While I await my copy of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived to arrive later this week, I have been reading some of the blog posts and news articles about the book as well as engaging in a few discussions with other people concerning what Rob Bell’s views potentially are. I have also spent some time ruminating about how I feel about the topic of God’s love as it relates to Heaven and Hell.

Those who have read through my still unfinished series on Hell have no doubt picked up on the fact that I am highly doubtful of the existence of an eternal type of Hell where those who ultimately reject God will end up being eternally punished for a lifetime of sinful living. While I am not a Universalist and I do believe that salvation is through Christ alone, I am leaning toward more of an inclusivist theology. I would like to believe that my God is big enough to make a way to whatever afterlife there is, still through Christ, for those who may call upon Him in whatever context that they have been raised in, whether that be Allah or even the Great Spirit. With that said, I am still not excused from spreading the words of Christ whenever and wherever I can.

I am beginning to wonder if we as Christians are asking all of the wrong questions when it comes to Heaven and Hell. Many people claim that Jesus spoke more about Hell than anyone else in the Bible, and although I will admit that He did speak much about Judgment, I am beginning to realize that many of those “Hell passages” were more than likely speaking about “Hell on earth” than they were about Hell in the afterlife. I think that at least half of those passages where directly pointed at the judgment that was to befall Jerusalem in 70 CE. And even those passages where He was definitely speaking about the Final Judgment, I believe that from an epistemological standpoint it is impossible to determine what the fate of those who receive a “negative judgment” might end up being. I lean towards annihilationism but I have not ruled out rehabilitation for those who are willing…perhaps a purgatorial type of Hell much like Origen wrote about.

The overwhelming message that I find in the Gospels is that of love and grace, not one of judgment. A couple of passages come to mind here. The first is John 3:17 where Jesus states that “”God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him”. This is echoed later on in John 12:47 where Jesus states that ” If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” When I read the Gospels, what I see is love, love, love, and grace, grace, grace.

“Okay”, you might say, “but what does that have to do with the Torah?”

I have read quite a few books and essays that essentially say that Jesus came into the world as Torah, hence His words, “I came not to destroy the law (Torah), but to fulfill the law.” If you read through the the first eighteen verses of John and substitute “Torah” for “Word” you can make some startling conclusions.

With “Jesus as Torah” in mind we might read the beginning of John as ; “In the beginning was the Torah, and the Torah was with God, and the Torah was God.” or “In the beginning was the Law, and the Law as with God, and the Law was God.” Again, of course, we need to read the entire chapter, especially those all-important verses: “And the Torah became flesh, and dwelt among us,” and the equivalency of Jesus as this Word, this Law; the equivalency of Jesus and God.

An interesting thing that I have discovered during my study on Hell was how ancient Israel related to the afterlife. It appears that they were not all that concerned about what happened after they died. Not that it was never thought about the afterlife, it’s just that by and large Israel focused on Torah. Later in their history, during and after the exile, there was more focus on the afterlife, but Torah was still primarily about the here and now. Torah was not so much just a bunch of rules, but a means by which one lived a life dedicated to God. Torah also created a means by which an observant Jew could be in relationship with Yahweh, and a right relationship with God meant that God’s Shekinah glory would dwell (or tabernacle) in the temple and be accessible for remission of sins much like Jesus now tabernacles among us and is available to all who call upon His name. Torah was primarily meant for this life, not the next one. The blessings that one received by being a Torah-observant Jew were to be received in this life, not the next one. “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and your neighbor as yourself” was a way of bringing immediate blessings to you and all of those around you.

So, if Torah was primarily meant for this life, and Jesus is Torah, then perhaps living a life for Jesus should not be so focused on the next life, but more so for right now. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, and if Torah was meant primarily for this life, then what changed after Christ fulfilled Torah and essentially became Torah? If God really intended us to focus on loving Him and doing as much for His Son as possible in this life, then why are we so concerned about the next one? The next one will come soon enough…perhaps too soon for many of us.

Maybe we are spending too much time worrying about “who’s in” and who’s out” and missing out on spreading the Gospel that Jesus preached. It was a Gospel that essentially meant that “Love Wins” as the title of Bell’s book suggests. And instead of waiting for Heaven or worrying about Hell, maybe we should be spending that time getting to know Jesus a little better and asking ourselves what He was really saying about His Kingdom , one that I believe was inaugurated on Easter morning when he overcame the world, ripped the temple veil and made God’s Shekinah glory available to every man and woman who would ever live.

While I do believe that we will all stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ one day, perhaps all of the focus on Heaven, Hell (and when Christ is returning) takes our eyes off of what Jesus wants for us to be doing in the here and now, which is spreading His love and His message wherever and whenever possible. Sure, I look forward to Heaven, and there are scores of New Testament verses that repeatedly underscore the hope that we have for resurrection bodies living forever with God in a New Heaven and a New Earth. However, the only time or place that we have any control over is here and now.

With the recent devastation in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami, I am reminded of just how fragile our lives are. Any one of us can be gone in an instant. Perhaps a more concentrated focus on what I can be doing right now for Jesus is much more important that anything else. And I think that sharing the love of Jesus is much more appealing and Biblically correct than warning everyone about burning in Hell. A Hell that we can’t even prove exists (at least not in the traditional Jonathan Edwards sense) to begin with.

I don’t know what I will find in Rob Bell’s book, but I doubt that it will be anything that I will strongly disagree with. I doubt that he is a universalist (although he might have some inclusivist leanings) and I doubt that he is going to chunk Hell out of the Bible altogether. I kind of suspect that he is going to be saying something of the sort of what I’m thinking here in this post. “Stop worrying so much about Heaven and Hell and get busy for Christ, for the Kingdom of God is among us right now.” Whatever he has to say, I will be writing a review on his book in a couple of weeks (fingers crossed).

Note: I will be resuming my series on Hell in a few weeks. Right now I am tied up with other projects and simply don’t have the time.