The afterlife is in. Newsweeklies cover it. Talk-show hosts discuss it. And a few pastors have begun preaching about it again.
Once buried by the secular community as a fantasy of the fanatical—and set aside by believers as something too difficult to comprehend or too far off to worry about—the afterlife seems to have come back from the grave. According to a recent Gallup poll, about 78 percent of the public believe in a heaven where people who have led good lives are rewarded. And 60 percent believe in a hell where those who have led bad lives are eternally damned. Even many who claim no religious belief expect life to go on after death: 46 percent believe in heaven, 34 percent in hell.
While Christians accept the Bible’s teaching that there is life beyond the grave, even those of great faith occasionally struggle to understand just what awaits them after their own resurrection. It is not surprising, then—nor should it be alarming—that Christians wrestle with questions raised by God’s final judgment of individuals: What is heaven really like? Who will go? What about good people who never confess Christ as Savior? And would a loving God really send the unrepentant to an eternity of suffering?
Although no one of our acquaintance has brought back an eyewitness account of heaven or hell, we thought it worthwhile to have two respected Christian thinkers, Harry Blamires and Leon Morris, guide us through the biblical and theological evidence for two very real destinations.
