by David Cox
[D03] v1 ©2005 www.davidcoxmex.com/tracts
you may freely repro­duce this tract

This tract basi­cally estab­lishes the Bible doc­trine of Heaven and Hell (their exis­tence). First the tract explains why this issue is so impor­tant, then it explains that heaven is God’s home (abode), and then estab­lishes that hell is a place of pun­ish­ment. It also briefly explains the dif­fer­ence between the con­cepts of Hades, Sheol, and the Grave.

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Why is this Issue so Important?

There are reli­gious groups and indi­vid­u­als that believe that nei­ther heaven nor hell exists. For them, every­body goes to the grave, and at this moment their exis­tence ends. To deny the exis­tence of heaven is to deny the pos­si­bil­ity of sal­va­tion, eter­nal life, or a place and expe­ri­ence of eter­nal hap­pi­ness after death. Heaven rep­re­sents the reward God gives to those that obey Him, and it even rep­re­sents God and his promises to us. To deny the exis­tence of hell is to deny that an Almighty God exists, that God is a just Judge, and that He is holy. Hell rep­re­sents the pun­ish­ment of God on those that refuse His will. God is a judge that judges men about moral mat­ters. God does not per­mit sin in His pres­ence; nei­ther does he allow sin­ners to escape with a “ceas­ing to exist” (anni­hi­la­tion). God pun­ishes them in a place of extreme pun­ish­ment called “hell.”

Heaven is God’s Home

In the con­cepts of the ancients, there were actu­ally three places called “heaven”.
The first heaven is the air above the earth (this is also “up” for those who live on earth) Mat 24:31; Mark 6:41; 13:27; Luke 4:25; 9:16; 17:24; 29; 18:13; John 6:31–33; 17:1; Acts 1:10–11; (this heaven gives rain Acts 14:17; James 5:18).
The sec­ond heaven is where the sun and stars reside Mat 24:29–30; 26:64; Mark 13:25; Luke 21:11, 26.
The third heaven is where God lives, the angels live Mat 18:10; 24:36; Mark 12:25; 13:32, Luke 2:15; John 1:51; Gal 1:8; and at this moment in time where the saved abide which have died. The third heaven is where Paul went when God rap­tured him give him revelation.

2Co 12:2 I knew a man in Christ above four­teen years ago, (whether in the body, I can­not tell; or whether out of the body, I can­not tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.

The “third heaven” or sim­ply “heaven” is where the pres­ence of God the Father exists and lives. When we see ref­er­ence to God the Father, he is always in this heaven, Mat. 3:17; 5:16, 48; 6:1, 9–10; 7:11, 21; 10:32–33; 12:50; 16:17; 18:14; 23:9; Mark 1:11; 11:25–26; John 12:28. There is a sense in which “heaven” also rep­re­sents some­thing that sur­rounds the outer most area of the earth (Acts 2:5; 4:12). Scrip­tures rep­re­sent the Holy Spirit descend­ing from this heaven before his com­ing in a more per­ma­nent way on the day of Pen­te­cost (Luke 3:21–22; John 1:32; 1 Peter 1:12). Equally before Jesus’ incar­na­tion, he came from heaven where God the Father lives John 3:13; 31; 6:38, 41–42.

In this sense, the third heaven rep­re­sents the king­dom or throne of God Mark 11:30–31; 14:62; John 3:27; Acts 7:49; 17:24; Romans 1:18. All sin is against heaven (the throne or king­dom of God) Luke 15:18, 21. After his res­ur­rec­tion, Jesus appeared var­i­ous times to the dis­ci­ples, and after this, Jesus ascended into heaven (the third heaven) and sat down at the right hand of God the Father Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51; Acts 7:55; Hebrews 9:24; 1 Peter 3:22; and thus remains until his return to the earth in judg­ment and power Acts 1:11; 3:21; 1 Thes. 1:10; 4:16.

Now, heaven is a place apart from the earth Mat 5:18, and God is sov­er­eign over both Mat 11.25. Jesus cre­ated all that there is in heaven and in earth Col 1:16.

For those that achieve eter­nal life, heaven is where they will go to live for ever with God. Some human beings will enter heaven if they obey God Mat 19:23; Mark 10:21. When some­body is saved, his name is writ­ten in heaven as one of heaven’s cit­i­zen Luke 10:20; Heb 12:23[1]; and God makes them a part of the fam­ily of God Eph 1:10 and 3:15. There is great joy in heaven when a sin­ner repents Luke 15:7. Believ­ers trea­sure up riches in heaven Mat 6:20; 19:21; Luke 6:23; 18:22; Col 1:5. The saved know that they “have in heaven a bet­ter and an endur­ing sub­stance.” Hebrews 10:34; 1 Peter 1:4. A crown of jus­tice awaits us in heaven 2Tim 4:8; 1Pet 5:4.

But this sit­u­a­tion will change one day after the future events of Rev­e­la­tion. In Rev­e­la­tion 21 when God has fin­ished judg­ing uncon­verted men from all times of the earth’s his­tory, they will be thrown in the lake of fire with the Devil and his demons, and then God will totally destroy heaven (1^st and 2^nd) and earth (which Satan as god over this has cor­rupted), make a new heav­ens and earth, and the 3^rd heaven will descend to earth for­ever. This will be the saints’ and God’s dwelling place forever.

Rev 21:1–3 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, com­ing down from God out of heaven, pre­pared as a bride adorned for her hus­band. And I heard a great voice out of heaven say­ing, Behold, the taber­na­cle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his peo­ple, and God him­self shall be with them, and be their God.

