Death, Heaven and Hell

This is a question that nobody can answer with any certainty. The Bible talks about what happens when we die, but only in broad terms with very specific intent.

Some people claim to have died and come back. Many of them have had this medically verified. Sometimes they describe what they encountered on the other side. We would be wise to approach these descriptions with a great deal of caution. We don’t know if they are true, if they are lies or self-delusions or if they are straight fabrications. We can accept the validity of what they say, provided the witnesses are reliable and they don’t conflict with scripture. Any variation from the Biblical text on the issue invalidates the claim. The stakes are too high to take chances.

We don’t know much about Heaven or Hell. The bottom line is: Heaven – good; try to get there, Hell – bad; don’t go there.

There are two main theories about the first thing that happens when we die. There is little Biblical support for either view.

Theory 1:

When you die, you go to a holding area to await judgement. Paradise for believers, and sheol or hell for the unrighteous. At judgment, all of the peoples will be assembled before the throne of Jesus, who will separate those who He will save and those He will not.

This theory seems to be supported by the majority of the experiences of those that have died and come back. People report waking up in either a very beautiful place of peace and light or a horrible place of torture and suffering.

Theory 2:

When you die, you don’t notice time passing, but wake up at the judgment. Nobody has, to my knowledge reported anything like this.

Paradise

Paradise is mentioned in the Bible in several places in a few different contexts.

In the Old Testament, the word for paradise is the same word used for a garden. The Garden of Eden can also be known as the Paradise of Eden. It’s not immediately clear how far we can take this, however because most of the gardens that are described using this word are simply human gardens. The same problem exists with the Greek word that is used in the New Testament, but there it is only used in a spiritual context.

It is mentioned as a place God brings people temporarily to communicate with them directly.

2 Corinthians 12:3-4

And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.

It is identified as the place people go to await judgment.

Luke 23:43

Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Revelation 2:7

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will grant the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

Judgment

Judgment happens after death.

Hebrews 9:27

And as it is appointed to men once to die, but after that to face justice

Matthew 25:41

Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels

Judgment happens in two stages:

First, everyone will be judged according to what they have done.

Revelation 20:12-13

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 

Second, everyone whose name is not found in the book of life is thrown into the fire, as is death and Hell.

Revelation 20:14-15

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Heaven

What does it take to get into heaven?

Believe that Jesus died so you don’t have to. The penalty of your sin is fully paid. All of it. There is nothing you can do to add or contribute to the payment.

But that is only half of the story. You also have to live like it. The law was there to show us what right living looks like. We still have to follow it, but now we do it to please God rather than out of fear of the consequences. The problem with that is that we tend to live like we want and assume that we will be forgiven. Jesus tells us that won’t work. Living like that draws us away from God rather than towards Him. Please see Salvation.

What is heaven?

Jesus talks a lot about the Kingdom of Heaven, but most of His sayings are about the people and how they relate to each other. ‘Heaven’ can refer to God’s home (as we are using it), God’s people, God’s army or as shorthand for everything under God’s control (except Satan and his evil).

For this purpose, Heaven is God’s home – the place where people go if they are saved.

What do we know about Heaven?

Heaven is a great place to be. It is easy to get in, but many people find it too hard to do. Please see Salvation.

It is a great place to be 

1 Corinthians 2:9-10

However, as it is written: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no heart has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him

Revelation 7:16-17

Never again will they hunger;

never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat down on them,

nor any scorching heat.

For the little Lamb at the center of the throne

will be their shepherd;

he will lead them to springs of living water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

There is a lot of room there for His people 

John 14:2-3

In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?

Revelation 21:16

The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long.

That’s about 1400 miles long, 1400 miles wide, 1400 miles high. That’s 2,744,000,000 cubic miles. More than enough room for everybody.

God lives there

Revelation 4:1-11

At once I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne standing in heaven with someone sitting on it.

Revelation 22:3-4

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Isaiah 66:1

This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?

An army of angels lives there

There aren’t just a few angels – there is a whole army of them. Please note that most of the descriptions of the angels we have today are not Biblical. Most were created by theologians in the middle ages based on either the Apocrypha or based on reasoning and speculation. We actually know very little of angels. There is no evidence, for example that angels are sexless beings with no first-hand, senses-based experience of the world. Please see What are angels.

2 Kings 6:15-17

When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Luke 2:15

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”

Our relationships will be similar there, but perfected 

Luke 20:34

Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to share in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. In fact, they can no longer die, because they are like angels, and since they are sons of the resurrection, they are sons of God.

In heaven, we will have bodies like Jesus’ resurrected body. It will look and function just like our current body, but be perfected. We were created male and female in Eden, and we can predict that relationship will return to its original intent in heaven as well. We don’t really know how things will change, but we do know that it will be for the better.

