Are There People In Heaven & Hell Right Now? (Questions Teenagers Ask 4.)

Part four of my series on ‘Questions Teenagers Ask.’ All posts in this series are responses to questions I’ve had from young people written in the style I answered them.

Question: Are There People In Heaven & Hell Right Now – Before Second Coming?

Answer:

Great question! And the answer is yes but no!

I grew up in Blackpool where it had a nightclub called ‘heaven & hell‘ – but it was rubbish and so there’s no-one there right now! (I think it shut down actually.)

Anyway, you’re probably not asking about the nightclub; so is there anyone in the real heaven or hell right now?

If heaven is ‘in the presence of Jesus’ and if it’s ‘paradise’ then deffo! Yup! People are there right now. Jesus turned to the thief on the cross next to Him and said “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise,” (Luke 23:43) – not later, but today.

However, that’s not the whole story; Heaven & Hell ain’t done yet! They’re still brewing.

Heaven is amazing! More amazing than we could ever think of, but it comes in two parts, before the second coming of Jesus and after the second coming.

Before Jesus comes back Heaven’s epic, and it’s paradise, and we’re there with Jesus in some form or another; however it’s just spiritual. After Jesus comes back though, He’ll be stitching a new heaven and new earth together to be the perfect mix of physical and spiritual (have a wander through Revelation 21 & 22 to see this). We even get new amazing new physical bodies (1 Corinthians 15). Heaven will be all the best bits of the physical world and spiritual world clearly mixed together – and more!

Hell too – In a parable in Luke 16, Jesus tells us about people in Hell right now (also see Revelation 21:8 for more evidence of this). However at the second coming it’s sealed once Satan & the demons are chucked into it (Revelation 20:10-15). There’s also an argument to be made for people living in Hell-on-Earth right now needing the salvation that only Jesus can bring.

So yup, people in heaven and hell right now. But nope there is more to come including physical, hot, new bodies when Jesus returns!