And now for something completely different...

LOVE WINS THROUGH PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
An understanding of personal relationship from Rob Bell’s latest book, Love Wins
By Doug Hanks


In Love Wins, having left footprints firmly implanted in the cement of liberal theology, Rob Bell appears to take a shot at those who believe in a personal relationship with God. He questions it, jibes it, but then inadvertently defends it.

Personally, I believe that God established personal relationship as the means of humanity knowing Him. Rather than use the Bible to defend my position, I will use the text of Bell’s work, Love Wins, to explain from where his theology of “personal relationship” comes. I don’t think he meant to do it, but Bell presents a fairly clear presentation of the teaching regarding a “personal relationship with God.”


PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP QUESTIONED

As I stated above, personal relationship with God is one of the plethora of questions that Bell puts forth in the first chapter, “What About the Flat Tire?” Borrowing heavily from a previous work by Spencer Burke, A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity, he questions whether a personal relationship is salvation and whether a personal relationship with God is, indeed, entrance to eternal life. (Bell, 10) He further questions the sinner’s prayer, how eternity is achieved (if it can be achieved at all), and the age of accountability.

Contrary to the provocative questions Bell poses, a personal and individual relationship with God is one of the touchstones of mainstream evangelical theology. Many evangelicals and groups like Billy Graham Crusades, Luis Palau Crusades, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Young Life have based their ministries on this doctrine. They believe that God is known through personal relationship which is necessary for eternal life with God and that personal relationship is a profoundly biblical concept.


Bell questions:

At this point some would step in and remind us in
the midst of all these questions that it’s not that
complicated, and we have to remember that God has lots
of ways of communicating apart from people speaking
to each other face-to-face; the real issue, the one that
can’t be avoided, is whether a person has a “personal
relationship” with God through Jesus. However
that happens, whoever told whomever, however it was done,
that’s the bottom line: a personal relationship. If you
don’t have that you will die apart from God and spend
eternity in torment and hell.

The problem, however, is that the phrase “personal
relationship” is found nowhere in the Bible.

So if that’s it,
if that’s the point of it all,
if that’s the ticket,
the center,
the one unavoidable reality,
the heart of the Christian faith,
why is it no one used the phrase until the last
hundred years or so? (Bell, 10-11)

Having read these words, one may get the sense that Rob Bell does not believe that one can have a personal relationship with God. As usual with many of his theological views, he is vague on this point preferring to ask questions and not answer them directly.

As Bell states, it is true that the words “personal relationship” are not found in the pages of either the Torah, the Psalms, the major or minor prophets, or the New Testament.

But just because a term is not found does not imply that the doctrine does not exist. Neither is the word “Trinity” found in Scripture, but this teaching has been an integral part of Christian theology since the second century. (Polycarp, Justine, Ignatius, Irenaeus)

Just because a teaching
isn’t mentioned specifically in Scripture
does not mean that a doctrine does not exist.

So, using his own words from Love Wins, what does Rob Bell say about personal relationship?


RECONCILIATION REQUIRES RELATIONSHIP

In Bell’s explanation of God rescuing all creation and not merely humanity, he states that we can have a relationship with God.

When people say that Jesus came to die on the cross so we can have a
relationship with God, yes, that is true. (Bell, 134)

In propounding on God’s work of reconciliation, Bell states:

“Reconciliation” is a word from the world of relationships. It’s what happens when two people or groups have had something come between them, some argument or difference or wrong or injustice, and now they’ve found a way to work it out and come back together. Peace has been made. (Bell, 125)

And in his chapter, “The Good News Is Better than That,” he writes:

God is love,
And love is a relationship.
The relationship is one of joy, and it can’t be contained...

Jesus invites us into that relationship, the one at the center of the universe. He insists that he’s one with God, that we can be one with him, and that life is a generous and abundant reality. (Bell, 178)

So,
according to Bell,
relationship is part of God’s reconciliation
and this joyous relationship with God
to which Jesus invites us to participate
is based in love.


THE GOSPEL IS PERSONAL

Since the gospel is relational, Bell’s question remains: Is it personal?

The crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection three days later are the heart of the gospel message of salvation. Paul explains this when he writes:

By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.... (1 Corinthians 15:2-4 NIV)

Bell states, regarding the cross and the Jesus’ resurrection:

And then, third, the cross and the resurrection are personal. This cosmic event has everything to do with how every single one of us lives every day. (Bell, 135)

So, according to Bell,
the relational gospel of God’s reconciliation
to which Jesus invites us to participate
based in the love of God which saves us
also affects us personally.


PERSONAL + RELATIONSHIP = PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

In conclusion, though the words “personal relationship” do not appear in the Bible, Bell agrees that the gospel is both personal and relational--a personal relationship; he says so in Love Wins.

He concludes his book by telling an intensely personal story about a pivotal moment in his walk with God:

One night when I was in elementary school, I said a prayer kneeling beside my bed in my room.... With my parents on either side of me, I invited Jesus into my heart. I told God that I believed that I was a sinner and that Jesus came to save me and I wanted to be a Christian.

I still remember that prayer.
It did something to me.
Something in me.

...What happened that night was real. It meant something to significant then and it continues to have a profound significance for me. That prayer was a defining moment in my life. (Bell, 193-194)

To be clear,
his prayer was a sinner’s prayer
that resulted in a personal relationship
with a loving God
who reconciled a child to himself.
And love wins.

CONCLUSION

Contrary to his words in Chapter One, and having read these passages from Love Wins, one may get the sense that Rob Bell believes a personal relationship with God is possible--a personal relationship with God that is, at least, a part of eternal life if not an entrance to eternal life.

I guess that in this sense, love really does win.

BUT IF HE DOES BELIEVE
IN A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD,
WHY DOESN’T HE JUST SAY SO?

For a clearer understanding of a personal relationship with God, read the Bible in context. It’s in there!

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31 NIV)