One month after Rob Bell’s controversial book Love Wins came out, Mike Wittmer had already published a book-length response:
Michael E. Wittmer. Christ Alone: An Evangelical Response to Rob Bell’s Love Wins. Grand Rapids: Edenridge, 2011. 159 pp. 
It’s good.
The money chapter is chapter 7, which recently became available online as a free PDF. Wittmer delves past the symptoms (hell and universalism) and explains the fundamental problem with Love Wins.
Some excerpts:
[W]hen the need is great, love isn’t love unless it actually does something . . . Jesus’ death on the cross is an act of love only if it actually accomplishes something. It’s not enough to say that it inspires us to do something. (pp. 94–95)
To use Bell’s example of the courageous firefighters on 9/11, their sacrifice is a heroic act of love only because they were actually trying to rescue victims. If I race into a burning building to save a child’s life, people will praise me for my selfless love for others. But if the child is standing in a warm blanket beside me, it would be foolish for me to say, “Look how much I love you!” and run into the flames. Likewise, the cross is the greatest act of foolishness—not the greatest act of love—unless it actually rescues us. No rescue, no love. No love, no example. (p. 102)
[I]f we think that a cross which only inspires is nevertheless an act of love, then we must not think that we need much help. There is a logical connection from the Pelagianism discussed in chapter six to the example-only theory of the atonement examined here. (p. 105)
Related:
- Jim Hamilton interviews Mike Wittmer about the book.
- Kevin DeYoung reviews Rob Bell’s Love Wins. It’s the best review I’ve read.
In the first chapter of a recent compilation of essays, Atonement, J.I. Packer alludes to James Denney’s work along these same lines.
“James Denney, a Scottish writer of the past, while in the process of refuting the view of the atonement held by Abelardin the early thirteenth century, pictured it in the following way: Suppose I am sitting on the pier in the sunshine on a seaside holiday. While I am sitting there enjoying the sunshine, a man rushes up to me and says, “Look, I’ll show you how much I love you” and jumps off the end of the pier and is drowned. Denny argued that this was not a display of love, but rather a display of idiocy! It doesn’t mean anything. It’s only a display of love if the person who gives his life is doing something for me that had to be done to save me and that I could not do for myself.”
Just downloaded and read the free chapter; very straightforward. Looking forward to the rest of the book! Thanks for pointing us to this.