The Fate of Souls: Heaven vs Hell in Scripture

By Elizabeth Prata

According to several passages in the Bible, it is believed that angels may escort believers to heaven when they die, (Luke 16:22). We read about the poor man Lazarus who was carried to heaven by angels after he died. After all, Hebrews 1:14 says that angels are ministering spirits who serve those who will inherit salvation. It isn’t a stretch to surmise that they might minister to us as our flesh fades away and our spirit ascends to heaven, guided along by gentle zephyrs in the company of angels who tenderly bring us to our eternal place.

It’s a soft, comforting, lovely thought of the care that Jesus has for our souls, even at the end and beyond.

The difference of how the lost’s souls are handled is stark. Far from being guided in love to safely and gently dock in pastures so green in heaven, only the fires await those who are not in Christ. The lost are THROWN away (from the presence of Jesus). They are CAST into hell.

When you blow your nose and wad a tissue do you gently deposit it into the wastebasket? No, likely you toss it. A wadded up piece of paper? Throw it…score! When you deem something trash or waste, you don’t handle it gently. It is of nothing to you. Toss without care.

The word ‘cast’ or ‘thrown’ is used repeatedly in the Bible referring to those whose destination is hell. Every time. Sin and Hades itself are also thrown or cast into the Lake of Fire.

Matthew 5:29, Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

Matthew 7:19, Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Matthew 8:12, but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 18:9, And if your eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fiery hell.

Luke 13:28, In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.

John 15:6, If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

Revelation 20:10, and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Revelation 20:15, And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

The word used here is ballo with an ek in front. Ek means out. The definition is To cast out, to drive out, to send out, to expel. Expel is to remove something by force.

We are so used to the notion put forth by false teachers that Jesus is a boyfriend romantically pursuing us, or that He is a ‘gentleman’ who wouldn’t not force Himself on us. Neither of these characterizations are accurate. He is meek, yes. He is compassionate, yes. He is never soft on sin. He is angry at sin. He has no use for those who did evil in His sight and there is no need to gently lay into the fire those who rejected His gospel. They are tossed.

Yes, He has compassion on those who are without a shepherd, but when it comes time for the judgment, it will be rough, hard, and a display of the ultimate rejection, them against Jesus and Jesus against them.

Why write this? To awaken a renewed sense of wonder at Jesus’ gospel. To spark a deeper gratitude that He saved us from this. We who are in Him will be witnesses to it. During the Tribulation there will be silence in heaven for ‘half an hour’. (Revelation 8:1). It is a solemn silence of profound expectation of the final and decisive catastrophe- wrath unknown and unexperienced until now.

And yet, the final judgment of casting souls inside fitted bodies into the fires will be worse. Isaiah 66:24 says

“All mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the LORD. “Then they will go out and look At the corpses of the people Who have rebelled against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be extinguished; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”

Most commenters take this as figurative language, of those viewing the bodies of the Jews who had rejected Jesus and lay rotting in abundance in their deaths in the aftermath of the battle at Gehenna. I personally think it is literal, that there is a literal lake of fire with literal bodies of the lost in a literal fire. It will be literally somewhere and occasionally the saved will view them and remember as a testimony to God’s mercy that there but for the grace of God, go I.

Therefore let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need says Hebrews 4:16. As we approach that throne of grace, let gratitude flow that He has dealt gently with us.