What does the Bible say about heaven and hell?

The Bible is clear that both heaven and hell are real places. This is not just something that is part of someone's imagination. It's not a fantasy or a fairy tale. Heaven is real, and hell is also real.

How does the Bible define heaven? Heaven is the place where God is visibly present. It is His presence that defines heaven. And in fact, it is His presence that makes heaven heaven.

The Bible teaches that the pathway to heaven is only through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is those who believe in Him, those who have been forgiven of their sin because of His death on the cross, those who have embraced the hope of resurrection and the hope of eternal life found only in Christ. It is only through Christ that sinners can go to heaven.

He Himself said in John 14:6, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

When we think about heaven, we realize that when a believer dies, his or her body goes into the ground, but the soul goes into the presence of Christ. Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 5:8 when he said that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

But when Jesus returns for the church, all believers will be raised. Believers will receive resurrection bodies. This is the resurrection to life that Jesus talks about in John 5. Believers will return with Christ, and they will reign with Christ during His millennial kingdom. And then after the millennial kingdom, God will create a new heavens and a new earth.

This is all described in Revelation 20–22. The new heavens and the new earth is the eternal heaven where believers will exist in the presence of God, in His everlasting joy, in physical resurrection bodies for all of eternity.

Conversely, hell is also real. And an unbeliever who dies, who has not placed their hope in Jesus Christ—their body also goes into the grave, and their soul goes to hell.

Hell is described by Jesus Himself in Luke 16, where He tells a story about a rich man who died and woke up in hell. That temporary hell will one day be replaced by a permanent hell because unbelievers will also receive resurrection bodies.

In John 5, this is called “the resurrection unto death.” It's described in Revelation 20 when the apostle John talks about how all unbelievers will one day be raised at the end of the millennial kingdom. They will be brought before the Great White Throne. And because their names are not written in the Book of Life, they will be cast into the eternal hell, which is described as the lake of fire. This shows up again in Revelation 21:8 as the place of eternal judgment for unbelievers.

The reality is that sin is so significant that the consequence of sin is death, as Romans 6:23 explains. And it's not just physical death in this life; it's spiritual death and eternal death in the life to come.

Now, a question that people sometimes ask is, "Does the torment of hell really last forever?" Based on passages like Revelation 17, 20, and 21:8, the answer to that is yes.

I think maybe the most explicit text in that regard comes from Matthew 25:46. There Jesus is talking about the sheep and the goats, believers and unbelievers. And He says to the sheep, that is believers, “You will go away into eternal life.” But to the unbelievers, He says, “You will go away into eternal punishment.”

Insofar as heaven represents eternal life, such that those who go there enjoy the bliss of being in God's presence forever, so also, hell represents eternal death, such that those who go there will experience the judgment of God forever. That is a hard truth, but it is what the Bible teaches.

And all of this is intended and revealed for us so that we would go and preach the gospel to warn unbelievers to flee from the wrath to come and to find the pathway to heaven through the Lord Jesus Christ, because all who believe in Him will be saved.