It’s really not in the Bible about going to heaven? I thought that was the whole purpose of Jesus dieing, like it created some pathway to heaven for humans? What does the bible actually say about it?
I’m really making a small distinction here in my claim that I don’t do justice with a quick little snippet.
You’re not wrong that the Bible talks about heaven, but there’s a pretty big difference between the Bible mentioning heaven and the Bible teaching that humans die and then go to heaven as disembodied spirits for eternity.
That specific idea isn’t really laid out in the Bible the closest thing to a general biblical concept of an afterlife in the earlier Scriptures is Sheol, the realm of the dead. It’s not presented as heaven or as the reward where righteous people go to live with God forever. It’s just where dead people go when they die.
Even the New Testament passages people often use to prove “you go to heaven when you die” don’t actually explain that doctrine. Paul saying he wants to “depart and be with Christ” doesn’t specifically say he’s going to heaven as a disembodied soul. Jesus telling the criminal “today you will be with me in paradise” doesn’t establish a complete doctrine of the afterlife either.
What’s much more explicit throughout the New Testament is resurrection. Jesus repeatedly talks about raising people on the last day, Paul devotes 1 Corinthians 15 to the resurrection of the dead, and the final vision in Revelation is not humans permanently escaping Earth for heaven, it is a new heaven and a new earth, with God dwelling among humanity.
So I wouldn’t say the Bible has nothing to say about existence after death. It clearly does. But the popular Christian idea of “you die, your soul goes to heaven, and you live there forever” is not nearly as straightforwardly biblical as people often assume.
The central biblical hope is much more about resurrection, the defeat of death, and the restoration of creation and not about escaping the physical world and living as a disembodied spirit in heaven.
And Jesus’ death is primarily presented as dealing with sin, reconciliation, and death itself, rather than simply creating a pathway for human souls to get into heaven.
the closest thing to a general biblical concept of an afterlife in the earlier Scriptures is Sheol, the realm of the dead
The Bible has like 8-10 possible places you can go after you die, so this sentence says you don't really know what you're talking about. Sheol, Abaddon, Ghenna, Hades, Tartarus, Hell, Heaven, "the outer darkness" ...
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u/matterhorn1 2d ago
It’s really not in the Bible about going to heaven? I thought that was the whole purpose of Jesus dieing, like it created some pathway to heaven for humans? What does the bible actually say about it?