Heaven & Hell Part II: What do they look like ?

In the second part of this little series about heaven and hell, let’s have a look at what we are being told they look like. What should we think of hell? Are there lakes of fire? Are there worms? Desolation? Darkness and gnashing of teeth? Or is it a realm where self-centeredness and separation from God rule? And is it eternal? Or temporal? And what about heaven? Clouds and playing a musical instrument of your choice? Will we have bodies? Or just spirits? Let’s dive in.

Let me start by saying that if you haven’t read the first part, I recommend you do. It sets the stage of what I’m discussing and it gives you some options on books to read from a pretty wide spectrum of positions.

That being said, let me also repeat what I said in the first part. No-one knows 100% for sure what heaven or hell look like. No-one. Not 100% at least. Read N.T.Wright’s quote in the first part of this series. We have signs, images, ideas, references, but there is no photographic description we can pull out of our sleeve and go: “Aha, that’s what it looks like”.

So, first up: Hell

The theology of the fate of the unsaved is not a new discussion. It has been the subject of theological debates, speculations and a variety of doctrines since roughly the 2nd century A.D. The rise of gnosticism, advocating that all physical matter is evil and only the spirit is good, prompted the Early Church Fathers to re-iterate that as Christians we believe in a physical bodily resurrection. This in turn leads to the development of a more formal theology of heaven and hell. The main different doctrines were largely developed by the Capadoccian fathers, Augustine, Aquinas, etc… and many opinions existed about the fate of the unsaved. Mainly three different opinions were quite clearly formulated by the middle ages

1) Eternal punishment
2) Eternal separation from God
3) Annihilation

There was indeed also a notion of universalism in which ultimately all will be saved, of which Origen was the largest proponent. However that particular doctrine was deemed heretical in 553 A.D. For a more complete overview of the different doctrines of hell and their evolution, I strongly recommend reading this little pamphlet (thanks for the tip Abraham).

So which one of these three doctrines is it ? Which one of these three can find its root in Scripture ?

In Scripture there’s a distinction between the major three words used for hell. Suffice it to say that between the Old Testament and the New Testament there are two main ideas. “Sheol” (OT) / “Hades” (NT) which evoke images of darkness, nothingness or oblivion, and which are mainly referencing a state after death but before judgment. The second term is “Gehenna”, used by Christ (11 out of 12 occurrences) to denote a place of fire. And it is exactly the interpretation of the term Gehenna that is causing the divergence whether it’s a real place of torment or a figure of speech to indicate the effects of sin on your current life. And if it is a real place, there’s different interpretations whether it is a place of torment, a place of purification or a place of destruction. Finally, we have the images of the Lake of Fire in Revelation, especially chapter 20, in which death, hades and the unfaithful are thrown. Especially Revelation 20:9-10 seems to indicate a lake of fire in which “they” (Satan, those coming out of Hades, those that weren’t part of the first resurrection) shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. (Rev 20:9-10). And a little further we read that

Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:13-15).

The second death ? Thrown into the lake of fire ? But without the mention of eternal torment like in verse 10 ? Interesting.

So what do all the scholars I read and listened to seem to think ? Realize this is based on what I read in their works or heard in their few sermons. I did not interview any of them personally to ask them the question. But based on that, Francis Chan seems to lean towards the more traditional doctrine of a place of eternal torment. So does James MacDonald. Rob Bell on the other hand, leans more to the notion that Christ used it as a figure of speech and may even reference the hell we created on earth by being disobedient. In addition, he states that everyone ultimately will respond to God’s loving nature, which leans awfully close to a universalist approach where ultimately everyone will be saved. If we look at C.S.Lewis’ “Great Divorce”, he doesn’t seem to elaborate on the fiery aspect of gehenna / hell. He seems to lean towards the eternal separation doctrine, where men are clinging so much to their own self-centeredness that they endlessly wander in a grey and monotone reality because they continue to refuse the salvific work offered by Christ and remain in eternal separation from God. Tim Keller seems to be aligned with that notion in a sermon of his called: “Hell: Isn’t the God of Christianity an angry Judge?”. If we take away God’s grace and the Spirit’s working in our lives, we end up in a world where our miserable self is consumed by our worst character traits that we inherently possess here on earth. N.T.Wright finally doesn’t speak much about hell in “Surprised by Hope“. He admits that he has a “lack of desire to write such a book [on hell]“. Although at the end of the chapter he poses the idea that:

They become at last, by their own effective choice, beings that once were human but now are not, […] still exist in a ex-human state, no longer reflecting their maker in any meaningful sense, can no longer excite in themselves or others the natural sympathy some feel even for the hardened criminal. (1)

So where do I stand ? Is hell the place of eternal torment ? A place of annihilation, destruction and second death ? A place of self-centeredness and never-ending wanderings ? To be honest, I don’t know. After all this reading, after all this studying I’m not any closer to figuring it out. Frustrating…. I know. I like this quote from Tim Keller once again:

“One thing I believe, is that probably the Biblical imagery of hell fire, probably, that’s metaphorical. It’s metaphorical for something probably infinitely worse than fire.” (2)

I do believe in hell, I do believe it’s a place of torment (fire, self-centeredness or other) and it doesn’t sound like a very inviting place where I necessarily want to spend any length of time. But I can’t figure it out any more than that. And perhaps we’re not supposed to. Perhaps we’re not supposed to work out or worry what hell is all about. Perhaps we’re supposed to focus on what heaven is considering it’s the promise for those that do accept Christ. As someone once said: “Fear is a bad motivator“.

Second up: Heaven.

Now heaven actually gets a lot more interesting, especially in the New Testament. The Greek word “Ouranos”, usually translated as heaven, is used no fewer than 252 times ! Hold on here for a second. Hell is mentioned 12 times, heaven 252 times. And we’re obsessed in trying to figure out what hell is all about ?  Shouldn’t we focus about what heaven is all about ? And that’s exactly what I’ll try to do here.

To start, one has to realize that the image most people, even Christians, have about heaven is a dis-embodied, semi-Spirit life, where we go right after we die so we get to spend eternity with God while being in this disembodied spiritual state. Note that that is not correct. Our ultimate hope as Christians, as will try to show here, is way better than that.

First, remember that as Christians we believe in a bodily resurrection. If you don’t believe that, with all due respect, you’re not a Christian in the traditional sense of the word. You may follow Christ’s teaching, you may think he was a good teacher, you may think and believe a lot of things. But you’re not a Christian in the sense of the traditional Judeo-Christian belief we call our own. As Christians we believe in a bodily resurrection and a second coming of Christ to judge the living and the dead. We believe that God will restore justice and will restore the creation like He intended it to be.

Second, have you ever noticed how the Bible is a perfect circular narrative ? Or almost circular. It starts with the creation, the creation of the garden, the creation of mankind who is put in charge of the garden. And it ends with…. surprise, surprise, a new creation. If you’ve forgotten, I invite you to read Revelation 21-22. There is the new heavens and the new earth. The new earth in which we dwell in God’s presence. Also notice how there is a river of life, with the tree of life. Remember how in Genesis 2:9 there was also a tree of life. One difference, which makes the narrative almost perfectly circular. At the end, evil is defeated and there is no mention of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Also witness the open gates and the absence of night (Rev 21:25). All imagery indicating there is no evil. And nothing unclean (or evil) will ever enter the new kingdom (Rev 21:27).

Yet also notice that the tree of life is there for the “healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2), that there are “kings of the nations” (Rev 21:24) and that we will “reign for ever and ever” (Rev 22:5). This to me points to a real physical world. A real physical creation with one major difference. We dwell in His presence forever and ever, worshiping Him, living in the creation as it was intended to be all along.

So what about the images we usually have about a spiritual afterlife, houses with many rooms, being with Christ in paradise when we die. I do believe that exists. But that in-between state is not our Christian ultimate hope and destiny. It is the place in which we will dwell until He returns. When we talk of heaven, we usually envision this in-between state as our home, as our destiny and our ultimate place to be. While the last two chapters of the last book of the Bible make it clear that we are not to go “up to Him”, but that he will come down from the heavens to reconcile creation back to Him.

So there is our ultimate hope as a Christian. A new creation, where God rules, where we dwell with him and each other, where everything is as God intended it to be. A vision of heaven that outweighs everything we can imagine about hell. A place where we have fellowship with God and one another. In perfect harmony, without disease, anger, hatred, greed, violence, murder, rape, extortion, oppression. Now that is a place where I would like to be. That is a place and an image that should inspire us to say “How can I get there ?”

And that, is the topic of the next post. What do we know about who will ultimately join us in the new creation.

(1) N.T.Wright, “Surprised by Hope”, pp 182 – 183
(2) Tim Keller in “Hell: Isn’t the God of Christianity an angry Judge?”, Sermon 453A, October 22, 2006, Redeemer Presbyterian Church. 

Image courtesy of Joshua Nicholson at www.rebreathe.org