Theology Matters

In light of the Rob Bell controversy, it is extremely important to understand that theology, which is simply the study of God, matters. Everyone has a theology, whether they recognize or admit it or not. For some Christians their view of God (their theology) is simply a set of Christian slogans while for others it is like a puzzle in which they grab bits and pieces from here and there and try to force them together and end up putting something together that ends up incoherent and inconsistent. The sloganeering Christian typically uses slogans like, "What would Jesus do?" as their view of God when it comes to the Christian life. In reality, since they have a little or superficial understanding of Christian doctrine, they end up using their emotions as a gauge for "what would Jesus do" rather than understanding the Bible to be a proclamation what Jesus has already done and what He commands.

On the other hand the Christian that grabs at and is tossed around by every wind of doctrine that blows by (something we are told in Scripture not to do. Eph. 4:14) usually redefine biblical terms and make contradictory statements. I once had a conversation with a "youth pastor" that follows the "Emergent' crowd of Rob Bell and the like, tell me that he believed in repentance and hell. As I pressed him on these issues he ended up redefining repentance to mean something like, "Repentance means to change your mind. God doesn't want you to feel bad about yourself. Stop thinking bad about yourself and know that God loves you." Interesting enough he used Matthew 4:17 as his proof text! I asked him how his definition of repentance fit in with the surrounding context of Matthew 4:17 namely Matthew 3:4-12, he stated something similar to "that's not how Jesus preached." What he ended up doing was mixing the Emergent theology with the sloganeering theology (the two often go hand in hand but not always) and ended up contradicting himself and altering the Gospel in the process. What was stated by him was that he believed in hell but that Jesus never preached the Gospel that included hell! Well, if he believed in hell from where does he get the idea of hell? Christ Himself said more about hell than all the New Testament authors combined ( Matt. 5:22-30, 10:28, 18:9, 23:15,33, just to name a few verses)! What he didn't realize was that he contradicted himself. And not only that, he contradicted himself and altered the Gospel in the process; all because he has a very bad view of God.

Theology Matters.

People like Rob Bell have a very low view of God and His holiness therefore a very high view of man and thus a need to edit the Gospel and strip it of any mention of judgment and hell order for it to fit man's standards. What tragically ends up happening is that instead of God being the measure of all things- holiness, righteousness, justice, love, mercy, grace e.t.c., man becomes the way in which they measure God and explain His attributes. Their theology becomes man centered instead of God centered.
Even when the Lord declares, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways... for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9), because they have such a shallow and man centered view of God they cannot reconcile all that God declares about Himself, in all of Scripture, with their isolated verses that they like to hover around (that is when they are not mangling and re-interpreting other passages like Bell did in his NOOMA video with Matthew 14:22-23).

Theology Matters. Just ask Job.

What you believe about God affects how you relate to him. If you think the Most High could not choose you to suffer for His glory when you haven't necessarily done anything sinful to bring the suffering, then most likely, you are not going to respond well to God when you're in the midst of suffering. Just ask Job. In fact a large part of our theology of suffering comes from Job and Christ. Most are familiar with Jobs situation but what I find most comforting in all of it is how the LORD answers Job, after all of Job's questioning God: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you and you answer me?" (Job 38:2-3). The Lord goes on the assert His sovereignty as Creator in the form of questions directed at Job. Job's response is fascinating, " Behold, I am of small account, what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further" (Job 40:4-5). In other words, "Oops I have opened my mouth and questioned the Sovereign Creator, whom has all authority to do as He pleases, yet I am simply the creature. I opened my big mouth once and I won't do it again!" We can always trust God because He is absolutely sovereign and holy. He is loving and merciful and always does what is just and good even if we don't understand it.

Theology Matters.

Again theology is important in many ways. How we view God will affect how we worship, praise, honor and proclaim Him. When we study the Bible we are learning theology. God is revealing Himself to His rebellious and sinful creatures. The whole of Scripture reveals the Lamb that washes us by His blood and clothes us in His righteousness and He is Christ Jesus the Lord. He says, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me" (John 5:39). The study of God (theology) must always start with what God has communicated about Himself and His fallen creatures and never with the fallen creatures and then God (there is a reason why Genesis begins the way it does). This is why I believe Rob Bell goes... I'm going to say it... apostate. Because he is inclined to think that man is the sum of all things (a charge he would most likely deny) therefore a "loving" God can never send a person to eternal torment in hell. He and many others have attempted to mold God after man. Not only is his theology goofy but it is dangerous and under the curse of Galatians 1:8-9. Hell is neither a Christian “cuss” word nor a made up doctrine. It is a real place, with real people, all of whom will be experiencing real eternal torment from a holy, righteous, just, good and loving God. Holy righteous, just and good because all that have not repented and trusted in Christ will receive their punishment from God Himself. Loving because God incarnate, Christ Jesus, took that punishment for His people on the cross absorbing the righteous wrath of the Father in our place and raising from the dead victoriously on the third day and clothing us with His righteousness so that we may be declared not guilty and righteous before a perfectly holy God through repentance from sin and faith in Christ. So yes Mr. Bell love wins and here's why: "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). We must never treat hell flippantly nor can we flippantly deny it.

Theology matters. It really does.

For His Glory,
Fernando Ramirez