Where will you spend eternity?
Posted: June 16th, 2009, 5:07 pm
It is a common belief among Christians that when a person dies he immediately goes either to heaven or to hell and remains there for all eternity. A careful study of the Bible shows that this is not correct, although it is very close to the truth.
When some one who has been forgiven thru faith in Christ dies he immeditely goes to be with Christ, and Christ is now in heaven. But the Bible teaches that one day Christ will return to reign over the earth, and when this happens all the believers will return with him. At the end of the book of Revelation we learn that God will create a new earth and that the new Jerusalem will come down from heaven to be its capital. God created humans to live on this earth. Because of sin we leave earth thru dying and if we are Christians we then go to heaven. But this is only a temporary dwelling place until God restores the earth to what he intended it to be. The new earth will be inhabited by new humans, who have been born again by faith in Jesus Christ.
All those whose sins have not been forgiven will be condemned to spend eternity in hell, but if you read chapter 20 of Revelation you will find that they will not go there until after the final rebellion at the end of the millenium. So where are they until then? In Luke 16 Jesus tells of a rich man who died and went to a place called Hades. This is a temporay place for the unsaved to stay until their final judgment. When Jesus spoke of hell in other places he used the word Gehenna, not Hades. Unfortunately some Bible translators have used the word "hell" for both of these places and this has caused some confusion about this subject.
In one sense, the popular belief is correct. Those who are saved go immediately to a state of eternal happiness and the unsaved go to a place of eternal torment. But when studying the Bible it is important to study all the details to make sure you are interpreting it correctly.
When some one who has been forgiven thru faith in Christ dies he immeditely goes to be with Christ, and Christ is now in heaven. But the Bible teaches that one day Christ will return to reign over the earth, and when this happens all the believers will return with him. At the end of the book of Revelation we learn that God will create a new earth and that the new Jerusalem will come down from heaven to be its capital. God created humans to live on this earth. Because of sin we leave earth thru dying and if we are Christians we then go to heaven. But this is only a temporary dwelling place until God restores the earth to what he intended it to be. The new earth will be inhabited by new humans, who have been born again by faith in Jesus Christ.
All those whose sins have not been forgiven will be condemned to spend eternity in hell, but if you read chapter 20 of Revelation you will find that they will not go there until after the final rebellion at the end of the millenium. So where are they until then? In Luke 16 Jesus tells of a rich man who died and went to a place called Hades. This is a temporay place for the unsaved to stay until their final judgment. When Jesus spoke of hell in other places he used the word Gehenna, not Hades. Unfortunately some Bible translators have used the word "hell" for both of these places and this has caused some confusion about this subject.
In one sense, the popular belief is correct. Those who are saved go immediately to a state of eternal happiness and the unsaved go to a place of eternal torment. But when studying the Bible it is important to study all the details to make sure you are interpreting it correctly.