“You don’t have to go”

There’s a lot of (deserved) chatter about Rob Bell’s latest, Love Wins, a book that dances with universalism. Mark Galli has a review (here) that is both generous and critical.

Here’s my stab at addressing universalism in my book for seekers, The Anchor Course:

When hearing the Christian claim that a decision needs to be made now, in this life, some question the fairness of such an arrangement. They wonder why a merciful God wouldn’t give a second chance to people who end up regretting their decision in the next life. But would anyone too rebellious to yield to God in this life actually respond to a second chance in the next life? Jesus knew that many preferred darkness and would remain in that state. “God-light streamed into the world,” he said, “but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God” (John 3:19 Msg). C.S. Lewis said,

I have heard a story of how certain small monkeys in South Africa put their paw through a small hole to get nuts stored there deliberately for the purpose and how the monkeys are captured and killed because they refuse at all hazards to release the handful of nuts in their grasp. Hell exists because men similarly clutch their private interests at any cost.

As someone once vividly described it, hell is locked from the inside. I can conceive of people regretting the consequences of their rebellion in the next life; I cannot conceive of anyone doing what is necessary to overcome those consequences if the chance were even offered. Someone who spent this lifetime with little or no regard for what was important to his Maker will not suddenly become interested in these matters in the next.

Besides, to assume that a second chance in the next life would be a fitting display of God’s mercy is to assume that God isn’t doing enough for people to make this decision in this life. God has given us a Bible we can understand, he pursues us with his Spirit, and he patiently extends his invitation. God “is being patient for your sake,” Simon Peter wrote. “He does not want anyone to perish, so he is giving more time for everyone to repent” (2 Peter 3:9 NLT). This life is the chance to take God seriously, and everything is being done to give people that chance.

. . .

Death is an inevitable reality for us all, and after that comes the judgment, where some “will wake up to have life forever” while others “will wake up to find shame and disgrace forever” (Daniel 12:2 NCV).

“Shame and disgrace forever” does not have to be our future. Back in the 1920s in the U.S. Senate, an argument between senators became particularly ugly and one man told a colleague to go to hell. The astonished senator appealed for a sanction from Vice President Calvin Coolidge, who was presiding. Coolidge, who had been idly leafing through a book, looked up and said to the offended senator, “I have been checking the rules manual, and you don't have to go.”

Indeed.