Love Wins (6)

Chapter 6 of this book is entitled “There are Rocks Everywhere.” The chapter opens up with various stories about the weird and kooky ways in which God has worked to get people’s attention. He asks the question…

“Should we dismiss those experiences that come out of nowhere, the love that creeps in, with no explanation, at the strangest times, the quiet grace that grabs hold of us in the middle of the night and assures us that we’re going to be fine?”

I think all of us agree that God in His divine, mysterious way often grabs people’s attention. While reading this section of his book I immediately thought of the story of the apostle Paul’s conversion, and the conversion experience of C.S. Lewis. To be sure, there are a myriad of ways in which people come to God.

However, the purpose of the “quiet grace that grabs hold of us in the middle of the night” is not just to assure of that we’re going to be fine. The grace that is mentioned in the New Testament is about being grabbed by God for his purposes, whether we are going to be fine or not. We like to think that we are going to fine from our perspective. But remember, conversion is not about us. It is about being changed by God for God’s divine purposes.

Rob Bell then refers to the allegorical interpretation that Paul uses in comparing Jesus as the rock to the rock that Moses used to quench Israel’s thirst. Though the author attempts to make the point that there are rocks everywhere, and perhaps our experience of God is everywhere with everyone and in everyway, the Pauline model is different.

Moses did not strike every rock in the desert. He only struck the one God commanded him to. Jesus is the one and only rock to which the spiritually hungry can be satisfied. In referring to this allegorical interpretation in 1 Corinthians, Bell unknowingly undermines his “universalist tendency.”

I  really like how Bell goes back and repaints for us the early Christians’ worldview and how it was different from the Greeks and Romans. Their deity was not an energy force, a mystical spirit, or life force. God is the all mighty who brings order out of chaos. God speaks and it happens.

Jesus is the mediator through which the world is created, he is before all things, and through whom all things came and through whom we live. Listen to this quote:

“Jesus, for the first Christians, was the ultimate exposing of what God has been up to all along.” 

This recognizes the sovereign plan of God unfolding in the fullness of time (see Galatians 4:4 on this point!). This Jesus has been made know to Jews and Gentiles. This mystery hidden in God is the person of Jesus Christ.

Listen to this statement: 

“He will always transcend whatever cages and labels are created to contain and name him, especially the one called “Christianity.” 

 There are several ways to unpack and understand this statement. Here are my responses…

 
1. Even though the word “Christianity” is not in the New Testament, one has to be careful how it is used. Normally, it is used to refer to one of two things: the life of faith that Jesus came to earth and uniquely modeled to the glory of God, or the history of the Christian faith that is represented by nearly 2000 years of denominational practices and religious movements.


2. Whenever we try to re-write the story of Jesus, the temptation is always to put him our cage and use our labels. This is always the result of an attempt to figure him out. Jesus does not invite scrutiny, he invites discipleship!


3. Jesus is transcendent. He transcends the ages, the empires, the religious movements and human reason. Because Jesus is transcendent, I would be compelled to have the title of a book I wrote like Bell’s “Jesus Wins,” Not “Love Wins.” Unless of course, he means that the “Love of Jesus Wins!”

 In Christian love, Curtis