BY HUGH FULFORD ─ People have all kinds of ideas about heaven and hell. Some believe that the bliss and joy in heaven is everlasting but that the pain and anguish in torment in hell is not everlasting. Some believe that heaven will be here on earth after it has undergone a renovation by fire. Some of these same people believe that the person who goes to hell will be vaporized with a “poof” and completely annihilated. (“Poof” was actually used to describe the end of those who are lost: Christian Chronicle Podcast featuring Rubel Shelly, hosted by B.T. Irwin, March 2026).
All that anyone really knows about heaven and hell is that which is revealed in the Bible. Everything else is just idle speculation and wishful thinking.
To help us focus on these matters, I raise the following questions. The first three are foundational to the ones that follow.
If the English reader of the New Testament knows nothing about the Greek in which it was originally written, can the average man on the street take his English New Testament and learn therefrom what it teaches about both heaven and hell?
Could he/she lay several English translations side by side and by comparing them arrive at what God has taught us about heaven and hell?
If the reader of the English New Testament cannot learn from it what it says about heaven and hell, can he/she learn anything else the New Testament was intended to teach mankind (the virgin birth of Christ, the purpose of Christ coming to earth, what He did and taught, His death, burial, and resurrection, how to be saved from sin, how to acceptably worship God, how to live a life that is pleasing to God)?
When Jesus said to the penitent thief “today you will be with Me in Paradise,” was He talking about a place somewhere here on earth or a place somewhere else? (Luke 23:43).
When Christ died His body was buried in Joseph’s tomb and His soul went into Hades but it did not remain there (Acts 2:25-31). (Note: Hades is not synonymous with hell, but refers to the unseen realm of the dead). Is Hades some place here on earth or is it somewhere else?
When Jesus had completed His mission here on earth He ascended back to heaven (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:9-11)? Is the heaven to which He ascended somewhere on earth?
When Jesus ascended back to heaven He said to His apostles (and, by extension, to all His faithful followers), “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3). Did He go to some place here on earth to prepare that place? Or is He not now doing what He said “I go” to do, and will do it later at His second coming?
When He comes again to receive us to Himself, will that be some place here on earth or a place that He left this earth to go and prepare for us somewhere else?
When Paul was “caught up to the third heaven” (II Corinthians 12:1-7) to where was he caught up? To some place here on earth, or to some realm above the earth?
Did Jesus say that everlasting punishment would be co-extensive with eternal life, i.e., each at long as the other? (Matthew 25:46).
What is the significance of Christ’s quotation of Isaiah in Mark 9 when He spoke three times of a place “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched”? (Vv. 44, 46, 48).
In speaking of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), Jesus said that Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom (likely another reference to Paradise), while the rich man was “in torments in Hades” (Vv. 22-23). Were both the rich man and Lazarus somewhere here on earth when one was in Abraham’s bosom and the other in torments? Or, were they in realms beyond the earth?
When the rich man asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, did Abraham say to him, “Hold on a little while longer, son; in a few minutes your torment will be over and you will be ‘poofed’ out of existence?”
How did Paul view heaven and hell when he wrote in Romans 2:6-10 and said that at His second coming Jesus “will render to each according to his deeds: to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality—eternal life; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first and also to the Greek”?
Did not Christ say that the everlasting fire was prepared for the devil and his angels? (Matthew 25:41). Will the devil and his angels be vaporized with a “poof”?
What is the significance of the apostle John’s statement that the devil was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone “where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever”? (Revelation 20:10)? (From the earlier chapters of Revelation we learn who the beast and the false prophet were—people).
What did John have in mind when a few verses later he said, “And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire”? (Revelation 20:15). When cast into the lake of fire would they be vaporized with a “poof,” or like the devil, the beast, and the false prophet, would they also be “tormented day and night forever and ever” (V. 10)?
One final question: Can a gospel preacher, using his English New Testament, preach and teach about heaven and hell in the very words used in the New Testament to describe these two places and by so doing teach God’s truth about these two places?
We all have many questions about both heaven and hell. The ones mentioned above should stimulate us to serious thought and study. More importantly, they should move us to live as God intended for us to live so that we might gain heaven and avoid hell. Let us rely on the knowledge and wisdom of God rather than the wisdom of men in regard to these vital questions. (See I Corinthians 1:18-25).
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (II Timothy 4:4, ESV). Is this what some have done when it comes to the Bible doctrine of heaven and hell?
Are you a Christian? Are you living a faithful Christian life? If you are not living a faithful Christian life and died today, do you know where you would spend eternity? Is that where you really want to be throughout eternity? (Note: “spend eternity” is an accommodative expression. Eternity cannot actually be “spent”; it goes on and on and on, without any end).
The image is Grok’s idea of heaven and hell. Brother Hugh publishes an email ezine called “Hugh’s News & Views”, from which this article was reproduced.
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