Is God Mean? Why Does God Kill People? Why Does God Send People to Hell?

Is God Mean? Why Does God Kill People? Why Does God Send People to Hell?

Have you ever thought God was mean? Have you ever heard someone say God is mean?

I hear people say that a lot. And I see people say it even more.  I get on the internet for about an hour every day and I go to these websites where people are asking questions about God or religion or the Bible, and I try to answer them as best as I can. I find that people are usually more willing to talk anonymously over the internet about their questions than they would be to go talk to a pastor in person. It’s just easier sometimes to talk to someone while you’re typing on the computer and you don’t have to be face-to-face with someone you don’t know, talking about your deepest feelings.

So, I get on the computer and I talk to these random people, and one question I get over and over again is, Why is God so mean? And they’ll talk about how God killed people in the Old Testament and they’ll talk about how God is mean when He sends people to Hell. And they can’t love God, they can’t come to God, they can’t trust God, because they think that He’s just so mean.

So I want us to talk a little about God’s supposed meanness.

First, we know that God very rarely chooses who dies and who lives today. But in the Bible, and in the Old Testament particularly, we do have stories of God striking people dead for various sins that they had committed. The question people ask is, Wait a minute. Isn’t that murder? God told us not to murder in the Ten Commandments, but there He is murdering people. God’s a hypocrite. And He’s mean too!

Well, is God a hypocrite for killing people when He told us not to kill people? No. God told us not to kill people. That doesn’t mean He can’t kill people. God gives the rules, and He doesn’t have to play by the same set of rules that He gives us. It’s like a parent and a child. You tell your child they can’t stay up past a certain time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t stay up past that time. As the parent, you have the right to give your child rules that you don’t necessarily have to follow yourself.

It’s the same way with God. He’s God. He’s playing by a whole different set of rules than the ones He’s given us.

So, you say, Okay, but isn’t it still mean for God to kill people? It depends on how you look at it. Is it mean when the state executes someone? Or is it justice?

You see, the only reason we think it’s mean for God to kill people is that we don’t take sin seriously enough. God is holy. God is perfect. God says that anytime you sin, you deserve death. He doesn’t tolerate sin at all. God is justice.

The cool thing is that God is also love. And God usually gives people a way out of their punishment. He usually gives them a way not to be put to death. In the Old Testament, that meant killing an animal, sacrificing an animal, instead of you. In the New Testament, that means killing Christ instead of you. Something still has to die for your sin. That’s how serious sin is. God isn’t just going to forget about it. Justice has to be done. Something or someone has to be punished.

Now, I said that God usually gives us a way out of our death penalty. In the Old Testament, He usually let people sacrifice the animal. But that doesn’t mean that God always had to do that. Sometimes, when He struck someone dead, He was simply exercising His justice without giving people a way out of it.

We don’t like that. We want God to always be love and to show love because that feels better for us. But sometimes, God chooses to show His justice instead. The Bible says that the beginning of wisdom is fearing God, and it doesn’t say that for nothing. We should be afraid of God. Because if He chose to, and He has done it in the past, He would be completely within His rights to destroy us all. Because we have all sinned. We are all deserving of death according to His perfect standards.

But people will still say, Yeah, but God can’t just kill people like that. Yes, He can. He’s God. He created us. He owns us. If you make something, if you own something, you can destroy it, and no one can say that you can’t. We are God’s. We are His property. He can do with us what He wants. We’re just lucky that most of the time, God wants to show us His grace and mercy and forgiveness and love more than He wants to show us His justice and His wrath.

Okay. So, God can kill people because He’s not playing by the same rules He gave us; He’s exercising justice according to His perfect standards, and He can do what He wants with His own creation.

So that’s kind of the hard line. Now, let’s talk a little about Hell. Is God being mean when He sends people to Hell? 

Hell is not God being mean. Hell is God giving people what they want. God doesn’t want people to go to Hell. God wants us all to be in Heaven with Him.

Listen to what Jesus says in

Matthew 18:12-14 - "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in Heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.”

And God says in

Ezekiel 18:23, 31-32 – “‘Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?’ declares the Sovereign LORD. ‘Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone,’ declares the Sovereign LORD. ‘Repent and live!’”

God does not want to send people to Hell, but He does give them free will. God gives us all a choice. We can be with Him, or we can refuse to be with Him. If someone will not turn to Him and accept His forgiveness, then they’ve basically said that they don’t want to be with God in Heaven. They’ve said, “I don’t want anything to do with You.” And since God will not force them to go to Heaven, there is only one alternative for them. They’ve decided that they don’t want to go to Heaven. But they have to go somewhere when they die. That somewhere, that alternative, is Hell. If they have rejected Heaven, then they have chosen Hell by default.

And it’s not that God has made Hell a particularly bad and painful place on purpose. It’s just that Hell is the only place where God isn’t there. People have rejected God. They’ve said they don’t want anything to do with God. And so He stays completely out of Hell. But because God stays completely out of Hell, that means that there is nothing good in Hell.

