Rob Bell vs Adrian Warnock: Heaven, Hell & Love Wins

[Music] hello and welcome to a classic playback edition of unbelievable the conversation you're about to watch between rob bell and adrian warnock was first recorded in 2011 shortly after the release of rob bell's book love wins the show was one of the most popular in the history of the podcast and the video was widely watched at the time but has never actually been released on our own unbelievable youtube channel until now so enjoy it and don't forget to like and subscribe for more conversations that matter every week and why not subscribe to our newsletter as well that way you'll never miss anything and you'll get my free ebook featuring conversations with people like jordan peterson richard dawkins and indeed rob bell the link is in the description thank you for watching you're an author and probably though the latest release love wins has sort of put all the other books somewhat in the shade in terms of the reaction it's had um tell me did you anticipate the response that this book would have has had which response because people have been extraordinarily kind and supportive and grateful and i love the process the hunt the discovery the exploration the thing that god is doing in me but the thing that's happening in my own soul and spirit my own walk with christ and out of that the sense of i need to make this whether it's a film a book a sermon or something so to me that every morning scene at my desk and it's quiet and i'm working away at the next thing it's sort of how my life is oriented so if the thing that god created could help somebody that's if it could help them find christ and find healing and salvation and wholeness and hope and joy that's like i don't that's beyond that's too good to be true so um i'll start there okay obviously though that's not the only kind of reaction apparently from what i'm told there's other reactions as well have you been looking at the reactions i mean do you go online on the blogs on the reviews you don't look at it i don't google my name um and is is that just purely because it's too too much there'd be too much to look at right if you started where would you stop um and i am passionate about people who haven't heard this gospel good news hearing it so i do my best to articulate it uh this book is part of an ongoing discussion it's not the last word i never thought it was and i assume nobody else thinks it's the last word well so i'm taking part in this ongoing discussion and it's okay the other opinions and perspectives are beautiful good well we've got another opinion and perspective represented here in the studio today my other guest is adrian warnock hi andre thanks for joining me today as well um adrian you are sort of in the uk scene quite well known as a church blogger you you often you know give your opinion on various things going on movements in the church etc um what did you make of the the response to rob's book on the in the blogosphere well look let's just start by saying rob i it's very clear to me that you've written out of deep conviction shaped by your experience and you've always been someone who's tried to to reach out to particularly people who've been hurt by church expressions and who you know are in danger of running away from church church altogether and i have to say you know i am sorry that there's been some people have been really quite hurtful online i'm glad that perhaps you haven't read some of that stuff but you must have been aware of it at least peripherally um you know some people talk about the pajama hadine you know um and i i don't think what's that what's that oh the idea that bloggers are you know sitting in their pajamas with not nothing better to do than be like you know part of them what's the second word you know as in sort of warfare warfare um yeah that's quality that's a new one i'm making that phrase i wish i had pen and paper yeah that's good we'll pass you one and and i just want to say right at the outset of this i i've no intention to be hateful uh to you or to anyone and i think eddie but i do feel that every christian has a duty to contend for the faith once we're all delivered to us and certainly in the videos online and the publicity around the book and and in actually the book itself you seem to have claimed that that many christians you know have have had an unhelpful understanding of the gospel and there's an implication that that actually they've been wrong essentially and i i do feel that the faith has been delivered to us and we must contend for that and i guess i'd be much more traditional than you at one point in the book you talk about your grandmother's faith or your picture in your grandmother's house and the clear implication is that you sort of moved away a bit from your grandmother's faith and for me i i want to be part of my grandparents faith and the forefathers faith and and to preach a christianity that those who've gone before would still recognize rob this kind of leads us into uh one of the questions that came in uh was was david a pastor in kent who says what have been your key influences when it came to writing the book um my grandmother well but what what made you start to think this way in particular you know in terms of the themes of heaven and hell that you bring out in the book i mean was this was this the way you thought when you started mars hill 10 years ago would you say you've changed significantly theologically in that time well i'm like a lot of people you study and you grow and you learn and you see things one way and then begin to see them in a different way it always came out of like as a pastor giving sermons you study the text you study other texts you study more texts you dig around in the greek you dig around in the hebrew you start realizing wait some of these phrases come up again and again and again what's that about where is that is anybody else in the tradition picked up on this what what are the implications of this paul says this here jesus uses this image does he use any other image like this wait there's this commentary on this parable well i haven't heard that before i wonder what else is so your thinking is definitely obviously developed in those in those ten years just coming to the text again and again i mean what's interesting to me is someone put me onto an archive of the very first sort of mp3s that came from mars hill it does exist somebody does exactly on google yeah you can get it um and i just listened to the first sermon you gave and i was like rob it's still rob but he does sound quite different he's using some terms that you wouldn't hear him talking about in quite the same way today so i just got a sense that you have kind of at least in the way you present it changed somewhat in in your sort of the way you you think theologically a bit maybe have you oh yes absolutely we all go on a journey don't we theologically but i mean let's get down though to some of the key questions we've got okay on the book today so obviously the big one we need to start with i think is is universalism because you've made statements rob to say i'm not a universalist but on a kind of straightforward reading of the book that's obviously what many people are coming away with that you are a universalist you do believe all people will ultimately be saved now i know that you've said that you don't believe in a kind of