Frequently Asked Questions · Question 10 of 10

Is Heaven or Hell Real?

What the Bible says, what Jesus said, and what people say they saw when they died and came back.

THE SHORT ANSWER

The Bible says yes to both. Heaven is real, hell is real, and every person will face one or the other.

WHO TALKED ABOUT HELL THE MOST

Jesus. The kindest person who ever lived gave the Bible's clearest warnings about hell.

NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES

Doctors have studied them for 50 years. Many people who nearly die report the same kinds of things. What they mean is still debated.

HOW TO READ THIS PAGE

The Bible is the foundation. The stories from people who came back are human stories, not Scripture. Read them with an open mind and an open Bible.

CONFIDENCE

HIGH that the Bible teaches heaven and hell. LOW to MEDIUM for any one near death story.

The Biggest Question There Is

Sooner or later, everybody wonders what happens when we die. Maybe you wondered at a funeral. Maybe in a hospital waiting room. Maybe at 2 a.m. staring at the ceiling.

This page starts with what the Bible says, because the Bible has earned our trust. It is the same book that predicted hundreds of events before they happened, as you can see all through this Bible. A book with that track record does not suddenly become unreliable when it talks about what comes after this life.

Then we will look at something that fascinates almost everyone: the people who say they died, saw the other side, and came back to tell about it. Some say they saw heaven. Some say they saw hell. We will be honest about which stories hold up and which ones did not.

What the Bible Says About Heaven

Jesus described heaven Himself, and He was not vague about it. In My Father's house are many rooms, He said. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? John 14:2.

When the apostle John was shown the end of the story, he heard this promise: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, Revelation 21:4. Read that one out loud at a hospital bed and watch what it does to a person's face.

Paul says no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no heart has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him, 1 Corinthians 2:9. In other words, the best day of your life here does not come close.

WHEN YOU DIE. The Bible teaches that believers go to be with Jesus right away. Jesus told the thief on the cross, Today you will be with Me in Paradise, Luke 23:43. Paul says to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5:8.

AT THE END. Heaven is not the final stop. The Bible ends with a new heaven and a new earth, Revelation 21:1, and with God living among His people, Revelation 21:3. Believers get new bodies that never get sick or die, 1 Corinthians 15:42 to 44.

NOT CLOUDS AND HARPS. The cartoon version of heaven, with people floating on clouds playing harps forever, is not in the Bible. The Bible's picture is a real place, a renewed creation, with real people, real joy and God Himself right there.

What the Bible Says About Hell

This is the part nobody wants on the refrigerator. But we cannot skip the parts of the Bible we do not like.

Here is the detail that should stop us cold. The person in the Bible who spoke most clearly about hell was not an angry prophet. It was Jesus. He brought it up again and again, and He never softened it.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, Jesus said. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell, Matthew 10:28. He warned of a place where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched, Mark 9:48, quoting Isaiah 66:24.

He told a story about a rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus who both die. Lazarus is carried to Abraham's side. The rich man wakes up in torment and begs for a drop of water to cool his tongue. Abraham tells him a great gulf is fixed between them, and no one can cross it, Luke 16:19 to 31.

At the final judgment, Jesus says, And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life, Matthew 25:46. Look closely. The same Greek word, aionios, describes both. Whatever length one of them lasts, the other lasts the same.

But notice two more things. Jesus says hell was prepared for the devil and his angels, Matthew 25:41. It was not built for people. And God is not hoping to fill it. He is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance, 2 Peter 3:9.

DID JESUS TALK ABOUT HELL MORE THAN HEAVEN? You will hear preachers say that a lot. Honestly, it depends on how you count, and by a simple count of verses, heaven comes up more often. But this much is not debated: the most loving person who ever lived talked about hell often and in plain words. He clearly expected us to take it seriously.

Four Words Your Bible Translates as Hell

English Bibles use the word hell for several different words in Hebrew and Greek. Knowing the difference clears up a lot of confusion.

SHEOL

Hebrew. The place of the dead in the Old Testament, good and bad alike. It can just mean the grave. Jacob says he will go down to Sheol mourning for Joseph, Genesis 37:35. Old Bibles often translate it hell.

HADES

Greek. The New Testament word for the place of the dead before the final judgment. It is where the rich man was in torment, Luke 16:23. In the end, Hades itself is thrown into the lake of fire, Revelation 20:14.

GEHENNA

Greek, from the Hebrew Valley of Hinnom, just outside Jerusalem. It was the place where the people of Judah burned their own children as sacrifices to false gods, Jeremiah 7:31, until King Josiah shut it down, 2 Kings 23:10. Jesus took that horrible place and used its name for final judgment. It shows up 12 times in the New Testament, and 11 of them are from Jesus.

