Love Wins

A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived

By: Rob Bell

Narrated by: Rob Bell

Millions of Christians have struggled with how to reconcile God's love and God's judgment: Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell? Is this acceptable to God? How is this "good news"?

Troubling questions, so troubling that many have lost their faith because of them. Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud.

But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them?

What if it is God who wants us to face these questions?

Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined. Love wins.

©2011 Robert H. Bell, Jr. Trust (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers

Accepting the Bible's Big Claims About Redemption

Any additional comments?

I am pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed "Love Wins". I've never been a Rob Bell fan, having started (but never finished) "Velvet Elvis" and "Sex God", but this book is worth picking up and wrestling with. For that reason — the value of wrestling with its topics — it will stand as one of the more important popular books of the decade. It isn't very deep. It isn't very broad. But it asks excellent questions and it has reached a large audience with those questions.

After having just read C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" for the second time, I began Rob Bell's "Love Wins". The similarities are apparent. It's quite clear that Lewis' perspective on the subject of Hell has influenced Rob. I don't think that Bell's views of the Afterlife are identical to those of Lewis, but he's certainly not less orthodox in this area than Lewis.

One thing that struck me a little less than half-way through: "Love Wins" quotes from Scripture a lot — much more than the average Christian book, I would say. Significantly, Bell doesn't spend a lot of time trying to take verses that seem on the surface to contradict his points and show how they really don't contradict his points. Instead, he spends most of his time quoting Scripture in showing how frequently and in how strong language the Bible at least seems to indicate that eventually "all shall be well". This is significant because it's apparent that his purpose with this book is to get us to dialog about Heaven and Hell — about the tension between how we often view world history, in light of Christian belief, as a tragedy, though the Bible in many places rises to the highest superlatives of grandeur seeming to tell a different story. The Bible does say powerful things like:

• "As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15)

• "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him — those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord." (Psalm 22)

• "Love is patient... it always protects... always hopes... Love never fails." (1 Corinthians 13)

• "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him." (Ephesians 1)

• "At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2)

• "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1)

• "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man." (Hebrews 2)

• "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." (Luke 2)

• "For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets." (Acts 3)

• "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces." (Isaiah 25)

• "I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth; for the spirit should fail before men, and the souls which I have made." (Isaiah 57:16)

• "The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever." (Psalm 103)

• "For I will not fight against you forever; I will not always be angry. If I were, all people would pass away — all the souls I have made."
"His mercy endureth forever." (Psalm 136)

Those verses sound pretty all-encompassing. And the list just goes on and on, in both Testaments. We need to talk about this. There are passages in the Bible that sound just as strongly certain of the ultimate reconciliation of all people as other passages do of the ultimate condemnation of some people. Scripture contains many forceful words on both 'sides'. Who are we to dismiss either emphasis out of hand? Who are we to baulk at such a serious issue? Not one drop of ink was spilled by the Bible's own authors to attenuate the clear strength of such phrases as "the final restoration of all things". Paul never corrects himself or bothers to lessen the force of his words, and James doesn't correct him either.

So, how should we take such a difficulty? Do we try to write it off, saying, as many have, "Well, 'all,' of course, doesn't really mean 'all.'"? No. Besides, the same kind of flippant response could be used against the word 'eternal' in passages which speak of 'eternal hell' -- and with surer linguistic support (we knew this about the word 'eternal' even in my diehard, hellfire fundamentalist seminary: we just didn't like to talk about it much). But I don't think it's the most helpful (or healthy) to approach the apparent paradox in this way at all.

What we should do: Accept that the Bible leaves many questions unresolved, and at least sometimes on purpose. Accept that the Bible forces us to trust God for the truth; it isn't here just to spoon-feed us. Paradoxes aren't contradictions. They are truths we don't know how to reconcile. And we little fools have to learn to be okay with that! If an Infinite Being exists, then there is an infinity of truth which must forever be unknowable to any particular finite being! That is, there will always, always, always be for us far more mysteries among the truth than certainties. We will always have gaps in our knowledge. Don't you think it's time we admitted it? Our certainty must reside precisely in a Person, not in a knowledge of facts -- or are we just another sort of Gnostic?

What the Bible tells us without question:
1) It's big trouble if we don't trust and obey God.
2) It's big salvation God has in store.

You want more detail than that? What for? I fear that we drive ourselves toward intellectual certainties in order to put off real obedience.

Trust Christ and obey Him, and suffering will turn at last to joy. That's it. Some way or other, however God does it, whenever God does it, whoever it includes, love wins. Goodness wins. God wins. Whatever that means, it is the best possible of all outcomes, because it is the outcome the perfect God will have orchestrated. If we trust Him, and it will be enough.

That, I think, is the point of "Love Wins".

But if we merely assume that what we have been told is true is indeed true, then we merely perpetuate the very root problem that got us to the point where God allowed (at least) or encouraged (at most) a Reformation in the first place. The pursuit of truth requires a willingness to accept that which we do not already accept (this is the very foundation stone of learning), and a willingness to accept that many things we do not know, and will never know, are also true.

Validated everything I have believed for years

Christ spent his life turning the established religion of his day on its head. The division, the intense certainty that one group is more favored than the other, the oppression and misunderstandings, etc,,, I believe if Christ were here now he would met recognize so much of Christianity. This book is a reminder that the god who created the earth and all Ira glory is bigger than the box we have placed him in, that he is more loving than humans have been able to imagine. The fact that it will piss off the religious establishment and already has is a sign it is headed in the right direction. I am going to recommend this book to so many people who are fed up with it all. Brilliant!

A refreshing, all inclusive and mature view of God

Rob provides the reader with a mature and loving view of God that stands up to critical reasoning. this perspective is essential for World Peace to be achieved. It seems the majority of Christians don't share this view yet but hopefully this will happen over the next 50 years.

my new favorite book.

Rob is spot on! He dies a great job of saying what needs to be said

Awesome

Heart warming and inspiring read that encourages love in all aspects of life and uses story to illustrate a new way to see Jesus

God like this

Great book. I always knew that there was a God like this. Thank you for letting me know I could talk about Him.

Thank you

My son introduced me to your books. As a gift. He attended the church in Grand Rapids when you were there. My sister is in the process of dieing and he thought your book would help me reconcile the death and the fact she is a non believer. He was right❤️

Very Encouraging

I really appreciate how Rob touched on concepts I have felt and witnessed in my 15 years of being a Christian and engaged in a church community. My takeaway is to trust God story that I am totally loved and accepted. He is just, compassionate, limitless and gives grace to who he gives grace to. Who am I to judge who will be in heaven or hell. God is love! Praise be to the Almighty who is so good!

Fabulous

He explains God’s love so clearly. Thank you! Everyone should read this book; it’s never too late to understand the power of love.

Fantastic, insightful listen

Have you ever felt like modern church leaders more resemble the Pharisees of the Bible than they do Christians?

Preaching hatred and discrimination. Focusing on collecting and amassing money, power and extending influence. Judging everyone. Condemning anyone who doesn't go to their church and believe exactly what they believe.

Those are not the Christian values I believe in. They are not the things that I know in my heart are right, but yet I hear them endlessly from today's "Christian" churches.

Love Wins provides Biblical explanation for the things I've always felt in my heart were right but could never quite explain. The God and Christ I believe in are too big, their love and compassion too expansive to fit into the little box that modern churches want to stuff them into. Rob Bell does a fantastic job of fleshing out these truths.