big hand of god sweeping everyone into heaven whether they like it or not not that kind of universalism but is it fair to say you do believe in a universalism in the sense of that everyone will ultimately freely choose to be won over by the love of god i don't know do you well do you it's interesting because i don't think jesus did because jesus talks about hell he talks about a fire that won't go out torment that's unending um and you know certainly in your book you say that no one can resist god's pursuit forever because god's love will eventually melt that is a perspective of i mean there has been that strand within the christian tradition there are people who have said oh yeah given enough time god will win everybody over what a what a beautiful thought but i don't i don't know and to sort of stake a claim that that's going to happen how would anybody know that i mean obviously you outline different positions in the book so you say some people think this yes some people think this and here's his now i suppose what struck me when i read it was that it is that position of everyone ultimately being one which is the one you kind of major on that you give the most time to in your chapter does god get what god wants and and so just to quote from a couple of bits there um on one page you say will all the ends of the earth come as god has decided or only some will all feast as is promised in psalm 22 or only a few will everybody be given a new heart or only a limited number of people will god in the end settle saying well i tried i gave it my best shot and sometimes you just have to be okay with failure now when i read that although they're phrased as questions yeah i i obviously think well rob obviously doesn't believe that god fails and god settles back and says oh well you know i tried but didn't work it comes out that you're not agnostic on this rob it comes out that you do believe everyone will ultimately be saved of course you acknowledge that's just one in a variety of options but it sounds like that's the one you prefer or you you're most convinced by do you long for that to happen oh yes well adrian well look do you long for it to happen i i'm not a christian who believes that only a few will be saved that's for sure um i think there are and and that's one of the positions i think you kind of react against in the book you know this idea that billions and billions of people are going to end up in hell um and that the the minority will be saved but i think there's a different question about whether you believe the majority will be saved or all and so i don't feel that my reading of the scripture would allow me to say uh that hell will be empty i don't i don't see that and my observation from what i see in our world right now is i see lots of people choosing hell and i actually think it's incredibly important that we hold on to hell and if you're asking me i see lots of people resisting god's love right now resisting christ right now and my assumption is they are free to resist when they die and uh talk about the momentum theory you tell a lie you have to tell another lie that our choices have very real consequences and we can build a head of steam in a particular direction and we can build a head of steam in a direction away from god so i see lots of people who it looks clearly like they're choosing hell now their consequences are spreading hell to others and i would kind of assume that they'll continue on in that direction well i guess this is the thing that many people are feeling a bit frustrated by rob is that they they feel like they've read you making statements in this book and then when you've talked about the book afterwards they feel you you've backpedaled or at least soft-pedaled what you've actually said about it because it i have to confess when i read the book without any knowledge you'd be coming into my studio um i thought wow rob bell's come out as a universalist now it's why did i come away with that impression if you are really just setting out a range of options and you're not really saying you are firmly in any camp i mean is is that being a bit disingenuous i think in the book i talk about hell now and how later i see people choosing hell now i i live with the assumption that people will choose hell when they die there's this picture in revelation of this new creation new heaven and new earth earth and heaven become one this beautiful city and there are people outside of it but do you believe that ultimately everyone will be really fascinated will they be one i know i know i'm asking what is the do you know no i don't do you know well i think jesus knew uh and jesus said that there'll be those that he would send away and here's one of the things that really concerns me you know as a as a teacher and i'm sure it concerns you as well that you know when james it says that we who teach we judge more severely than the rest and jesus does seem to say that there will even be some who you know who've preached who've healed even talks about miracles in his name and he'll say look away from me i never knew you and he says that repeatedly about this idea of an eternal punishment where the fire doesn't stop and i think it really matters whether that's real or not and if you are saying that you don't really believe the simple words of jesus that then i've got big concerns about you rob as a as a as a person and and what those consequences for you might be i i've got con concerns for people listening though as well see that my worry is this that someone could read your book or or listen to you um and decide well you know what it doesn't matter because people think that to a certain extent even now when when they hear the sort of more traditional gospel messages that say hey you know it really matters what you do in this life you've got to respond to jesus you can sin but then once you've repented you'll be forgiven a lot of people hear that and go ah i know i'll repent on my death bed and i think that's very dangerous because you never know whether you're going to have a death bed in that sense but what about someone who listens to you and says well it's fine i'll just wait till i'm in hell then i'll then i'll take the ticket out of here thank you very much you know the rich man and lazarus jesus said there's a chasm that no one can cost if i can back this up just with another question i've got so many questions here rob i feel like i owe my listeners asking a few of them um peter on that very subject that um that's just been raised there asks um you know what's to stop me choosing to ignore jesus and doing whatever i want knowing that not only will lovers of christ ultimately win but rejecters and haters too in as it were the afterlife so the question is is is this a death knell for a evangelism and b people taking things seriously in this life if if if they come to this view that i'm always going to have a chance to to turn around i begin with the urgent immediate call of jesus to repent right now so that's why i'm here that's why i'm doing i don't know how many interviews in a row is because to me it all begins with jesus saying repent now kingdom's here it's upon us it's among us it's at hand and so that's how i live and move and have my being and my observation is that when people are exposed to this christian tradition and all of these perspectives and they are introduced within their own