Does heaven exist?

How do we know there is a heaven? Our only source of information is the Bible. We cannot logically receive the revelation of heaven without receiving all that the Bible teaches, and the Bible as clearly tells us there is a hell.

As to heaven, we read:

Heaven, as everywhere in Scripture, is spoken of as a locality. Transpose the meaning given by Christian Science into the above verse, and it becomes nonsense.

The abode of God, where His throne is. Ps. 2:4; Ps. 11:4; Matt. 5:34. Whence the Lord descended and to which He ascended, and where He was seen by Stephen. Mark 16:19; Acts 7:55; 1 Cor. 15:47.

Just in the same way must I seek, supposing I want to gain a just idea of what heaven will be. What then is it? A place of gold and precious stones? Nothing of the sort. I know that these are employed as figures of the Bride or the glorified church in the Apocalypse; but it is to me certain that a man who has merely this as his conception of heaven is more a Mahometan than a Christian. All believers ought to know very well that such is not the meaning of the word of God; and God Himself, therefore, gives us divine landmarks that we may not be ignorant when He is using Scripture figuratively, and when He is using it symbolically. There is no such difficulty as unbelief affects to find. Men do the same thing in principle almost every day, as we meet with in the language of Scripture. Supposing you tell me that you "flew" down the street, we do not suppose that you borrowed wings, yet we know very well what you mean; you are only using a very intelligible and expressive figure. Supposing you tell me that another "crept" down the street, are we to suppose that he went on all fours? Thus, no matter what the figure that is used, there are landmarks by which one may learn whether the thing is intended in its literal import, or whether it is a strikingly figurative method of stating what is meant. This makes no difficulty at all. It is only uncommonly stupid or uncommonly wilful people who are stumbled by such expressions. If the Bible be accepted as God's word, He must look for docility, not wilfulness, in those who profess to believe in Him; but He takes account of everybody — the poorest and the lowest; and there is nothing that delights one more in Scripture than the manner in which God has respect even to the child or the feeblest soul imaginable. And Christ is the One who brings it all out. Thus I know what heaven is, because it is the place where God is displaying His own excellence by crowning the man that was rejected from and by the world. It is the place where Christ is glorified, where He is accepted in love, light, and glory, where God Himself puts honour on His Son.

Now what is hades for the believer? Scripture tells us that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, and when the believer is absent from the body he is at home with the Lord. The thief went the day he died into companionship with Jesus. There is no such thing as soul-sleep, but death is gain, and introduces the believer to the “far better” portion. The moment the breath leaves the body of the believer his spirit, conscious and happy, goes to be with His Saviour, there to await the resurrection day, which will end for his soul the condition of hades, as it will end the condition of death for his body.

It is perfectly plain from these passages, and many others that might be quoted, that the same moment the soul of the believer leaves the body it is present with the Lord in the paradise of God — surely the happiest place in all heaven. What then can be the object of the Romish church so to pervert scripture — so to deny the efficacy of the blood of Christ, which is said to cleanse the believer from all sin? To answer this question, the mind must comprehend and grapple with the very depths of Satan.

Not less inconsistent with the low and superstitious idea is the light conveyed by the apostle Paul's words in 2 Cor. 12:2-5. He identifies being caught up to "the third heaven" with being caught up into "Paradise." It is the highest view of heaven that scripture discloses; it leaves no room for the idle dream which consigns to some lower receptacle a soul whose fitness to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light is not achieved. For this meetness is taught by Col. 1:12 to be already conferred by grace on all believers here. The scheme, so widely preached now, is a dark unbelief of the gospel, derived from mere Jews and Gentiles, not from scripture, and meant to comfort those who die in their sins without Christ by a hope wholly unwarranted. There is not the smallest ground for it in inspiration.

The testimony of our Lord in Rev. 2:7 is if possible more explicit and absolutely decisive. For to the overcomer in the church at Ephesus He promises that He will give him to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. No one can question that this contemplates the future glory when that which is perfect is come, and the redeemed are changed into His image even for their bodies. Yet He calls it paradise; and in Rev. 22:2 we see it fulfilled. Both texts therefore of this wondrous final book of scripture concur to explode as unfounded the assumption that paradise is not heaven. It is its most favoured quarter, where Christ went when His atoning work was done; where those who die in faith of Him and His work go to be with Him; and where they shall taste its sweetest enjoyment, when they have their bodies changed into the likeness of His glory at His coming. The revival of patristic tradition is a revival of heathenism, entirely at issue with what has now been manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10).

Heaven is a place where sorrow cannot live and joy cannot die.

Next, the professor thought, he would speak of the unscientific belief in a virgin birth which, in the final analysis, was nothing but legend without any historical evidence. Next, he made remarks about the resurrection of a man who had died. The greatest scholars had contradicted this belief. Science knew nothing of it. No sane man doubts, he would argue, that Jesus Who died lives today, not as a risen man, but by His teachings, His character, His manhood, His leadership, and His example. The old conception as to existence after death, of a heaven and a hell (he struck out the word “hell” and substituted “a place of punishment“) came next. Such a belief was likewise branded unreasonable. We know nothing of the future. There is probably survival after death, but certainly not in the form taught in the Bible. We know nothing definite about it.

"Oh, that's all a delusion. Nobody knows anything about the future. How can they? No one has come back from the dead to tell us what comes after death."