Love Wins: On the Rocks

The most controversial chapter of Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins, is probably chapter 6, There Are Rocks Everywhere. Bell opens the chapter with the story of water gushing from the rock during Exodus, and Paul's surprising claim in 1 Corinthians 10 that the rock was Christ. If Jesus was the rock, Bell postulates, then what else might Jesus be? In what other strange ways might Jesus be revealing himself to the world? If he can be a rock, he can be anything, anywhere, anytime, right?

This is an important question, which leads Bell to conclude that "Jesus is bigger than any one religion."

He didn't come to start a new religion, and he continually disrupted whatever conventions or systems or establishments that existed in his day. He will always transcend whatever cages and labels are created to contain and name him, especially the one called 'Christianity.'

Fair enough. But how, then does one get to Jesus? That's the question. Bell affirms that Jesus is the only way to the Father, but that there are many ways to get to Jesus. Referring to Jesus' famous statement in John 14:6, Bell writes,

What he doesn't say is how, or when, or in what manner the mechanism functions that gets people to God through him. He doesn't even state that those coming to the Father through him will even know that they are coming exclusively through him. He simply claims that whatever God is doing in the world to know and redeem and love and restore the world is happening through him.

This is what is getting Rob in trouble with the Reformed movement, I believe. While he affirms that Jesus is the exclusive way to the Father, he leaves the door open for many ways to get to Jesus. Hence the title of the chapter, There Are Rocks Everywhere. It is, what he calls, "an exclusivity on the other side of inclusivity."

This...insists that Jesus is the way, but holds tightly to the assumption that the all-embracing, saving love of this particular Jesus the Christ will of course include all sorts of unexpected people from across the cultural spectrum.

As soon as the door is opened to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Baptists from Cleveland, many Christians become very uneasy, saying that Jesus doesn't matter anymore, the cross is irrelevant, it doesn't matter what you believe, and so forth.

Not true.
Absolutely, unequivocally, unalterably not true.

What Jesus does is declare that he,
and he alone,
is saving everybody.

And then he leaves the door way, way open. Creating all sorts of possibilities. He is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe.

In other words, Jesus can and does use every and any tool in creation to draw people to himself. Experientially, this is true. Many, many Muslims have haunting dreams of Jesus and actually come to Christ that way. Bell tells the story of a guy who came to Jesus when he had a drug-induced experience of God. This sort of stuff happens, and we should be open to it.

However, these experiences are the exception, not the rule. They are not normative. God has called his people to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the earth, and to make disciples of all nations. This is the primary means by which Jesus is drawing people to himself. Does he use other methods? Yes. But just because Jesus can and does use every tool in creation to bring people to faith in himself, doesn't mean that the Church can take it's mission of Gospel-proclamation and disciple-making less seriously. In fact, these unusual gosepl-experiences are the means by which Jesus is preparing the way for the Church to fulfill her mission.

Rob Bell believes that Jesus is bigger than Christianity. He's right.

Rob Bell believes that Jesus can be seen drawing people to himself all over the world in nontraditional ways, like through dreams and drug-induced visions. He's right.

Many people put these two beliefs together and say Rob Bell is a universalist. But he's not. He affirms that Jesus is the only way to the Father; but he also affirms that there are many ways to Jesus.

Jesus is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe. If he can be a rock in the Exodus story, then couldn't there be rocks everywhere?