tradition to a stream of thought that read all of those all things passages and said just what might god be up to in the world through this christ how big is it my experience has been it has an immediate effect of this god is good this god is up to something and i want in now so my experience in our church and my experiences traveling around meeting with people has not been any sort of like well it doesn't really matter it has been oh my word this gospel is awesome i want to know this christ now and i want my friends to know this christ now and i have energy i have resources what can we do now to partner with god to make this world a better place so so my my experience has been now in so your experiences in practice that's not the effect it has but can you see the point of view of those who would worry that it would give some sense i feel secure i understand the worry and fear um it is deeply counter-intuitive i actually get lots of mail from people who talk of the counter-intuitive nature of this when i read your book it had this strange effect on me that i wanted to go out and tell these people who i've been friends with for a long time and sort of wanted to have a discussion and wanted to friends of mine around the corner who have been neighbors from somebody for 14 years who went out that day and had the first conversation they've ever had about christ with so so my experience has been and i'm speak sort of i try very hard not to say like yeah i wrote this book and going to tell you about how people respond to it but my experience has been people tell stories that they believe are good they tell stories that they are compelled by that have captivated them they naturally are effusive and it sort of spills out of them and and i don't want to in any way come across as as being a downer negative on the book myself rob i i have plenty of friends who have tweeted just read rob bell's book i think it's amazing it's you know this is the book i've been waiting for was the way one person put it obviously you have written something that is captivating many people but it's also very concerning to another branch of people yeah and and i think adrian is kind of obviously in that branch he says is this kind of giving it if if you're wrong rob if you like on this is it well i think that's a sense of security this is but this is where adrian and i and you're a preacher too uh well i i'm not full-time preacher but i do not you're a preacher then you have a heart of a preacher and you wrote a book on resurrection that means you're a preacher yeah we can we can talk endlessly about then we can talk about concerns we can talk about worries but what he and i do is we announce the good news of the resurrection now and this is what we are passionate about and he is speaking of the danger of consequences when you die there are consequences right now well that's true as well i mean i mean the uh the people i meet um there is a guy in my church who last summer came to me and said hey i've been cheating on my wife and she doesn't know and i actually owe hundreds of thousands of dollars on my business which is going to go under and i think and i just like what are you doing what what do you want right now tell me where you're at right i don't know maybe this woman that i've been having the affair with it might be i don't know there might be a future with her and like no no listen here dude listen repent you are absolutely jacking your life up and your kids and your wife and this whole thing like he and i both live with awareness your choices right now have huge implication and if we want to use the word eternal who knows where this okay is going so let's start right now with this urgent immediate gospel invitation look i mean there's no question rob that when you speak about the love of god and you know this wonderful big picture and i love your emphasis on the resurrection for sure i mean you know i wrote my book because i thought that many people neglect that i do think that's great and there's no wonder that some people are reading that and thinking i love that because at the end of the day people need that positive message they do need to see that god is love they do need to see that he's for them and i think there are many people that grow up with this notion of god as being somehow against them only my problem is this and i've even heard you say this in another context where there is a tension between this notion that god is love and that god is holy and i think many people perhaps on the more reformed end of the spectrum have emphasized the holiness of god and sometimes can almost seem like they're taking delight in people who are going to hell and i don't think that's helpful yeah but i think there's a real concern in my mind that in the book there isn't too much mention of the wrath of god there isn't too much mention of the holiness of god and that maybe you've you know in trying to correct that imbalance have gone too far the other way and if i can just pop in another question which seems pertinent now again a questioner asks and i think it's um pastor and kent again says um what do you do with the roth passages rob you know um you you've stated in the book that you don't believe god came to re kind of you know um rescue us from his wrath um god you know god isn't the one who's putting us in danger we're putting ourselves in danger if you like god rescuing us from ourselves rather than from from him but but there are these passages which speak of the wrath of god against ungodliness and sinners and that sort of thing yeah what do you do with those what did jesus do on the cross like did jesus on the cross satisfy whatever need to be satisfied pay whatever penalty need to be paid was is it finished um and uh or the writer of hebrews what kind of mountain have we come to have we come to a mountain that's trembling with smoke and fire that people stood at a distance that said you you go near not us or have we come to a mountain with thousands upon thousands of angels and joyful assembly like what kind of mountain have we come to and to me the gospel writers and the new testament writers are again and again as saying on the cross jesus accomplished something we could never accomplish on our own his work on the cross not ours his new life ours on the cross he gets what we deserve and then in our trust of this we get what he deserved so so i begin with all of those questions was christ enough is it paid and can we trust him for this but rob i mean let's let's just be clear about this in the video that created all the the the angst on on the web i know that for many people that watch it it's a good word isn't it but for many people who watched that actually the thing that stuck out to them wasn't even the stuff about hell heaven you know he's gandy in heaven who knows you know that kind of thing because i'm not a great believer in saying hey this person's in hell you know i think the gospel gives us some clear understanding about how we can know we're going to heaven but i don't think it's very clear about precisely who's heading to say say more about that what i mean by that is this i i don't know what went on in gandhi's heart you know i don't know maybe on his deathbed he might have repented turned to jesus who knows maybe he had some kind of faith in christ i don't know what happened so it's not really my business to say