I think that he can get away with doing that with Isaiah because it has been used in that way for decades. For as long as I know that verse has been used out of context and it is acceptable by the general public so he gets away with it. I’m not saying it’s OK, I’m just saying he probably wasn’t going at it with deception in mind - he was simply using it the way it is always used.
That’s the only way I know to explain my own inability to see it. But then once it was pointed out to me, it became obvious, though it still took me several months of intense study before I could say I was sure. Another factor may be that for many people it seems Tradition has a lot of weight and influence which is very difficult to go against. I find this puzzling given Christ’s rebukes over regarding tradition above God’s word.
Sonia
Tradition is indeed a puzzling beast. I suspect its power lies in our nature as creatures of habit. I also suspect that its power is why Jesus warned against it.
Who is jamesggilmore?! He’s tearing it up over there! Is he on this site?
I don’t recognize him, but yep he’s doing a pretty good job there! 
I’ve now added a few comments in defense of Rob (and critiquing misrepresentations against him).
cornerstonesimi.com/special/media_player.html
A sermon about this topic has been posted on Chan’s old church’s site. I’m interested to hear any reactions to it. I feel like Chan is one of the most honest and open guys in the reformed/evangelical camp but I’ll admit: I’ve been swaying back and forth between listening to his point of view on this topic and reading reactions and rebuttals to it in comments and forums.
(Btw, I’m new here and still very much on the fence about the scope and nature of the atonement, if my above comments are any indication. Howdy everyone!)
I have to chime in here, too, and say that I’m just busting up over here on everything you’ve written Jason! You are too funny! I needed a good laugh. I was already familiar with that line God’s ways are higher than ours, or whatever it is, being taken out of context. I realized it means God’s ways are infinitely better, not worse.
I’ve been thinking about starting back up on commenting on anti-Rob books (and large articles, of which we have several lying around, one or two of which I started typing up notes on before getting Rob’s book.)
Part of me badly wants to work on my own projects, though, and not spend weeks of time (and precious brain cells) writing any more monographs about Rob’s work pro or con. sigh. (That may be me being selfish, though… 
)
Well, having jumped up and down on Francis for his mindbogglingly awful book promo video, I probably owe it to him to buy and read his book. Maybe he does better there. Even likely so. (Promo videos are notoriously poor at coherent presentations, and so rely more on rhetorical shuffling to score interest.)
having watched the video, however, i am not optimistic.
i found his reasoning lacking…and that Isaiah piece being taken out of context was a nail in the coffin…
Jason, a lot of Christians I’ve encountered really love Chan’s Crazy Love book. And how bad can a book be with love in the title?
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed By A Relentless God!
“Once you encounter His love, as Francis describes it, you will never be the same.” (Offer of love-encounter not valid for some people. Hopefully you’re not one of them, if so too bad you never had a chance in heaven much less in hell, and never will have a chance, ever. Francis is sorry for you, but God’s ways are higher than his ways and God’s thoughts are higher than his thoughts, that’s what the Bible says, Francis knows because he read that statement from someone else once who assured him this was about hopelessness of salvation from sin for some people, and then shook his Bible earnestly to confirm this was true. Tinkle plinkle tink. 
)
Seriously, yes, I’ve heard about the book. From the promo description I’m sure there’s plenty of good material in there for God’s specially elected elect to chew over and reassure themselves about. 
We would apply the same hope of God’s crazy love to everyone, but that would be… you know… crazy. 
(Satire aside, I fully expect everything in the book is great, and that we would preach what’s said there to everyone. Because we expect and trust in God that it would apply to everyone, not only to an invisible elect.)
A friend who I’ve been sharing UR with just asked me to buy Erasing Hell and go through it with him. Until today I hadn’t read this thread or watched the video. It is very interesting that he sites so many challenging things, challenging from our perspective. But you know, if all we have is the perspective of this life, then any death is terrible. But if God ultimately reconciles all, then death for both the wicked and the righteous can be a good thing. The wicked die. It delivers them from wickedness and from participating in any more evil, evil within and without - kinda like putting a rabid dog out of its misery. When the righteous die it can deliver us from suffering more evil too. It’s all about perspective.
