Considering Velvet Elvis and Salvation

I read Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith’s sixth chapter, New, last night.  I nearly choked.  Rob Bell seems to have painted himself into a corner.  Any issues that popped up before are miniscule compared to what I read last night.  Any thoughts I might have that maybe I was being tough on Rob, well….. vanished.

It starts out okay.  He was weary of counseling a guy who got total depravity real well, but didn’t get the sanctifying grace part at all.  You know… worm theology- a corruption of Calvinism.

But Rob, like Robert Schuller, seems very concerned about what people think about themselves.  So he makes an over-correction to ‘worm theology’.

“Have you ever heard a Christian say, ‘I’m just a sinner’?  I can’t find one place in the teachings of Jesus, or the Bible for that matter, where we are to identify ourselves first and foremost as sinners.  Now this doesn’t mean we don’t sin; that’s obvious.”

A Christian, by definition, is not ‘just a sinner’ because of what Rob talks about next- we have been regenerated and given a new identity.  But, Paul still called himself a sinner, the foremost sinner, in 1 Timothy 1:15.  He did it in a way that he expected all of us to affirm that we are the biggest sinners we know.  BUT, that Jesus came to save sinners like us.  James 4 address Christians as sinners too.  So, while we needn’t beat ourselves up for our sin, since it accomplishes nothing, we shouldn’t avoid the fact we are sinners- not just that we sin. 

“Beating others up about who they are and what they are doing is going in the wrong direction.  It is working against the purposes of God.  God is not interested in shaming people; God wants people to see who they really are.”

Now Rob starts to go down the wrong road.  He thinks that ministry is primarily telling people who they are now, not telling them to stop being who they were.  I have a hard time with this sentiment of his since much of the New Testament is filled with rebuke and admonishment.  Thankfully, the power to change comes to us from the crucified, resurrected and ascended Jesus thrugh the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  We have power to live differently, and a new identity as God’s adopted children.  These go together, always together.  But sometimes we need to be rebuked so we’ll repent.  God certainly shamed Israel to try and produce repentance (read those prophets like Ezekiel, Hosea and Jeremiah- that’s some serious shaming going on).

Paul’s ministry is instructive to us.  He wrote at length about their identity, and about the need to put away sin.  This is not sin management, but the mortification of sin aka sanctification.  Legalism, which only deals with the external manifestations of sin, is sin management (and unlike Rob I don’t recommend you read The Divine Conspiracy).

What Rob is saying thus far is not wrong so much as an over-correction.  He again goes to the other side of the pendulum swing rather than affirm what is right (we are sinners) as well as adding what was forgotten (being saved by the God of grace).

But this is when the roof caved in.

“And when Jesus died on the cross, he died for everyone.”

Okay, he’s Arminian.  Arminians are Christians.  But…. wait.

“Hell is full of forgiven people.  Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for.  Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for.”

Here is where I lost it, and Rob departed from historical orthodox Christianity.  This is not Arminianism.  This is a different beast.  As Steve Brown would tell us, “If it smells like smoke…”.  This does.

If they have been forgiven, why are they in hell?  If God unjust?  He would be if Jesus paid for their sins and now they are paying for their sins.  Or is hell reduced to a place far from God that has no element of justice and retribution?  Is hell just like the average American subdivision except there is no one around you talking about Jesus?

Why is anyone in hell?  Why are those in heaven in heaven?
He says we choose which version of reality to trust.  Not satisfying for an answer.  Where Rob goes next is works.  He goes to the parable of the sheep and the goats (Mt. 25).  His spin is that the goats choose hell, and the sheep choose heaven.  What the difference between them is how they treat others.  The difference is not whether or not they partake of the work of Christ on their behalf (remember, he says the people in hell are forgiven).  So, it must be our works.

“Jesus wants his followers to bring heaven, not hell, to earth.”

I agree, to a point.  We are to bring the peace that Jesus purchased.  We are to forgive, not hold grudges.  We are to be generous, not miserly.  But these are the result of being transformed by the gospel.  They are not ‘how we get in’.

This sounds all too much like the “new legalism” of the emergent church that Tim Keller warned about at the Desiring God conference.  They so focus on the kingdom that they fail to fully grasp the work of Christ for our salvation.  Mark Driscoll must have stopped reading the book before this because I can’t see him not mentioning this when he discussed the work of Christ.

Rob Bell repainted more than he may think he repainted.

Repainting salvation by grace thru faith => salvation by works (because everyone got grace).

I hope I am misunderstanding him.  Am I?