gandhi's in hell you know what i can say is this so you so you just sort of you don't answer that question so if he starts asking you yeah but where where do you believe like he was just doing to me if he does that to you about gandhi what is your response well i would say simply this there is only one way to heaven and that's through jesus it's through faith in jesus uh and the only way to be sure that you're going to heaven is to have repented and put your trust in jesus and so you know as far as we know gandhi didn't do that now maybe he did and maybe we just don't know about it so you refrain from any sort of absolute judgment about that you return to trust in jesus and then you let that be sorted out by god who is the judge yes because you see i mean you do say somewhere in the book something along the lines of hey listen we shouldn't be making these pronouncements that people are definitely going to hell but here's my concern about what you seem to be saying and what people are reading from you is that you're you seem to be doing the opposite which is saying well hey everyone's going to get to heaven and i think that's really unhelpful you don't think that that everyone will get to heaven eventually because that seems to be what your book says oh i mean this is the what what i think we need to turn to in a way is talking as well about um the post-mortem sort of idea that you can make a response after death because that's the fundamental stumbling block for a lot of people rob is is not necessarily even the universalism that people read into this book but but that you've suggested that people can choose god after they've died a lot of people would say surely that's unbiblical um you know you make the decision now in this life and after that you you can't we're going to take a quick break and we'll come back on that issue if you're listening and you'd like to put um your view forward you've read the book and you want to give your comment on it i do encourage you to email in as usual you can do that to unbelievable premiere.org uk we're grilling rob bell today he's being lightly toasted uh i was gonna say something about having for lunch but um uh we we're taking a lot of your questions as well that you've been emailing me in the last week or two so we'll try and fit as many of those as we can in in the next part of the program don't forget this program available as a podcast at premiere.org uk unbelievable and a vast archive of past programs dealing with similar theological issues i'll post up a couple of ones that we've done before on universalism you're a pastor of a church at the end of the day and what is it like for the people who are at your church who must be kind of getting it from all angles people who say you go to rob bell's church he's a heretic i mean how are they handling it i'd just be interested purely from a kind of pastoral point of view if this is throwing up big issues for the church extraordinary they threw a party for the book launch really it was unbelievable like this program there we go there you go yeah they have been just um they're they're extraordinary people and they have been just very very loving and supportive and yes they have lots of discussions with co-workers and family and friends about these things and yeah it's it's been a a singularly unique experience in the life of our church i'll bet it has i mean we were talking about whether this dampens the the the one of the this this prospect you outline of possible universal salvation whether it dampens the prospects of evangelism but you actually wrote the book in a way to help evangelism because you feel that the idea of people burning forever in hell is such an abhorrent idea that um that is what will turn people off jesus and christianity and so i'll just read another question as as as i've got it here in front of me um from from someone who asks and if i can find it um yeah do you think the historic view has hindered people from coming to christ in the past absolutely absolutely and as a pastor you interact with people people come with a question they want to know about this they want about this struggling with this but you quickly discern that there's a question behind the question and there's a question behind that question and so many times you realize the real issue we're at here is what is god like and this does not discount god's holiness or god's judgment or god's justice but for many people they use the word roth there rob it's interesting to me god's you all say you say wrath what i'm saying is do you do you believe that god is actually angry against sin furious and do you we need we we need a god who has anger towards things that we should have anger towards and do you believe that god actually actively punishes sin or is it more just a kind of passive oh well they've chosen away from me i'll let them have their own way what a great question because you have passages that speak of a loving father disciplining and punishing as a way of correcting as a way of bringing back as a way of setting back on the narrow path so this is an image metaphor that we find throughout the scriptures yes but now as a pastor the amount of times when somebody has brought this question or that question or this struggle and you get in there and you find out they have a conception of god that is absolutely killing them or even the guy i meet on the street who's like you know i'd love to come to your church but the roof would cave in yeah like literally this guy's fundamental idea is if i go to a church service parentheses seek god in some way i am going to get thunderbolts and lightning as opposed to a savior or a loving heavenly father who's in the driveway welcoming this prodigal home but these are both isn't that well in jesus story of the prodigal son the father is standing there with arms open welcoming home for sure for sure but okay you know so i would start there and i would probably try to keep it that simple um now it will always involve some kind of repentance it will always involve some sort of death it will always involve some letting go it always involves some sort of re rebirth because you cannot step into the new unless you let go of the old that's going to be always at the center of it in some way shape or form but here's the thing i mean the guy you just described to be quite honest i'd probably respond to him in a very similar way but what i'm more concerned with okay i'll stop there and enjoy that yeah okay yes i'm just saying now keep going well let's just enjoy that what about you to enjoy that what about the guy who on the other hand is saying hey look it doesn't matter you know i'm a christian god loves me i can just do what i like i visit prostitutes i do this i do that i don't care about my wife at home because god is just going to forgive me see that kind of guy i would be more inclined to start talking to him about the wrath of god it seems to me that your guy understands punishment understands rock right right that's actually right and for him you say here's the good news you unders you get the bad news if you like now let me tell you the good news my guy thinks he's got the good news and he needs but he needs to hear some pretty bad news actually yes yeah and and i told you like last summer the guy who comes to me don't tell me you're agreeing with me as well i might start ameni no no no but this is