Most people find it easy enough to accept that heaven is everlasting. The harder question is whether hell is equally everlasting, and this is precisely where several alternative views have emerged.

For Christians, it is important to understand the Bible’s fundamental teaching regarding the doctrines of heaven and hell. In recent months there has been much focus on the idea of hell in general, and the eternality of it in particular.

In John 3:16, Jesus draws the contrast plainly: whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Perishing is a reference to hell. Everlasting life is a reference to heaven. The good news of Jesus Christ is inseparable from the reality of both destinations.

Real Places, Not Figures of Speech

When most people hear the words “heaven” and “hell,” a variety of ideas come to mind. Some assume hell will be one long party. Some suspect heaven will be boring. Others treat both as figures of speech for extreme earthly experience. Human opinion cannot be the authoritative guide regarding the doctrines of heaven and hell. The only trustworthy source is the Scripture, because truth corresponds to reality, and God, who is truth, has spoken. Therefore, if we want to know what reality is when it comes to heaven and hell, we must listen to the truth that God says about them.

What the Bible says about heaven and hell is not symbolic poetry. When Jesus spoke of hell, he used the word Gehenna, a reference to the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, a perpetually smoldering trash heap. The image pointed to something real, the place otherwise known as the Lake of Fire. When he told the repentant thief on the cross that he would be in Paradise that very day, the man was moments from death. Jesus was speaking of a real place, not merely a state of mind. Paul wrote that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Presence implies location. Jesus told his disciples he was going to prepare a place for them. These are not metaphors. The very essence of heaven is the manifest presence of God; the very essence of hell is permanent banishment from that presence to a place of loneliness, anguish, and separation from God with no possibility of reconciliation, forever.

Neither place can be found on any map, not because they are fictional, but because they are part of a reality beyond what our senses can perceive. God himself cannot be seen or touched in any ordinary sense, yet no one who takes Scripture seriously doubts that he is real. Heaven and hell are equally real. No passage illustrates this more vividly than the story in Luke 16 of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man died and found himself in torment, longing for even a drop of water. Lazarus was in Paradise. Both were fully conscious. Both were in real places. There was no crossing from one to the other. The contrast was total and permanent.

The Question of Eternity

Most people find it easy enough to accept that heaven is everlasting. The harder question is whether hell is equally everlasting, and this is precisely where several alternative views have emerged.

Christian Universalism holds that all people will ultimately be reconciled to God. It sounds appealing, but it is not biblical; the repeated use of the word everlasting to describe torment directly contradicts it (Mt 25:46).

Inclusivism holds that those who never heard of Christ may still reach heaven based on how they responded to whatever spiritual light they received. But this runs against John 14:6 and Acts 4:12, and it also makes evangelism counterproductive, which contradicts Scripture’s explicit commands.

Post-Mortem Evangelism proposes further gospel opportunities after death, but no text of Scripture supports that idea.

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