TARTARUS

Greek. Used once, for the place where God holds certain angels who sinned, 2 Peter 2:4.

THE GARBAGE DUMP MYTH

You may have heard that Gehenna was a burning garbage dump where fires never went out. The first person known to say that was a rabbi named David Kimhi, around AD 1200. There is no ancient evidence for it. The real history of the valley is worse.

The Big Question: What Is Hell Like, and How Long Does It Last?

Christians agree that judgment is real and that Jesus is the only way to be saved. But they do not all agree on exactly what hell is. Here is every major view, with its best case.

ETERNAL PUNISHMENT

The traditional view. Hell is real, it is conscious, and it lasts forever. This has been the view of most Christians through history, including Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and John Calvin, and most churches today. Key verses: Matthew 25:46, Mark 9:48, Revelation 14:11 and 20:10.

CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY

Also called annihilationism. The lost are punished, then destroyed, and stop existing. The punishment is eternal because it can never be undone. Edward Fudge made the case in The Fire That Consumes in 1982, and the famous English pastor John Stott said he leaned this way. Key verses: Matthew 10:28 destroy, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 destruction, Romans 6:23 the wages of sin is death.

UNIVERSALISM

In the end, God saves everyone, maybe after a time of punishment. A few early writers, like Origen in the 200s, hoped for something like this. Rob Bell's 2011 book Love Wins raised this hope too, though Bell says he is not a universalist. Key verses: 1 Corinthians 15:22, Colossians 1:20. Almost every church rejects it, because Jesus spoke of eternal punishment, Matthew 25:46.

PURGATORY

Catholic teaching, not a second chance. Some people who die saved are cleansed before entering heaven. Catholics point to 2 Maccabees 12:46 and 1 Corinthians 3:15. The Council of Lyon in 1274, the Council of Florence in 1439 and the Council of Trent in the 1500s made it official. Protestants reject it, because Jesus already paid it all.

SOUL SLEEP

Seventh day Adventists teach that the dead are unconscious until the resurrection, and that the lost are then destroyed. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that hell simply means the grave. Key verse: Ecclesiastes 9:5.

WHAT ALL AGREE ON

Death is not the end. Everyone will face God, Hebrews 9:27. Jesus is the way, John 14:6. And God is completely fair, Genesis 18:25.

THIS BIBLE'S VIEW

The traditional view, because of Matthew 25:46. The same word eternal is used for both destinations in the same breath. We respect Christians who hold the second view. They love Jesus and take the Bible seriously too.

The People Who Say They Have Been There

Now we step away from Scripture. What follows are human stories. They are not the word of God, and nobody should build their faith on them. Test everything, 1 Thessalonians 5:21. But some of these stories are very hard to wave away.

In 1975, Raymond Moody, a philosophy teacher training to become a medical doctor, wrote a book called Life After Life and gave these stories a name: near death experiences, or NDEs. People who came close to death kept describing the same things. Leaving their body and seeing it from above. A tunnel. A bright light. A feeling of overwhelming love. Meeting family members who had died. Seeing their whole life replay. Coming to a border they could not cross.

These are not just stories from churches. In 2001, the medical journal The Lancet published a Dutch study of 344 people who survived cardiac arrest. About 18 percent of them reported a near death experience. A bigger study called AWARE, published in 2014, tried to test whether people could see things while their heart was stopped. One patient correctly described things that happened during about three minutes of his resuscitation.

They Say They Saw Heaven

These are some of the most famous heaven stories, and what we honestly know about each one.

Don Piper, 90 Minutes in Heaven

In January 1989, Don Piper, a Baptist minister, was driving home from a conference in Texas when a semi truck hit his car head on, on a bridge over Lake Livingston. Paramedics found no pulse and covered him with a tarp. A pastor named Dick Onerecker, stuck in the traffic jam, felt led to pray for him. He climbed into the wreck, prayed and sang a hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Piper says that about 90 minutes after the crash, he started singing along.

WHAT HE SAW

A beautiful gate, a light brighter than anything on earth, and friends and family who had died coming to welcome him. He says the music was the thing he missed most when he came back.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

He wrote 90 Minutes in Heaven in 2004. It sold millions of copies and became a movie in 2015.

WHAT WE KNOW

The crash and his injuries are well documented. Paramedics did pronounce him dead at the scene. What he saw, only he can say.

Mary Neal, To Heaven and Back

Dr. Mary Neal is an orthopedic spine surgeon. In January 1999, her kayak got pinned under a waterfall on a river in Chile. She says she was trapped under water for about 30 minutes before her friends pulled her out with no pulse.