like the guy i talked about last summer who's like you know what i'm cheating on my wife and all that i don't go hey you know man you just gotta do your thing okay you know what god has given you the freedom to go down this route and you can continue to resist god you can continue to do this but you are in misery and agony right now and you you you are experiencing a sort of hell on earth right now what are you thinking repent what are you doing what are you doing god is pursuing you god is calling you to turn from this so so there i there are there are these moments when you call people back to this god who's desperately longing for their repentance yes and you're completely right but you still seem to be just drawing slightly short of this idea that he's at risk of being eternally punished by a furious angry god forever in hell which is what i think the traditional christian perspective has always been i and and you mock that because you talk about in the video you say hey listen so many people think jesus rescues us from god all this kind of thing and by doing that most people have assumed you don't really believe firstly that there is a hell that is around god actively punishing us you know and secondly that you don't believe that jesus experienced that on the cross that's the way people do you believe that god will create a situation where there is no hope i think that we have to understand that there is a consequence for our choices in this world that has eternal consequences okay consequence so so god god has to make judgment and part of that judgment will be creating a situation where there is no longer any hope for that person well that seems to be the clear reading of scripture okay and then secondly set aside from the idea of no hope do you believe that god will create a situation in which repentance no longer is possible or matters well again i don't see a single hint in the scriptures of repentance after after death i really don't so what god does in god's judgment god has to create a situation to be true to god's judgment in which there is this for this person it is fixed it goes on in to the future with no end and there is no hope and there is no repentance no longer means anything and somebody says god i am sorry i am so grieved at my sin i have so wronged you and violated you i am so sorry i understand now that christ is the way i understand the cost of the sacrifice and i am desperate to have a relationship with you and god is there a point at which god says i can't do anything about that sorry your repentance means nothing well i think you're being too optimistic i think people in this world once they've rejected jesus what makes you think in the future world they're going to suddenly go oh i got it wrong i mean go back to the rich man he does seem to regret some of the consequences but he doesn't even ask hey can i go to heaven now he has experience the rich man has experienced no sort of let's just put this in context for we've brought in a concept of a rich man and people may be going which rich man um we're talking about the one of the parables jesus tells which does speak of a hell um lazarus yes he's the poor man outside the rich man's gate the rich man ignores him all his life um then jesus tells his story of the the poor man being in abraham's boson and the rich man is in hell and he asks abraham you know can't you at least send a message to my brother so i can warn him about this terrible thing that's come upon me i mean one of the questioners um that that came in did ask what about that fact that you know um abraham says there is a gulf between us that you cannot pass isn't this proof that it is some kind of final thing that happens at death there's a developer that's created there were at least three first century stories that were popular that involved a reversal at death in the rabbinic tradition so when jesus tells this story that involves dying and then a reversal somebody rich bends in a bad place somebody poor ends up in a good place he is using a it's almost like a prototype of a parable that was popular in his day he did not come up with this sort of twist on the story secondly he's speaking to the pharisees and the pharisees had a deep sense of piety that all that matters is our personal holiness before our maker and so how we treat our neighbor how we love our neighbor is of no consequence the only thing that god demands is our own personal piety so when jesus tells this story he has a particular thing he's doing here with these pharisees he is jolting them into the reality of their indifference to their neighbor so i begin with the assumption that to take the story which is surreal to say the least heaven abraham's bosom and the and the rich man and they can talk and there's and they can he wants water dipped it's all very surreal what you're saying i shouldn't take our theology of hell from this parable yes the point of the story and in its first century context is a giant epic shake you rattle you by the cuffs of your robe warning to the pharisees your whole individualistic piety is creating a hell on earth because you actually have rich people who are profoundly indifferent to poor people so so i begin with the first century context and say to take that then and make that an absolute teaching about the afterlife and and it has things to say to us about when you die but i sort of want to begin first and foremost is what is jesus doing rhetorically with this story and i believe he is saying to these pharisees your understanding of of piety holiness and what it means to be a neighbor is very jacked up and it is deeply grieving god and you need to repent but it isn't the whole point of that parable that the first will be last the last we first there is a day of reckoning coming and that yeah if you're going to continue to oppress the poor there are potentially eternal consequences and you know and and in the parables that whole thing isn't about hey listen they need to they need to be warned people need to be warned and the parable i mean it's very poignant actually because it even says that hey look if someone was raised from the dead what makes us think that they'd listen again to that and i guess that's the point with you know jesus coming hey jesus was risen from the dead jesus has been through that and now jesus is saying i want you to follow me in fact not just i want i command you to follow me and and i just think we miss out a little bit on this notion that that jesus is this glorious all-conquering king you know the king of psalm 2 where it says yeah kiss the son you know the son is is wanting you he wants you to love him lest he be angry with you there is that two elements even to jesus so the problems worse than you imply in the video where you say oh jesus rescues us from god actually no jesus is also the one that's angry with us and yet he also does love us and provides a way out okay any response rob i mean th this is obviously what what i want to get back to ultimately is we've kind of skirted around the issues but but what about your well yeah not in that sense but but i just mean we've touched on this we haven't quite grasped it by the throat yet this idea that there is the ability to to say yes to god to be won over by the love of god after we've died now for instance um you obviously there's parts in the book where you say things like um there will