Isa. 57.
1 Good people pass away;
the godly often die before their time.
But no one seems to care or wonder why.
No one seems to understand
that God is protecting them from the evil to come.
2 For those who follow godly paths
will rest in peace when they die.
Could it be that the reason that God told the Israelites to wipe out whole cities, whole nations, is because He knew that those cultures had a cancer that would increase hell-on-earth for everyone, causing more pain and suffering than was needed to accomplish His plans - whatever they all intail? I think so.
I’ll probably go ahead and get Chan’s book and do my best to read it with an open mind. After that video though, it might be difficult.
And Jason, I appreciated your rantings. Sometimes things just strike a nerve, don’t they! For me it was the whole appeal to humility, and God’s ways being above our ways, as if we need to blindly accept something because we see it in scripture without thinking it through. And yet God gave us a brain, and even calls us to reason together with Him!
Isaiah again:
1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool."
That’s a very interesting thought. From the little I know about chaos theory, a tiny change in the initial conditions can made a massive change in the outcome.
A Grand Master places every piece on the board for a reason. Now imagine a 3-D chess board the size of the cosmos. Every quantum particle-wave thingy is a piece. The laws of physics give us an idea of the rules. The game’s been unfolding for 15 billion years…
Sherman,
This has been my view ever since becoming a UR believer. It takes a bit of faith and trust in who God is to believe this, but, I believe that every one of those people was better off being taken from this life than continuing with the cancer (sin) that plagued them. God did right by those individuals. Not only this, but God also saved the rest of humanity from the spread of that cancer.
It certainly is a complex interweaving, but I believe God does what is best for every individual as well as the corporate whole of mankind - He doesn’t have to weigh out, “Well, it would be best for the individual for plan A to happen, but for the corporate whole, plan B is better, so I’ll force B to take place.” He has orchestrated everything to work within plan A - and the crazy thing is that plan A is also our free choice.
Ok… Now I’m all excited about God’s greatness. Need to move on…
It reaches deep, this hope. It’s quite inspiring. ie. It’s like taking a deep breath of really fresh, cool, clean air.
I’m going to listen to it this weekend and then comment on it.
Chris
P.S. WELCOME!! 
I want to hear (and take notes on) this and on Rob’s new interview both!
But I’ve got to prepare for swimming with the little nieces this morning.
Now back (and utterly exhausted) from the niecing! 
While there I discovered that someone (most likely Ishy, my sister-in-law) has a copy of Crazy Love in his or her reading pile. Thumbing through it confirms my expectations that:
1.) Francis has a lot to say in the book that we would exuberantly agree with;
2.) He avoids much mention of the scope being limited (which is the point we would not agree with);
3.) He has practically no idea how any of what he says relates to trinitarian theology except in the shallowest of fashions;
3.1.) Which means he has less than no idea why God loves us or can be trusted to persist in saving even the elect from sin;
3.2.) Which, by the way, does leave open room for him to deny that God really loves everyone like this, despite…
4.) …his language tending to treat the matter as though God does love everyone this way.
No wonder his book is so popular. For most of it, he’s being a universalist. He just doesn’t realize it.
(This is not of small importance: I’m sure the main reason my brother and his wife haven’t thrown his book out of the house yet is because they don’t realize he’s a Calvinist. They’re staunchly Arminian. Which doesn’t stop them from having, and from giving us, a MacArthur Bible, however, which I find endlessly amusing every time I think of it. I hope sometime I can ask them how much they agree with CL’s insistence about God’s original persistence to save sinners from sin; and then, if they like it–which they should!–remind them of what the result is of combining that with the Arminian scope they also–rightly!–insist upon. 
)
I kindled his Erasing Hell on the way home; I’m thinking of preparing a comparison between it and Crazy Love. I have a suspicion that EH was written to palliate and tone down his own CL exuberance, as much as to oppose Rob Bell.
If I didn’t know any better I’d almost be inclined to think he was just using the “Rob Bell wave of controversy” to get a quick sell on a quickly written book, which I suspect a lot of pastors and preachers have done.