James 1:17 – “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.”

God is the source of everything good. He created love and happiness and peace and comfort. So, if God stays out of Hell, then none of those good things are in Hell. You see, Earth is kind of the middle ground. On Earth, we can experience those good things from God a little bit. In Heaven, we’ll experience those things to the max, because that’s where God is. He’s right there, and He’s made everything perfect in Heaven. But in Hell, we can’t experience any of those good things God has created, because God is not there. So, instead, we experience the opposite of those good things. Instead of love, we feel only hate. Instead of happiness, there is only despair. Instead of peace, there is frustration. And instead of comfort, there is pain.

That’s the choice people are making when they reject God. They are choosing to go to the place where they won’t need to have anything to do with God. It’s just that they might not know what they’re really choosing.

But I say that Hell is for those people who choose to go there. I want us to understand that most people do not go to Hell. In order to go to Hell, you have to choose to reject God. You have to hear about God and then, willingly ignore it or reject it.

An unborn baby has not rejected God and so, they do not go to Hell. A mentally handicapped person who can’t understand about God has not made a rational decision to reject God and so, they are not going to Hell. A person who has never heard about the real God has not made a decision to reject the real God and so, they are not going to Hell. Most people in the history of the world are not going to Hell because they did not have the opportunity to believe in or reject God. God understands that and so, most of them will be in Heaven.

So, is God mean? No, God is not mean. God is simply exercising His justice on the rare occasions that He does kill someone. And He allows us to choose where we will go when we die. So, no, God is not mean. In fact, I’d say God is incredibly gracious by not killing us all the second we sin and sending us all to Hell, even though by His perfect standards, that is exactly what we deserve.

God is incredibly gracious to us because He offers us a way to be forgiven. God is incredibly gracious to us because most of the time, He chooses to show us love and patience rather than His wrath. God is incredibly gracious to us because He gave us a place to go other than Hell. God is incredibly gracious to us because He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, and to take our punishment for us rather than putting us all to death the moment we sin. God is incredibly gracious to us. Amen? Amen.

Discussion Questions:

Q1. If God gives us rules to follow, and we break those rules, does God have any obligation to forgive us?

A1. No. God does not have to forgive us if He doesn’t want to. He makes the rules, and we have to listen to Him. He doesn’t owe us a second chance. We owe Him our life and our obedience. He’s God. The cool thing is that God does want to forgive us and to give us a second chance because that is His personality. God is love.

Q2. If God only showed love, and never showed His justice, how would people behave differently toward Him?

A2. Everyone could do whatever they wanted without any consequences. They would see God as a push-over instead of someone we need to listen to and obey.

It would be like the Congress passing laws but the police never enforcing them. People would ignore the laws.

People would not respect God or take Him seriously.

Q3. If God only showed His justice, and never showed His love or forgiveness, would people behave differently toward Him?

A3. They would resent God as being too harsh and could not love Him.

Q4. How does Jesus’ death show us God’s love and His justice?

A4. It shows us God’s love because God gives us a way to be forgiven for our sins and to not die and go to Hell ourselves. It shows us God’s justice because someone is still being punished for our sins. Our sins aren’t being ignored. God is still punishing sin. It’s just that the punishment is being taken by someone other than ourselves.

Reality Check - What Does God Do?

What is God Like?

For each statement, circle True or False. If you’re not sure, leave it blank.

1. God causes natural disasters.

True / False

2. God decides who lives and who dies.

True / False

3. If someone dies, it’s because God took them.

True / False

4. When something bad happens to me, it’s because God is punishing me.

True / False

5. When God lets bad things happen to me, that shows He’s not powerful enough to stop them.

True / False

6. When God lets bad things happen to me, that shows God doesn’t care enough about me to stop them.

True / False

7. God planned who He wanted (or wants) me to marry.

True / False

8. God has the perfect job in mind for me.

True / False

9. I talk to God when I pray, and He actually talks back.

True / False

10. God gives me what I pray for.

True / False

11. God works miracles for us if we have enough faith.

True / False

12. God wants to communicate with me.

True / False

What’d you think of that quiz? Were the questions easy to answer or not so easy? 

The thing is that we all take this quiz every day, because these questions focus on some of the big things that we believe about God. Does God have a plan for how He wants your life to go? Does He have a spouse and a job and all of that lined up for you? When something bad happens to you, where is God in that? Did He make that bad thing happen? If not, why didn’t He do anything about it?

Those are some big questions, and I want to see if we can start to work through some of them. 

1. God causes natural disasters. Is that true or false? I’m going to say it’s mostly false. We have stories in the Bible where God certainly did cause natural disasters. But does that mean that God causes all natural disasters? No.

The truth is that we live in a broken world. God created the world to operate perfectly. Genesis 1:31 – “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Now, when God says something is good, that doesn’t mean it was okay, or pretty good. That means it was good. It was perfect. There was nothing wrong with the world. There were no natural disasters.