be endless opportunities this is one of the options you outline in an endless amount of time for people to say yes to god as long as it takes in other words the love of god will melt every hard heart and even the most depraved sinner will eventually give up their resistance and turn to god now that's a view that you seem to commend quite strongly in the book it might be fair to say that this is a optimistic view which you would very dearly like to be the case um at the moment do you want to be the case i want yeah of course adrian do you want all people to be saved he's going to say yes okay go ahead yes of course he does the thing is this that he's going to add yeah i don't believe it's what the bible says and you know i think it was sproul who once said we don't get to teach what we want the bible to teach we get to teach what the bible teaches essentially i mean slightly paraphrasing what he says that's okay to teach so um jesus the renewal of all things paul colossians the reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth peter in acts 3 21 the restoration of all things paul in ephesians 1 10 he uses this fascinating annika fellaini in a cafeli's word that's a very unique greek word there will be all things we brought to fulfillment how do you understand the all things well look the all things is about the fact that creation itself will be brought into unity with god again there will no longer be this rebellion against god yeah there'll be this thing called hell where the devil is locked up forever and those who've rejected christ are locked up forever but the creation itself will no longer have sin in it sin will have been purged from creation the new creation so when you read uh all things that has that isn't about people well it is about people but it's not about every single person that's ever lived no so it's not about all people no it's about all people who will then exist in the world the rest of them will and this is of course where some people get the whole idea of annihilationism from which i don't agree with but this idea that actually the people have almost ceased to exist and in terms of of the new creation they kind of have ceased to exist i mean we would i would hold they do have an eternal conscious punishment some people disagree with that because it's it's almost like they're in a separate realm does god mean keep the punishment does god do the punishing well i would say he does yeah forever yes in the same way so like so a billion years from now god is keeping the punishment going yes so like if a person died at let's say 17 whatever they did for 17 years 17 million years from now god is still inflicting the punishment on their failure to repent in that 17-year window well that's what the bible says it's not a very comfortable message but it's what the bible seems to say i mean it's just the word eternal as you understand that aeonian means forever as we think of forever linear segment unfolding segments i believe that yeah in the same way that the word in hebrew means that too the hebrew word i'm not so familiar with that word but what do you know is this jesus says this he says some will go to eternal punishment some to go will go to eternal life okay so eternal life to my mind means the same thing as eternal punishment in that in that sense okay so so so if your word eternal doesn't mean eternal as we understand english then it's heaven forever if aeon aon's the greek word and like kittle or barclay or mcdonald or crick or you you go down the list of theologians who say aeon has two central meanings it means an age this age and the age to come or it refers to an intensity of feeling in terms of intensity of experience you would say no no those two sort of standard understandings of aeonian and ionian life there's actually a third meaning that is the meaning that trumps the other two no no i would say this that words mean different things at different contexts and when jesus says hey listen there's eternal punishment or there's eternal life and there's this choice that that that distinguishes which one of those you're in the the word eternal in that sentence surely has to mean the same thing because if when we're playing with words uh we don't we don't usually use a word meaning two different things in the same sentence determination so for you so when a first century jewish rabbi uses eternal life he's talking of haba he's talking about life in the age to come aeonian life and this understanding that there is this age and then there is an age to come and they didn't comment on the age to come after that because they didn't have a sense that things that sort of go on forever only god is sort of outside of time so they spoke very specifically about moments in history followed by another age in history so for you would you disregard the first century jesus usage of the term well no because we are talking about the age to come there's an age to come yes and so for a good jew that was the the next period of time after this one but you would then add or read into that oh that that must he must then be talking about a sort of forever as we think of forever it's interesting what you're doing here rob because you're asking a whole bunch of questions of me but yeah well it's very it's actually very helpful for me yeah it is but can i just say because the thing is when someone like me hears you ask those questions the immediate understanding i have is that clearly you don't agree with that and that clearly you think hell isn't forever and that clearly you think people can get out of hell now i'd be interested if you're willing to say that quite clearly because often when people have asked you that you don't say that you just answer with a question or whatever do you think people can get out of of of hell and go back to heaven is that what you're saying i'm simply beginning with when we use eternal yeah or forever is this a category are we talking about the same thing that the biblical writers talked of so like in the hebrew scriptures olam is the closest word and jonah says that he was in the belly of the fish for olam which was three days so i'm just asking when we take our forever and we impose it and are we bringing an assumption to the scripture that the writers don't have okay so that to me that just sounds like universalism and the fact that the hell isn't that's a basic sort of biblical studies question and when jesus says eternal punishment what does he mean and is there sort of a larger context because when he says eternal life can i can i come though moving beyond the greek to to if you like it's to me what comes through in the book more is that it you don't like the picture that this would paint of god in the first place and so let me just get these questions out one person asks is your generous view they call it of judgment and reconciliation primarily the product of bible study or the application of kindly logic i.e the idea that god couldn't be like this and another person asks and this is more directed at you adrian in your view of hell if we believe god is justice how can a finite human being with a finite ability to reason come to earn infinite punishment surely justice demands that um the time fits the crime how how on earth can we believe in an eternal conscious torment i mean obviously a lot of people do struggle with this and you've mentioned already another