jesus responds to the rich man the way he did.
The man asks Jesus, "What good deed must I do to have eternal life?" Right from the get-go, the man is asking the wrong question. The man is basically asking how he can acquire eternal life through works. What thing can I do in order to earn eternal life? Jesus' answer, therefore, is not as off-the-wall as Bell makes it out to be. After all, under the Covenant of Works, man was able to merit eternal life. However, man failed miserably after eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden that he was commanded not to eat, and all of humanity plunged into total depravity through him (Rom. 5). Jesus answers the man's question exactly as the man asked it: "If you would enter life, keep the commandments." Basically, Jesus is telling the man, If you want to obtain eternal life by doing something good, then keep all of the commandments, unlike your forefathers. If you can keep the law flawlessly and be perfect, that good deed will earn you eternal life. Of course Jesus knew that no man can do that because we are conceived in sin, but He is answering the man's question according to the way the man asked. Jesus knew the man's heart. The man was legalistic (as we shall soon see) and wanted to obtain eternal life by doing something. He asked a legal question, and Jesus is going to give him a legal answer.
So, after Jesus tells the man to keep the commandments, the man (still not catching on) asks, "Which ones?" Jesus seems to let the man off the hook for his inability to keep any of the first four of the Ten Commandments. After all, Jesus tells us later in Matthew that we are to love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul (Matt. 22:37). If everyone else is like me, I cannot even love God with the complete perfection of my heart, mind, and soul for a second of time without something else distracting my love's attention elsewhere let alone an entire lifetime. It is as if Jesus did not want to completely dash the man's hope. Jesus lists almost all of the commandments in the second table concerning man's duty to love his neighbor. All except for one: You shall not covet your neighbor's belongings. This is very telling of what Jesus commands the man to do next: "Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me" (Matthew 19:21).
The ten commandments are a concise summary of the complete Law of God. For each command, there is a positive and a negative command. For example, we are not only commanded no to murder our neighbor, but we are also commanded to support, protect, and ensure our neighbor's health and life. The Westminster Larger Catechism helps draw out what all is entailed in the tenth commandment. Question 147 reads:
What are the duties required in the tenth commandment? Answer: The duties required in the tenth commandment are, such a full contentment with our own condition, and such a charitable frame of the whole soul toward our neighbor, as that all our inward motions and affections touching him, tend unto, and further all that good which is his.The man claims he has kept all of the commandments. Jesus responds, Oh really? Take everything you have and give it to the poor and then you will be perfect! Jesus wants the man to see that he must be perfect according to the Law if he desires to accomplish eternal life by doing good deeds. That is, after all, what the rich man asked. If you want to be perfect and have eternal life, then you have to keep the commandments. The young man heard this and went away sorrowful because he was rich and he did not want to keep the tenth commandment. Perhaps he went away sorrowful knowing that Jesus had just called his bluff and revealed him as the sinner he is. Perhaps he went away sorrowful because he finally saw that his whole approach to legalism was of no avail because no matter what he did, he was not going to be able to keep the Law perfectly. He went away sorrowful, but perhaps this was the wake-up call that he needed. The rest of the story is speculation, so I will not speculate. All we know is that this passage does not teach us that Jesus is confusing, convoluted, unclear, and wants us to do anything so that we can have eternal life. Rob Bell misses the whole point that Jesus is trying to reveal to the rich young man: You, as a sinner, can do nothing to earn eternal life! Jesus' last words to the rich man are, "Follow me." The rich man went away and did not follow him. Jesus is the only way to the Father and everlasting life. This we know.
The passage of the rich young ruler has much to teach us. One important point is that we, as sinners, can do nothing in order to earn eternal life. Eternal life must be bought with a price. Substitutionary atonement is required to reconcile man to God. One must not only fulfill the Law of God, but he must impute his righteousness to sinners for the forgiveness of sins and must impute our sin to himself and become the propitiation for our sins. This work has been accomplished through the work of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and is given as a free gift to those God has called. Read Romans 5 (the whole book, for that matter) if your heart truly desires to know how you have been ransomed from sin through the death of Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, Rob Bell cuts the narrative short. If we read on, Jesus turns to his disciples (those that did not leave him sorrowfully but left their families immediately when Jesus called them) and Matthew records the rest of the story:
And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Then Peter said in reply, "See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first." Matthew 19:23-30This is just a very brief exposition of this wonderful passage, but I only hope it serves to show that Rob Bell twists and contorts the passage into something that it is not. He does it all the time, and it is so annoying. For better expositions than Bell's and mine, please avail yourself to J.C. Ryle's expository thoughts and Calvin's commentary. Both, I believe, are available online free of charge. Thank you for reading. Continue your heartfelt and fervent prayers for the church, and that God would continue to call godly men to the ministry to be ministers of the Word, that he would silence the lips of those who seek their own will and to build a kingdom of their own, and that He would always continue to strengthen his true church (both free and persecuted), as the body of Christ, through the work of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Reference:
Bell, R. (2011). Love wins: A book about Heaven, Hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived. New York: HarperOne.
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