Con­clu­sions and Summary

Then heaven DOES exist at this moment. God the Father always has lived there since cre­ation. The Holy Spirit and Jesus live there also, until they came to earth. When Jesus came to the earth, he came from heaven. When he left earth, he returned to heaven. The Holy Spirit came from heaven to the earth (to dwell with his spe­cial pres­ence in the believer). Heaven is where God lives with His holy angels and the saved. Jesus threat­ened the Jews that they would not go where Jesus goes (to heaven John 8:21, 24) if they did not believe in him as their per­sonal Saviour.

Hell[2], the place of Punishment

The fact that the Bible teaches a place of pun­ish­ment is very dif­fi­cult to deny, but some do try to do just that. It is inter­est­ing that we know more about hell because of Jesus’ teach­ing than from any other source. Jesus pre­sented the real­ity of hell as a great moti­va­tor to change our lives because this threat of divine pun­ish­ment is more hor­ri­ble than any can imagine.

We see pas­sages where God presents a divine judg­ment against each per­son after death, in which those that trust in the Sav­iour will avoid this judg­ment to go where God resides (heaven) and those who do not have the Sav­iour will go to a dif­fer­ent place of liv­ing tor­ment. They didn’t want God, so they go where there is no bless­ing of His pres­ence. Num 16:29–33 relates a sit­u­a­tion where human beings went alive into hell, a real live place in the cen­ter of the earth.

The Rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). The point that Jesus stresses here is that there is a judg­ment of each per­son, and that there is life after death where some suf­fer tremen­dously, and oth­ers are in “par­adise” (a place of plea­sure) with God. Para­bles present real­ity in a sim­ple form, and even tak­ing this as a para­ble, the truth being taught is pun­ish­ment and plea­sure in the after­life. Some would lightly esteem the doc­trine of heaven and hell in Luke 16, but that is exactly the teach­ing point of Jesus. He did not con­cen­trate very much on what they did in life, but what was their fate and con­tin­ued exis­tence in the afterlife.

Heb 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judg­ment:

This pas­sage teaches that imme­di­ately after death, each per­son goes to their par­tic­u­lar des­tiny, some to tor­ment and oth­ers to a plea­sur­able place. Anni­hi­la­tion[3] is not what hap­pens when some­body dies.

Place of Tor­ment – The impor­tance the Luke 16 nar­ra­tive is that the after death tor­ment is real. The rich man had a con­scious, and he nei­ther was asleep, nor ceased to exist, but con­tin­ued his exis­tence and con­scious­ness in a very dis­agree­able place. There is fire, pain, tor­tures, and the tor­tures seem to grow with more and more peo­ple that fol­low the exam­ple of the sinner’s life caus­ing more judg­ment. The rich man didn’t want his fam­ily to fol­low him there, increas­ing his own tor­ture more and more. The place of tor­ment is an actual place, where there is fire (Mat 5:22; 13:41–42; Luke 16:23–24) that is never put out (Mark 9:47–48). It is a place of burn­ing for­ever with sul­fur (liq­uid fire, or brim­stone) that is highly flam­ma­ble (Isa 34:8–10; Rev 14:10; 19:20; 20:10; 21:8). It is a prison not a party (Psa 116:3; 118:5). Besides the phys­i­cal tor­ment, there is also men­tal tor­ment (Luke 16:24–28) which has no rest nor relieve in any form ever (Rev 14:9–11). It is a place of extreme dark­ness (Mat 25:30; 8:12; Eph 5:8; Acts 26:18; Col 1:13). Because of the intense pain and suf­fer­ing (Job 26:5; Psa 18:5; 2 Sam 22:6) it is described as a place of the grind­ing of the teeth (Mat 13:42; Luke 16:24) and of cry­ing (Mat 13:42). It is described as a place of worms that eter­nally eat through the bod­ies of the peo­ple there (Mark 9:47–48). It is a bot­tom­less pit (abysm) where appar­ently there is dis­ori­en­ta­tion and a sen­sa­tion of falling as in a pit (Rev 20:1). All this causes hell to be a place that is highly “not desir­able” (Mat 5:29–30; 18:8–9).

Hades, Seol, and the Grave

I have writ­ten a book on the Pun­ish­ment of God, where I explain this in more detail, but in sum­mary, hell is now a place of tem­po­ral pun­ish­ment until the divine judg­ment of the nations (Great White Throne – Rev 20). After this time, all in hell with­out excep­tion will be cast into the lake of fire, which is the sec­ond death, which is a place even worse than hell is.

For those that reject the con­cepts of heaven and hell – To reject that these two places do not exist does not mean that they don’t exist. Many reject that they have can­cer, because they don’t want to con­tend with what it is. But it is not a wise path to take. It is bet­ter to con­front it and deal with it cor­rectly, tak­ing the nec­es­sary deci­sions. Why don’t you accept the truth of these places as the reward of God, and as the pun­ish­ment of God, and accept Jesus as your Sav­iour, to save you from hell, and save you for heaven?

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[1] Hebrews 12:23 describes who is in heaven, “the spir­its of just men made perfect.”

[2] The Word “hell” occurs 12 times [Gehenna] Mat. 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5;  Jas. 3:6; 2Pe. 2:4, and [hades] 11 times Mat 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; 1Cor 15:55; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13–14. [tar­tarow] is used in 2 Pet 2:4.

[3] Anni­hi­la­tion – That in death, the per­son ceases to exist. The body decays, and their spirit, soul, and con­science all cease to exist for ever.