option rob which doesn't really feature in the book but annihilationism this idea that people yeah there's there's a section on the book a sort of ex-human post-human formerly human that's one of the sort of there's that's the way many people sure are you more comfortable with that than the eternal conscious torment view i mean it seems to me like you've definitely ruled that out as being even considered you know that just for you is totally out of kilter with the idea well it just raises questions and so so like when i'm when i'm asking adrian those are legitimate honest straightforward but tell me we get an answer to the question from you rob i suppose wait wait wait wait what do you think is the answer to that question well when he says like in the questioner who says um a finite being in a finite segment of time receives infinite punishment that has to be sort of kept up and maintained by god that says something about the nature of god so let's say a 17 year old rejects christ dies and 17 million years from now whatever you want to say that that's obviously a sort of over-the-top language god is still punishing that person is god like that and i think it's a totally legitimate do you think questions like that rob no i don't think god is like that okay so so i i'm taking from that answer that you you definitely do not believe in eternal conscious torment i mean i can't draw any other conclusion that you don't believe in that and that's fine that's fine but there's lots of evangelicals who would agree with you is that a possibility is that a possibility yes of course so if your question is is do is that a possibility yeah it is see i think i think this is really adrian sees it as the possibility yeah but but he's okay with that here's the thing or he's not okay but he's okay he's not okay with that whatever but look here's the thing all right if the position that we've traditionally held to is right and you come along and say hey it's fine it's to my mind it's a little bit like somebody saying hey i found the cure to death take this tablet i'll never die it's fine now that kind of person you know with all respect wouldn't be on the new york times bestsellers they'd be held up as fraud because what you're saying to someone is you're offering them a false hope you're saying to them it's okay it's no problem do you think that i'm saying something new no i don't okay do you think that th that's the questions and the things that i say in the book you don't actually think i'm saying anything new and the christian tradition well i think okay so let me say this though so when you say i come along and say this your issue is with anybody who has this particular perspective yeah it is but i think that i think there's an interesting perspective on this and uh and that's this and i think this understands some of the kind of emotion behind this is that there are lots of people that would say a very similar thing to what you seem to be saying and and we would call them liberals and they would call themselves liberals and it's a funny thing because i know you're going to greenbelt later this year and um i i remember when i was growing up having a number of friends who would say to me something like this and they'd often be people who went to green belt or other things that say hey listen you evangelicals you're fundamentalist i want nothing to do with you we're the real thing we're liberals and they were sort of proud of the label liberal christian okay it seems to me that today i think one of the reasons people don't evangelical people reform people if you like have reacted so strongly to you is that people have thought you were on the sort of evangelical side the reformed side and suddenly you're coming out and saying this stuff that the the others have have said before but they've been the liberals you know and i think that's the angst and that's the concern because this whole in out thing are you in are you out are you an evangelical are you a liberal i mean it seems to me what you're saying is my natural home is with the liberals am i right no i'm guessing you don't want to be categorized by any label is that i went to i went to fuller theological seminary in pasadena california um the president there dr mile friend of mine um has been very encouraging of the book would you say fuller theological seminary if you're familiar with the school yeah you would say that school is liberal you would put the camp that you are explaining you would say it is that well i mean i don't know if you can camp the whole thing i mean i'm sure not everyone at fuller would agree with you would they i don't know i'm sure there's a diversity of views what what has come out is is various pastors have uh if you like labeled you in a certain way um you were talking recently at westminster central hall to a packed out audience there on the book just down the road is westminster chapel the pastor there greg haslam i interviewed recently on the book his reaction to it and and he said it's just liberalism rehashed kind of you know for a kind of you know new generation um i've got uh someone who emailed me james white wanted to say um the way he put it was this um love wins is protestant liberalism in skinny jeans um and the d.a carson of the gospel coalition and obviously they've been kind of leading a lot of the response to this has described it as liberal protestantism people believe you're basically rehashing something uh and you're you're trying you say it's nothing new is it is it what people what the liberal tradition have been giving for for a while is is that why it's not new is it kind of coming out of that well i believe the tomb is empty i believe in the resurrection you believe in the bodily resurrection i believe in the good news yes you believe in the bodily resurrection of jesus christ yes yeah like that was another of my questions it's kind of a litmus test of orthodoxy for evangelical belief these days isn't it do you believe i think not just these days and i think it's more than evangelicals i think we have to make a distinction between the evangelical movement and the broader christian movement so there are plenty of people that wouldn't call themselves evangelicals but would say that they believed that the tomb was empty you know i'm thinking of catholics i'm thinking of orthodox i'm thinking of all sorts of it's actually funny because i think it's the one thing that true christians uh all agree on actually that jesus physically rose again adrian thinks i'm a christian okay we're going to take a quick break and we'll come back because we're going to just sort of have five six minutes to wrap up this um this program you're listening to uh a really interesting interaction today between rob bell author of love wins and uh adrian warnock and you can get adrian's book on the resurrection something we've just touched on yeah he's giving giving rob a free copy of his book raised with christ he's now committed but um we'll be back in just a moment's time as we we conclude today's programme and uh if you want to get your thoughts across do email me unbelievable at premiere.org dot uk love wins is the latest book from the pen of rob bell who is a pastor of a mega church in grand rapids in michigan i've been there and thoroughly enjoyed myself and um i even have a shirt from one of your shopping malls rob i didn't wear it today but uh