4-4-11<\/p>\n
Another Lenten contemplation.<\/p>\n
A recently released book is raising dust in Christian circles. Frankly, the controversy probably is bigger than the book itself, but so it goes. Love Wins<\/em> by Rob Bell presents the argument that most people, or all people, will eventually be redeemed from hell, if there is a hell, because Jesus\u2019s death was an atonement for all of creation. Eventually, in this life or sometime in Eternity, souls will be persuaded to accept Him.<\/p>\n I believe I have summarized the book properly. One of the author\u2019s tenets is that God is so loving, it seems impossible that He would let people go to hell.<\/p>\n If I have not properly summarized the book, then I have properly summarized dozens of very similar heresies and distortions of scripture from the past 2000 years. In brief, there is a theological proposition called Universalism, generally meaning that everyone since Calvary has been or will be \u201csaved\u201d from punishment \u2013 from the penalty of sin and rebellion against God. And maybe even retroactively, before Calvary. Some call it Universalism. I call it Wishful Thinking.<\/p>\n The Lenten season is useful to believers as we contemplate the implications of our sins, our need for salvation, the concept of Jesus\u2019 substitutionary death, the triumph of His overcoming the grave, and the meaning of His ascension to Heaven. The truth of it all.<\/p>\n Another new book attracts attention: Megashift<\/em>. Author James Rutz presents data to claim that the fastest-growing religion on earth is\u2026 Christianity. Counterintuitive to some of us. We sense that Christianity is declining in America and Europe. It is. We are aware that Christians are being persecuted with increasing ferocity in other parts of the world. They are. (This is partly a reaction to Christianity\u2019s growth; and it partly inspires Christianity\u2019s spread) We observe that \u201cmainstream\u201d denominations are shrinking. They are. (The rising tide of believers is mostly independent, Bible-believing, First-Century types; \u201cNew Apostolics\u201d is Rutz\u2019s label.)<\/p>\n I believe I have accurately summarized that book\u2019s documentation. These two books illustrate the irony, or at least the evolution, of Christianity today. Many people from predominantly Muslim and Buddhist and Hindu and animist lands, and even from demonic traditions\u2026 are now on-fire Christians. These new believers send more missionaries, year after year, to the \u201cChristian West\u201d because of perceived spiritual needs! And traditional white-bread, culturally elite, and intellectually pretentious \u201cChrist-followers\u201d and \u201ccommunitarians\u201d and \u201cemergents\u201d (they can\u2019t seem to say \u201cChristian\u201d for some reason)\u2026 no longer \u201cget it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u201d is the way of the cross, the plan of salvation. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our self-inflicted unrighteousness, which denies us entry to the presence of a holy God, has a provision. We cannot earn it, but Christ offered it: believe in Him and accept His loving assumption of our sins and guilt; and we will be reconciled to God.<\/p>\n Is that hard? It depends upon our response. Are there details about it that we don\u2019t understand? Of course; we are not God. Do we deserve this crazy, illogical, outrageous, unspeakable \u201cpass\u201d against a lifetime of spiritual shortcomings and rebellion? <\/p>\n Of course not. That\u2019s called Love. <\/p>\n That<\/em> is the love that wins. By God\u2019s grace, He provided a way. If there is no need for repentance, the Bible lies; no element of forgiveness, then Jesus suffered foolishly; no salvation decision, the cross is ridiculed. If mankind will go to Heaven en masse<\/em> just because we all have pulses, the Easter story is a joke. There would be no reason ever again to sing Amazing Grace<\/em>. <\/p>\n I will advance a theory of my own, and I hope I properly am consistent with scripture: Jesus was a man who suffered like no other; but as God incarnate, He had the ability to focus His thoughts as He was on the cross. And with all the torments and betrayals, all the billions of people who did live and will live in history, when He was on the cross, I was on His mind. And so were you.<\/p>\n When He looked down, He looked \u2013 through eyes encrusted with blood, but also through the years and through many generations in many places \u2013 into the individual faces of you and me. <\/p>\n Why in world (literally) would the Son of God endure all this, and offer all this? So that we might accept \u2013 believe, confess, and be transformed. Salvation is free, but not cheap, as many have said. Neither should it intentionally be cheapened, not in this Lenten season, or ever.<\/p>\n +<\/p>\n