"What do you think about heaven and hell?"
Certainly not a fun conversation starter.
And, for me, certainly not something that I would talk about with anyone other than my closest friends. In light of that, writing about it in a place where everyone can read my thoughts on the subject feels uncomfortable at best.
What I believe about heaven is that it is a place where the bride of Christ, his church, will finally be reunited with her bridegroom.
What I believe about hell is that it is a place that is devoid of the presence of God.
Now, as to whether these places are literal, I don’t know. If by literal, we are asking if it they are places that can be physically experienced, I don’t know. What I do know is that we will experience them in the body that we have at that time. We don’t know what we will be like at that point, but whatever we are, whether spirit or body, will experience these things that we only know of in the objective currently.
For another, somewhat related question: what will happen to people who die without a saving knowledge of Christ? Will they go to heaven or hell?
I believe that if I, as a fallen human being made in the image of God feel injustice in the damnation of an individual who has not heard or understood the gospel, that God, who has complete knowledge will make a decision that is perfectly just. He knows the thoughts and motives of every individual. He knows if someone has not heard the gospel or why another person has rejected the gospel. He will make a decision based upon his perfect knowledge of the internal processes that brought that person to where they are.
In the same way that there will be people at judgment who are surprised when God tells them to depart because he “never knew them,” I believe that there will be people who are saved that we may not have expected.
We don’t know what it will be like when we are there, and we don’t know who will be there. We know that God is sovereign and just and he will judge the living and the dead. The rest is up to him.
Thank you for your thoughts. You're right, we won't know for sure. But what about Lazarus and the rich man, both who died, one going to heaven and one to hell. Was that just a fictional story or was it an account of two very real places?
ReplyDeleteC.S. Lewis in his book The Great Divorce speculates that heaven and hell are places with much more substance than our lives here on earth.
Mike