it's a shopping mall that's what you call it in the states isn't it a mall a mall oh yeah you mean like the building where the church meets where you actually went to a real went to an actual model that hadn't been turned into a church um but still insurance yeah we don't wanna people writing and condemning you for that as well you know we've got enough skinny jeans and selling things in the world my goodness but but anyway look we were kind of we had to break off there but we were talking about um the whole evangelical liberal divide and the labels that we put on these things and how we might say whether one is one or the other what you describe in the book rob as regards the issue of everyone being saved is we're swimming in a wide stream you say there's room for diverse opinion in this but a lot of people feel the stream is an awful lot narrower than you would like to make out and that if you are saying those kinds of things then you're outside the stream you're unorthodox etc not non-evangelical i think would be the phrase i would use because to me the evangelical worldview has a certain view of scripture and it has a certain view of the need for a response to the gospel in this life otherwise there are eternal consequences and that that seems to be pretty fundamental and i mean time magazine said that your arguments about heaven and hell raises doubts about the core of the evangelical worldview changing the common understanding of salvation so much that christianity becomes more of an ethical habit of mind than a faith based on divine revelation because if you say the bible doesn't really say what a lot of people have said it says then where does that stop you know if the verses on hell and judgment aren't literal what about all the others essentially that would be the kind of counter argument so what time magazine says is sort of no no i just think it's a helpful way of expressing it i think it's interesting that what i'm trying to say is that and this is i think the reason for the emotion behind some of the response in some people is that you seem to be undermining things that have been fundamental to the to most evangelicals view of the world and they can accept hearing that from a liberal they can accept hearing that from you know other other streams of christianity that have a different view what they find hard to is to hear it from somebody who they thought of as one of their own so like on the i think it's i don't know if it's in the in the um uk edition of the book eugene peterson who has a wrote the message says that the book doesn't give up one ounce of evangelical conviction you would say eugene peterson is full of rubbish i wouldn't like to say full of rubbish but i would like to say that to my mind even in our interview today you seem to have cast out on a very literal interpretation of certain bible passages and to me that causes me problems in recognizing i asked you a series of questions about aeon because of my serious study of the scriptures and my understanding of the christian tradition and what scholars have said about the word aeon so i i and the book is my attempt to be true to the scriptures and give these various narrative plot lines there to give this story its proper due and to highlight perhaps things that are sitting right there in the text that people haven't heard so the idea that somehow i'm dismissing the scriptures then why do i spend so much time trying to get out what they really say i never said you were dismissing them i said you have a different approach to them well well okay so does a different approach um i mean when i was asking you questions about forever those are questions that lots and lots of people have are we reading our ideas of eternal and forever into this text and is there anything about the background the words the context the the flow of the places where we find those passages that would cause us to ask some questions i mean whether or not you so that's serious study obviously you feel that your your the views you've outlined are not kind of so crazy and out there they've been expressed before by church fathers you mentioned origin of obviously and i mean the tradition is taking this book seriously yeah that's the tradition the problem is now in a sense in purely practical terms rob yes when someone is thinking of inviting you to their church event their conference they're going to think twice because the book has in a way kind of earmarked you in many people's minds as having a certain theological trajectory and and the person who invites you to their event will essentially be saying i'm in that camp sort of thing and is that a problem you know have you kind of almost self-excluded yourself almost from a certain mainstream view not necessarily intending to do that but simply by the fact that you've published a book which has raised this issue in such a public way i get this honor and privilege to even today talking with you all of interacting with people across the spectrum and i find this discussion and i find all of these perspectives on the resurrected christ fascinating compelling and life-giving so to me i'm carrying on the tradition of wrestling with the scriptures and announcing the good news of the resurrected christ and calling people to this jesus right here and right now now if there is somebody who is at some place on the the spectrum or whatever who sees this as dangerous toxic unorthodox whatever that is their prerogative um but some sort of charge that i'm dismissing this christ or not taking the scripture seriously or i don't deeply want to see people reconciled to god through christ is uh wrong i'm sure now and so would accuse you so so your question about well maybe you're not going to get invited to a church conference somewhere okay i'll have to live with that we we are running out of time and we're going to have to draw things to a close i'd just like to say thank you rob for coming in um we've put you through your paces here on the show and um i wouldn't want you to think that that um by any means the the i know many people who have been very encouraged by the book obviously the majority of the questions we've had are from people who are concerned and hence that's why this is the latest but um obviously um if you want to get a copy of rob's book it is called love wins and it's in all good book stores and uh you can get it online obviously posting links with the podcast of this program and um and yeah just google it and you'll soon see lots of things about it love wins by rob bell uh a book about heaven and hell and the fate of every person who ever lived um rob thank you very much for joining me on the program today great to have you with us uh all the best as you journey back to the states and thank you adrian for for being uh here in the studio as well thank you for having me for more conversations between christians and skeptics subscribe to the unbelievable podcast and for more updates and bonus content sign up to the unbelievable newsletter

Channel: Unbelievable?

Views: 48,737

Rating: 4.7292819 out of 5

Keywords: unbelievable, justin brierley, premier christian radio, christianity, atheism, philosophy, faith, theology, God, apologetics, Jesus, debate, universalism, rob bell, love wins, heaven, hell, adrian warnock

Id: Fk75oxo2094

Length: 57min 9sec (3429 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 26 2020