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What does the future hold? When we look at the hate-filled racism being espoused at Charlottesville, or when we look at the antics of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, we have reason to be worried. We also may have personal reasons to fear a grim future—when we are facing enormous... Read More →

Can non-Christians go to heaven? Some people offer simplistic answers to that question—on one side or the other. But many Christians wrestle with the apparent tension between the Biblical teaching that Christ is the only way to heaven (“No one comes to the Father but by me... Read More →

Will you see your loved ones in heaven? Jesus’ answer to that is a resounding yes! New Testament images for heaven are all images of people in community with one another as well as with God. It makes sense—since, according to Jesus, the core of the Christian life is to love God... Read More →

“God desires that everyone be saved . . . for Christ Jesus gave Himself as a ransom for all.” (I Timothy 2:4,6) If God’s will is that all people be saved, does this mean that everyone upon death will enter into heaven? That cannot be, since God’s will is also that people have... Read More →

Is heaven real? How can we know? Our age prefers empirical evidence when searching for truth, so people wondering about the afterlife are often especially intrigued by reports of “near-death experiences,” because these seem to offer eye-witness observations of a world beyond this... Read More →

What will heaven be like? The popular imagination often constructs images of heaven that are essentially a personal playground—an unending extension of what people wish they were doing right now. But what a paltry sort of heaven that would be! The Biblical vision offers much... Read More →

Can human beings achieve heaven on earth? Utopian ideas and attempts throughout history have generally gone nowhere or ended poorly. Yet the Bible lifts up a vision of a better world, where “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks—nation... Read More →

When Christians throughout the centuries have thought about heaven, they have often been tempted to blend current popular notions about the afterlife into Scriptural teaching. This occurred already in the early centuries of the church, as many Christians mixed Greco-Roman ideas... Read More →

Is death followed by oblivion? Or do we have an immortal soul, that will naturally continue on into another world? The Bible says that neither is true. The Biblical Word affirms that we are flesh and blood creatures, created out of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7), with... Read More →

Is there an afterlife? Many people don’t think much about that question at all; or if they do, they offer fanciful and highly speculative answers. The Bible insists on no-nonsense realism. We are mortal, the Scriptures remind us, and our natural destiny is death. There is no... Read More →