If most of you close your eyes right now and think about heaven, a certain kind of picture probably enters your mind. Maybe there is a cloud, with angels and harps. Most likely, the picture is honestly pretty boring. There is not much to do, stuck in some non-physical, ethereal place. The bottom line is that, for many of us, we don't talk or think much about heaven because, deep down, we think it's NOT THAT EXCITING!
Your mind's picture of hell is different, but probably equally mistaken. You may picture a devil and a pitchfork, flames leaping around – it's essentially a cartoonish picture that our culture has given us of hell. We probably don't take it very seriously. And this leads to the reason that I think many of us don't talk or think much about hell: it SEEMS OLD-FASHIONED. Hell doesn't seem to have a place in the minds of sophisticated, 21st-century people who have laptops and Facebook.
Ultimately, though, it is not just misconceptions about heaven and hell that make us think or talk little of them, but more that we don't really understand WHO we are, and what GOD has created us to be. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has "set eternity" in the hearts of humans. Have you thought of yourself that way? You are an eternal being; that is how God made you! I wonder if you've ever felt a deep desire – a yearning – for something that you can't quite describe. C.S. Lewis describes this human experience: "If I find in myself desires which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." I think that's the idea that the writer of Ecclesiastes is getting at. We were made for another world – for lives of eternity! Genesis 2 of course explains this in the clearest way. It says that we humans are made in the "image of God." All of this means that we are SPECIAL – we are made for eternity and eternal life begins now. You and I are WEIGHTY creations of God!
It is understanding this WEIGHT to our existence that gets us one step closer to grasping the scope of the eternal destiny that awaits every human being. The infinitely holy God of all the universe has spectacularly glorious plans for human beings who accept him as their God. A rejection of this holy God, then, is an infinite offense that leads to almost equally spectacularly horrific punishment. Because of WHO WE ARE (beings made in the image of God who are therefore weighty and valuable), our eternal destiny will be absolutely overwhelming – either overwhelmingly GLORIOUS or infinitely TERRIBLE.
And this ultimately is the teaching of the Bible. The Bible presents only 2 eternal destinies for every human being who has ever lived: Heaven or Hell. In a way, this makes sense. Human beings are too valuable to be tossed away and destroyed. Their value as beings made in God's image demands that they be taken seriously – either punished for their rebellion or rewarded spectacularly by their King.
Hebrews 9:27 makes a fundamental point: "It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment." That is the future for every human who has ever lived. That is OUR future: judgment. Judgment is that which separates God's people (who have accepted his gift of eternal life in Jesus) from those who are NOT God's people (those who have rejected Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior).
"Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us" (Luke 16:26)
First, the Bible teaches that Hell is ETERNAL. The parable of Jesus, quoted above, indicates that the separation between those in Heaven and those in Hell will be final and lasting. Judgment is final, and hell, like heaven, will last forever.
"When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might" (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)
Second, the Bible teaches that Hell is PUNISHMENT. It is not just a bad place where some suffering exists in a general way. Those in hell will be actively punished by God, facing his specific wrath because they have rejected his offer of salvation in Jesus Christ. Jesus – who accepts all who put their faith in him – will have a role in also judging with wrath those who reject him.
"Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just" (Revelation 19:1-2)
This, the Bible teaches that Hell is FAIR. God's judgments are just. In fact, all of use deserve hell, because we have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. The amazing part of the Bible's message is that the offer of salvation in Jesus – through his death on the cross – is made available to human beings at all. For those who do not accept Jesus and turn against God, their punishment is just and fair, for they have not accepted the way to forgiveness and eternal life that God himself has provided.
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away" (Revelation 21:1)
First, Heaven is a PLACE. Note that John says that he sees a new heaven and a new EARTH. Heaven will, contrary to many of our imaginations, be a very real and very beautiful place – a new creation.
"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God" (Job 19:25-26)
Second, Heaven is PHYSICAL. Read 1 Corinthians 15 on this point; Paul makes the point very clearly that, just as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead with a glorified and still physical body, so will we be raised in that same way. The Bible declares that our physical bodies will be raised from the dead – perfected and glorified to never die again. We will experience the new heavens and the new earth in an intensely physical way.
"In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11)
Third, contrary to some of our pictures of heaven, the Bible teaches that Heaven is FUN. "He's a hedonist at heart," Uncle Screwtape says of God in C.S. Lewis' wonderful book. God is a lover of pleasure. God invented fun! Every pleasure that you have ever experienced is a gift from God – something that he designed. Similarly, every pleasure that has gone wrong is a good creation of God that the devil has hijacked and twisted into something sinful. Heaven, among other things, will be a place of pleasure returning perfectly to what God originally intended it to be.
The reality of Hell – and that the Bible (and Jesus himself) speaks so often of it – tells of God's holiness. The fact that eternal punishment awaits sinners who are not clothed with the righteousness of Christ is necessary; an infinitely holy God cannot abide in the presence of sin. Connected to this is the fact that Christ, and Christ alone, is the way to salvation. If what our culture says about religions is true – that there are many equally valid ways to God and salvation – than there is no need for hell. But if we really believe the words of Jesus – that no one comes to the Father "except through me" – than we must keep believing in the doctrine of hell. A rejection of the infinitely valuable offer of salvation that God has extended in Jesus is an infinite offense against our Creator.
Heaven, on the other hand, reminds us – amidst all of our suffering, hardship, and struggle – that God is FOR us. Have you considered that lately? That the God of the universe, if you have truly put your trust in his Son Jesus, is on your side? That is a fantastically wonderful truth! We have Him on our side at whose right hand are pleasures forevermore. There is much glory, joy, and FUN to come on the day that we join our Savior forever.
Finally, heaven and hell are both important because one of the two is in all of our future. If we are indeed made for ETERNITY, we should be thinking about our ETERNAL home. The final judgment – and heaven or hell – is as certainly a part of our future as college, marriage, or a job. In fact, it is MORE certain than those things. Consider your eternal destination now, and consider God's offer of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life through the death and resurrection of Jesus!
And for believers in Jesus, I leave you with some words (again) from C.S. Lewis. In The Weight of Glory, he notes that, while it may be possible to be too obsessed with your own eternal destiny (although probably not), it is impossible to be TOO obsessed with the eternal destiny of others:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses. To remember that the dullest, most uninteresting person you talked to today may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you will be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption, such as you now meet, if at all, only in your nightmares. All day long, we are in some degree helping each other on to one of these destinations. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations: these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals with whom we joke, work, marry, snub and exploit: immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