WHAT SHE SAW

She says she felt her soul peel away from her body and was met by a group of beings who loved her, on a path toward a great hall of light. She says she was told she had more work to do, and was told her oldest son would die young. He was killed by a car in 2009, at 19.

WHAT WE KNOW

The accident is well documented, and she is a respected surgeon who put her reputation on the line to tell this story. She put out To Heaven and Back herself in 2011, and a big publisher released it in 2012.

Colton Burpo, Heaven Is for Real

In 2003, a little boy named Colton Burpo, almost 4 years old, had emergency surgery for a burst appendix in Nebraska. Months later he started telling his parents things about heaven. His dad, Todd, is a pastor.

WHAT HE SAID

He said he sat on Jesus' lap and met his great grandfather, called Pop, who died long before Colton was born. He later picked Pop out of a photo of him as a young man. He also said he met a sister in heaven. His mom had lost a baby before Colton was born, and they say they had never told him.

WHAT WE KNOW

Heaven Is for Real, written by his dad in 2010, sold about 10 million copies and became a movie in 2014. Colton was never declared dead, so this is not a near death experience in the usual sense. Some critics say a small child in a pastor's home could pick up these ideas from the adults around him.

Eben Alexander, Proof of Heaven

Dr. Eben Alexander was a neurosurgeon who taught at Harvard Medical School. In 2008, he got a rare brain infection and spent seven days in a coma. Doctors gave him little chance of surviving.

WHAT HE SAW

A beautiful world of color and music, a woman who guided him on the wing of a butterfly, and a loving presence he calls God. His book Proof of Heaven, in 2012, was a huge bestseller.

WHAT WE KNOW

A 2013 article in Esquire magazine questioned parts of his story. It reported that doctors kept him asleep with medicine, which raises questions about how deep his coma was. His book also never describes meeting Jesus. That matters. A heavenly experience that leaves out Jesus is not the heaven of the Bible.

They Say They Saw Hell

These stories get told less often, and you will understand why. Nobody wants to admit they went the wrong direction.

Howard Storm, My Descent Into Death

Howard Storm was an art professor at Northern Kentucky University and a proud atheist. By his own account, he was also not a very nice man. In June 1985, while on a trip to Paris, a hole tore in his gut, right where food leaves the stomach. He lay in a hospital for hours waiting for surgery and believed he was dying.

WHAT HE SAW

He says he stood up outside his body and was led into a darkness by beings who called to him. Then they turned on him. They mocked him, hit him and tore at him. Lying there, he remembered something from Sunday school and cried out, Jesus, save me. He says a light came, the beings fled, and Jesus lifted him out.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

He woke up after surgery and changed his whole life. He left his career, went to United Theological Seminary and became a United Church of Christ pastor. He wrote My Descent Into Death.

WHAT WE KNOW

People do not usually throw away their whole career and worldview because of a bad dream. That does not prove his story, but it is worth noticing.

Ian McCormack, The Jellyfish Man

Ian McCormack was a young surfer from New Zealand who did not believe in God. In 1982, while night diving off the island of Mauritius, he was stung several times by box jellyfish, one of the most poisonous creatures in the ocean. In the ambulance, he remembered the Lord's Prayer his mother had taught him and prayed it.

WHAT HE SAW

He says he died in the hospital and found himself in total darkness, surrounded by evil, where he heard others crying out. Then a light pulled him up into the presence of Jesus, and Jesus gave him a choice to go back.

WHAT WE KNOW

He says he was dead for about 15 minutes. He became a Christian and has spent his life as a pastor and speaker.

Dr. Maurice Rawlings, Beyond Death's Door

Dr. Maurice Rawlings was a heart doctor in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1977, a patient's heart stopped during a stress test, and Rawlings started CPR. Every time the man came to, he screamed that he was in hell and begged the doctor not to stop.

WHAT HAPPENED

The terrified man asked Rawlings to pray for him. Rawlings was not a believer, but he led the man in a prayer anyway. The man survived. Rawlings later became a Christian himself.

WHY IT MATTERS

In his 1978 book Beyond Death's Door, Rawlings said frightening experiences are often missed because people forget them or are too ashamed to tell. He said that some patients who described hell right after being revived could not remember it days later.

Bill Wiese, 23 Minutes in Hell

Bill Wiese is a real estate broker from California. He says that in the early morning of November 23, 1998, he was taken out of his body and spent 23 minutes in hell, then saw Jesus, who sent him back to warn people.

WHAT HE SAW

A tiny cell, horrible creatures, burning heat, thirst, and total separation from God. His 2006 book 23 Minutes in Hell became a New York Times bestseller.

WHAT WE KNOW

Bill Wiese does not claim he died. He was at home, and it happened in the middle of the night. So his story is a vision, not a near death experience. Many Christians find it powerful. Others say some of its details go beyond what the Bible teaches. Read it with your Bible open.

How Common Are the Scary Ones?

Most near death experiences people tell about are peaceful. But frightening ones are real, and researchers think they are under reported. Researcher Nancy Evans Bush, who has studied them for decades, says people often keep them secret for years because they are terrified of what it means. Estimates of how many NDEs are frightening range from a few percent to around 1 in 5, depending on the study.

The One That Turned Out to Be Fake

Not every story holds up, and Christians should be the first to say so.

In 2004, a 6 year old boy named Alex Malarkey was badly hurt in a car crash and spent two months in a coma. In 2010, a Christian publisher released The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, written with his father. It became a bestseller. But in January 2015, Alex, now a teenager, wrote an open letter. I did not die, he wrote. I did not go to Heaven. He said he made it up because he thought it would get him attention. The publisher stopped selling the book. Alex and his mother had been saying for years that the book was not true.

That is actually good news. It means people check these stories. The fakes get caught, which makes the ones that survive the checking more interesting, not less.

What Skeptics Say

Doctors who doubt that these experiences are real visits to another world have explanations. A brain running out of oxygen can see a tunnel and light. Chemicals released in a dying brain can cause powerful feelings. Some people slip into a dreamlike state between sleeping and waking. Drugs used in hospitals can cause visions.

Those answers explain some things. They have a harder time with the cases where people describe real events they should not have been able to see. The most famous is Pam Reynolds, who had brain surgery in 1991. For part of it, doctors cooled her body and stopped her heart. Before that part began, while she was deeply asleep with her eyes taped shut and her ears plugged, she says she watched the surgeon use a special saw and heard what people in the room said. She described both correctly afterward. Skeptics argue she may have heard things while the anesthesia was wearing thin. The debate goes on.

Here is the honest bottom line. No near death story proves the Bible. And no brain scientist has proven they are all just brain chemistry. But when an atheist art professor, a spine surgeon, a Baptist minister, a cardiologist's patient and a surfer who did not believe in God all come back describing two destinations the Bible mapped out 2,000 years ago, it is worth sitting up a little straighter in your chair.

A Word of Caution From the Bible

The Bible itself gives us a few warnings about stories like these.

STORIES DO NOT REPLACE SCRIPTURE. In Jesus' story of the rich man, he begs Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers. Abraham says if they will not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead, Luke 16:31.

NOT EVERY LIGHT IS GOD. Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light, 2 Corinthians 11:14. If anyone, even an angel, preaches a different gospel, do not believe it, Galatians 1:8. An experience that teaches everyone goes to heaven no matter what, or that Jesus does not matter, fails the test.

EVEN PAUL KEPT QUIET. Paul was caught up to the third heaven and heard things he was not allowed to tell, 2 Corinthians 12:2 to 4. He did not write a bestseller about it. Some pastors, like John MacArthur, warn that the flood of heaven tourism books says more than the Bible says. That is a fair warning.

WE ONLY DIE ONCE. It is appointed for people to die once, and after that to face judgment, Hebrews 9:27. Near death means near. These people came close and came back. The final trip is one way.

So Do You Need to Worry?

That depends on one question. Do you belong to Jesus?

The Bible does not say heaven is for good people. It says heaven is for forgiven people. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, Romans 6:23. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, Romans 10:9.

John wrote his letter so that you may know that you have eternal life, 1 John 5:13. Not hope. Not guess. Know. If you have trusted Jesus, your name is written in the Lamb's book of life, Revelation 21:27, and Jesus does not carry an eraser.

But Jesus also gave one of the most sobering warnings in the Bible. Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven, Matthew 7:21. Words alone are not a ticket. God reads hearts, not transcripts.

So if you are scared that you are not good enough, that fear may be the sound of a heart already turning toward God. He is not looking for perfect people. He is looking for you. And if you have been trying to figure out the least amount of God you can get away with, put that down. He is offering forgiveness for free. It is the best deal you will ever be offered.

The Verdict

Is heaven real? Yes. Is hell real? Yes. Jesus said so, plainly and often, and He has the best track record of anyone who ever lived. He also walked out of His own tomb, which makes Him the one person qualified to tell us what is on the other side.

The near death stories are not Scripture, and a few have been exposed as fakes. But many of them echo what the Bible said long before any of these people were born. Heaven is more beautiful than we can imagine. Hell is worse than we want to admit. And the door between them has a name on it. Jesus said, I am the door. If anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, John 10:9.

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