Hi Mike,

If you have the time, I would appreciate it if you take a look at this video I saw on You tube. According to this man, everything made is spiritual. At times he sounds very convincing, but at others, well, it just doesn’t seem completely scriptural. Please let me know what you think.

D____

Hi D____,

Thank you for taking the time to send the Rob Bell links to me. The scientific content was very informative, but the conclusions Rob Bell draws from the fact that “the things that are seen are made of things that do not appear” is completely void of any scriptural or spiritual truth.
Rob Bell would fit right in with the doctrines of turning grace into lasciviousness heresies.
I listened to two of Bell’s videos and another one entitled Robert Bell Is A Heretic. They are at opposite ends of the same heretical pendulum. One argues that Christ did it all on the cross and mentions nothing about what Christ is doing in us, and the other argues that you must choose whether you will be saved or not, and if you choose to sin, then you will burn in hell for all eternity.
Neither wants to hear that “grace chastens us to forsake ungodliness and worldly lusts.” Bell’s statistics reveal the depth of God’s intelligence but have absolutely no spiritual Biblical understanding. He actually believes that “everything is spiritual” and has apparently no use for these words of God:

1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Being made of “things that do not appear” does not, scripturally, make one spiritual. If you take Rob Bell’s words at face value then you would have to agree with him that “everything is spiritual.” Such so- called ‘logic’ would nullify any significance in these words which were inspired by the holy spirit:

1Co 15:44  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [ was made] a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

According to Rob Bell’s reasonings, since the earth was created by God from His “things that do not appear”, therefore “everything is spiritual.” Rob Bell has bought into the serpent’s lie which says “You will not surely die, because you are an immortal spirit”, and denies God’s declaration “dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.” It all amounts to the same argument that the serpent proffered, that we are really spirits having an earthly experience, while God declares that we are dust coming to a spiritual experience and a spiritual existence, by means of a resurrection from among the dead. Such doctrine is abhorred by the natural man who wants to believe that he cannot really ever be dead.
Of course the Truth will never be given such a large audience. That truth being that God Himself has given man an evil experience to humble him and to bring man into judgment with the unavoidable end being the salvation of all “through death.”

Joh 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Col 1:22  In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Heb 2:14  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

Contrary to the doctrine of Mr. Bell, we are not yet spiritual bodies, even if we have been given the down payment of God’s spirit while in these “marred vessels of clay.” While we “die daily” in a spiritual sense, we also must go through a second veil and lay down this physical body before we can “inherit the kingdom of God in a spiritual body.
As little as Rob Bell wants to mention it, there will be a symbolic fiery judgment which will symbolically burn out all of the wood, hay and stubble in the minds of all men of all time.

1Co 3:12  Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
1Co 3:13  Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

These “fiery trials” are the judgment which is “now on the house of God.”

1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
1Pe 4:18  And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

Rob Bell’s omission of judgment is just as egregious as the teachers of eternal torment. Both keep the truth of the means of salvation from being heard and understood. That truth is the chastening grace of God which the death of Christ and His subsequent resurrection, to now live his life of rejection and trials and tribulations in us, has provided.

1Co 3:13  Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14  If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15  If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:29  For our God is a consuming fire.

God will judge and “burn out” all heresies in us all, and that certainly includes this heresy that omits the doctrine of fiery judgment upon “every man.” Rob Bell and all Gnostics would do well to preach and teach this very scriptural truth which is found throughout all of God’s Word from Genesis to Revelation:

Gal 6:7  Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

The fact that our sins are forgiven does not change the fact that we will all receive and reap what we have sown.

2Co 5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Rob Bell’s doctrine is nothing more or less than modern Gnosticism. It opposes the doctrine of eternal hell but not on a scriptural basis. I hope this is of some help in seeing through these two heresies which have “deceived the whole world.” It is “few” indeed who can acknowledge these verses as true:

1Jn 5:19  And] we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
Rev 12:9  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

But Christ really is “the propitiation, not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world,” and neither of these heresies can do any more than what has been ordained for them in God’s “book.”

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.
1Jn 2:2  And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

In that we can all take great comfort.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike