What "Love Wins" by Rob Bell Actual Says

Since the Christian word as been up in arms about Rob Bell’s New book Love Wins, I thought I would write and clarify what he is saying for all those who don’t want to read his book, or have heard “things.” So here is what I understand Bell to be saying:

God is Love. It is this definition of God from the book of 1 John that drives all that Bell is saying. Therefore, the title “Love Wins” is a play on the fact that God is love. Therefore, ultimately God wins because he is Love.

God wins when his hope for the world comes to fulfillment within his plan of redemption. As Jesus says in John 3:16 and 2 Corinthians 5 God wants the “whole world” to be redeemed and for no one to parish.

Bell plays on this idea a lot by arguing that if God wants all to be saved, why would he reject anyone or purposely send anyone to “hell.” Don’t read too much into this though, Bell is simply saying in a very round about way that he is not a 5 point Calvinist (Aka, God doesn’t create people just to send them to hell).

The definition of Hell Bell prepossess in this book is both interesting and vague. Bell reads a lot into the original understanding of the word we translate “hell,” gehnenna. This word was the name for the local Jerusalem city dump, not this place far below the Earth’s surface. Bell also points out that when Jesus refers to “weeping and gnashing of teeth” he is again referring to gehnenna, because these are sounds that could be heard coming from the dump, as wild animals would scavenge through the trash for food. Ultimately, what Jesus means when he refers to gehnenna is a place outside of the city of Jerusalem.

At the same time, Bell works with the word “hades,” saying that he believes that this word is a Greek translation of the Hebrew sheol. Therefore, as Luke 10 states, “you will go down to Hades” is related to the Psalmist’s cry to be delivered from “sheol.” Therefore, Hades is something that one can be delivered out of, just as one can be delivered out of sheol.

This is then where Bell takes up an interesting argument, that hell exists not only after death, but now. Just as the Kingdom of Heaven is present here and now, but not yet; Bell sees, hell as being present here now, but not yet. Hell can be found on earth in the slums of India or the pits of war.

It is out of these arguments that Hell takes on the definition of being outside of the city, in sheol, in a place of misery, or away from God’s love. As Bell states, “To reject God’s grace, to turn from God’s love, to resists God’s telling, will lead to misery. It is a form of punishment, all on its own” (176). Or “God is love, and to refuse this love moves us away from it” (177). Basically, just think of C.S. Lewis’s version of “hell” in the book The Great Divorce and you have it.


Heaven is then the opposite of hell, life lived in the city, out of sheol, or in love. Those who are in heaven choose to be there, because God longs for all to be saved and will not reject those who wish to come in. God was not some mean man sitting in heaven waiting to send people to “hell,” until Jesus came in and saved humanity from the mean Father. God’s whole plan was to save us from our sin that keeps us from himself. Therefore, in a way when we have the ability to choose things over and against God. When we do this we reject God and therefore reject heaven. As C.S. Lewis writes in The Great Divorce, “the grass becomes too sharp” and “the light hurts their eyes.”

Bell even seems to allow for a chance of conversion or redemption after death stating things like, why would the city doors of Jerusalem be open if no one what let in them? People do not suffer for eternity in hell, they might only go through hell for a time. In fact, Bell argues that the understanding of eternity (aion) is not “a literal passing of time” but a “transcending time, belonging to another realm altogether.” In order to make his point, Bell walks through multiple verses that have an idea of God restoring Israel and even Egypt at a point of time in eternity. Ultimately arguing that one can be redeemed even after death, because restoration brings glory to God, not the suffering of his creation. It should be noted that C.S. Lewis’s also seems to have this theology on redemption from hell, but instead of writing it out in a theology book, he writes it as a narrative in The Great Divorce.

Bell does though fail to deal with verses just as Hebrews 9:27 that state, “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment…” In fact, Bell almost side steps judgment all almost together. I even fingered back through the book and could not find one mention of it.

In closing, Bell is not saying anything new. He is just saying similar things to a new generation that never read the likes of C.S. Lewis.

Secondly, Bell is not a Universalist, even though some will say he is. He just simply believes that God wants all to be saved; yet some will reject him in spite of that reality.

Thirdly, the most controversial thing that Bell seems to believe is that we get another chance at heaven once we die.