The elect will gather there to be judged

Matthew 24:31

And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

This appears to mean that He will gather the living from the earth and the dead from whatever portion of the heavens they are temporarily occupying. He will summon them for judgment.

It will be replaced by new Heavens and a new earth 

Isaiah 65:17

For behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The first things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

Revelation 21:1-4

Then I saw a new (fresh, unused) heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

God will have to rebuild the broken creation from the ground up (so to speak). We broke the original set too badly to be salvaged.

In the end, Heaven is our home. It is the place where we will dwell with God. There is a lot of descriptive text in the Bible that tries to describe it, in a limited sort of way. We aren’t equipped to understand what it will be like. We just know that it is the place we were designed to be, where God will provide our true contentment as we live in right relationship with Him and each other.

Hell

What is Hell?

Several words are used for Hell.

Sheol / hades – This was a holding place holding place for the dead. It will be destroyed at the last day.

Gehenna – Often used as a description of Hell. It was the Valley of the sons of Hinnom (Ge bene Hinnom), where the idolatrous Jews who worshipped Molech had sacrificed their children. Here the dead bodies of animals and of criminals, and all kinds of filth, were cast and consumed by fire kept always burning. Obvious allegory for Hell.

It is a prison for unrighteous people awaiting judgement 

2 Peter 2:9

If this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.

There is agony and fire 

Matthew 25:41

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’

Luke 16:22-24

“One day, the beggar died was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in this fire.’

The fallen angels are there 

This seems to involve forcible abduction.

Jude 1:6

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.

Destroys soul and body 

Matthew 10:28

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Fear God, not men. Destruction does not necessarily mean ceasing to exist. The destruction of the soul that Jesus is talking about is the slow erosion of the soul into a horror of agony and despair.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth

Matthew 24:51

He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Regret will be the order of the day.

Hell is eternal 

Matthew 25:46

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

Revelation 14:9-11

A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”

There are those that say that God, being a merciful God as well as a just God, would not permit eternal suffering in Hell, but that position, while logical and comforting, is not scriptural. This is terrifying, because that agony and despair go on forever.

Consider this speculation: ‘Creation’ is a machine God made for making eternal beings. Once we have been made, we cannot be unmade. Hell is the scrap heap for the irretrievably broken.

What about the people who never heard of Jesus?

This is a delicate question to which there cannot be much of an answer. The Bible just doesn’t say much about it. It does say, though that God is evident to everybody. Those who choose to follow the light they see become a law to themselves. They will be judged based on their adherence to that law. Those who ignore the evidence of God they see all around them will perish apart from the law.

Romans 2:12-16

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous. Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. So they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Christ Jesus, as proclaimed by my gospel.

Exactly how that judgment is to be conducted and what criteria are used is up to God. We just don’t know.

What about the people in the Old Testament?

Paul mentions this in Romans 4. The faithfulness of Abraham and David are discussed. Paul notes that God reckoned that faithfulness unto them as righteousness. By extension, it would seem that salvation in the Old Testament is similar to salvation in the New Testament, in that the faithfulness of the believer in following God is credited as righteousness. In both cases, it is emphatically stated that righteousness is not earned by works, but granted by the graciousness of a loving and forgiving God. Beyond that, nothing is said.

How can a loving God send His children (creations) to Hell?

God is completely loving, but also completely just. He cannot ignore the sins committed against His rule.

Here is a third: Rebellion against God is a capital crime. God cannot remain just and ignore the crime, so it must be punished. Jesus offered to stand in my place. If I reject His offer, I must stand and face the penalty for my rebellion, which is death.

In all three cases, ‘death’ does not mean destruction as much as eternal separation from God. I will have to live with the consequences of my decision forever.

Another thing to remember is that we are not good. We don’t have a strong enough view of just how bad sin is, just how truly warped people are – in God’s eyes. This is reflected in the mind-bendingly horrible things people do to each other. Several recent studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of atrocities throughout history have been carried out by ordinary people. The things that we decry as ‘inhuman’ are, in fact, human. It is the respect, love and grace that Christians display to each other and to the world that are inhuman. That’s why we need God. God doesn’t send good people to Hell – He sends incurably warped, damaged, evil people to Hell.

If we can get people to acknowledge that normal, everyday people are, in reality, broken in such a way as to have the propensity to horrific actions, the question of ‘why do bad things happen to good people’ goes away, because we see that there really are, truly, no good people.

It really doesn’t matter how you explain it. The bottom line is: Jesus died so I don’t have to. He redeemed me / saved me/ paid the debt for me. I am bought and paid for. I owe Him obedience.

If I reject His redemption / salvation / payment for me and refuse to follow Him, I must pay that price for myself.

C.S. Lewis stated: There are two kinds of people in the world – those who say to God, “Thy will be done” and those to whom God says, “Thy will be done.” They have chosen to reject God, and so have chosen Hell. This is not a children’s game. The stakes are very high.