And the Bible tells us that in the beginning, there was a layer of water surrounding the Earth, creating a kind of greenhouse effect for us. Genesis 1:6-8 – “And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault ‘sky.’”

There was water on the earth, and there was water above the earth. And we’re not talking about the water that is always up in the clouds because there was no rain yet. Genesis 2:6-7 – “the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.” So, in the beginning, instead of having water falling from the sky, water came up from the ground somehow. Maybe it was more like just having a lot of dew on the ground.

There were no earthquakes or volcanoes or anything like that. There were no tornadoes or hurricanes or tsunamis. The world was perfect and at peace.

Then, Adam and Eve sinned and their children sinned and their children sinned and their children sinned until God decided that He had had enough. And He broke the world. Genesis 7:11 – “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” That layer of water that was above the earth came down and the water that was under the earth that came up little by little to water the ground broke through the earth’s crust all at once and broke the earth’s crust into smaller pieces called plates, and all of that water from up above and from down below drowned every living thing on the planet except for Noah and his family and the animals he had with him on the ark.

The breaking down of that water layer ended the greenhouse effect the Earth was enjoying. Heat escaped the immediate atmosphere. All of that water started evaporating up into colder air and came down again as snow and ice. Those plates in the earth’s crust began sliding around and rubbing against each other, causing earthquakes and volcanoes.

God caused every natural disaster when He broke the world with the Flood. The Flood was what set off our weather patterns and plate tectonics. So, yes, God made the biggest natural disaster there ever was, and in doing so, He also caused natural disasters in general. But He doesn’t cause each individual storm or tsunami or earthquake or volcanic eruption. He set everything in motion with the Flood and is now allowing everything to take their natural course.

The Bible tells us that one day, Jesus is going to come back to this world and that this world is going to burn up, and that God is going to create a new world for us to live in. 2 Peter 3:6-7, 10 – “By water the world of that time was flooded and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.”

The earth was flooded. Everything died. And then, God started over with Noah and his family and those animals who had survived on the ark. When Christ returns, God is going to judge the world again. He’s going to burn everything on earth – clear the slate – and then, start again with only those who have been faithful to Him.

Does God cause each individual natural disaster? No. It’s kind of like we’re living in a condemned house right now. The landlord knows it’s broken. But rather than repair it, He knows He’s just going to tear it down and build a new one in its place.

So, no, God is not causing each individual disaster. But neither is He doing anything to stop them. He’s just letting things run down and take their natural course.

2-3. God decides who lives and who dies. True or false? Again, in the Bible, God does sometimes kill people. He’s God. He owns us. He’s allowed to kill us if He sees fit. He can do what He wants with His own creation. And God does sometimes save people from dying. But does that mean that God is always deciding who lives and who dies? Does He have a calendar up in Heaven where He writes each person’s name on the date He wants them to die? Does each person have a “time” to die like that?

No. In the beginning, God created human beings to live forever. Adam and Eve never would have died. They would have continued living in the Garden of Eden and enjoying that perfect world that God created and enjoying God’s Presence and having children and everything would have been perfect.

But then, they sinned. And the punishment for sin was death. Genesis 2:17 – “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will begin to die.” Some translations say, “you will certainly die.” The Hebrew there is actually, “dying, you will die.” We know that Adam and Eve didn’t die right away, but that they began to die. They started the process of dying when they sinned.

So, death is kind of like natural disasters. God set it in motion. He decided that everyone was going to die as a punishment for sin. Anyone who sins has to die. And because we all sin, we all die.  But God does not decide when you’re going to die or how you’re going to die. He kicked it off and now, He’s letting things take their natural course.

One day, Jesus is going to come back to this world, and He’s going to bring everyone who believes in Him back to life, and He’s going to perfect our bodies and make it so that we never get sick or get hurt or get old again. We will live forever in that new world God is going to create, just like He always intended us to do.

But that time is not yet, and so, we die.

4. That brings us to our next one. When something bad happens to me, it’s because God is punishing me. No. Just like everything else, God is not actively doing things to you. There are a lot of reasons why something bad might happen to you. Either it’s because of things that were set in motion long before you or I got here, like death or the weather or natural disasters, or because you did something or someone else did something to cause that bad thing to happen naturally, without God having to do anything about it. If, for example, you get drunk and get a hangover, that’s not God punishing you; that’s you suffering the natural consequence of throwing off your body’s chemistry. If someone else gets drunk and hits your car, that’s you suffering the consequence of them throwing off their body’s chemistry. God has nothing to do with either one. Or sometimes, things happen to us just out of simple coincidence. We’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Bible tells us that God will punish us when Christ comes back to judge the world. But, again, that time has not yet come, and so no, God does not punish us now, other than allowing us to suffer the consequences of our decisions and punishing us with death at some point, which He does not determine.

5-6. When God lets bad things happen to me, that shows He’s not powerful enough to stop them. Or, When God lets bad things happen to me, that shows God doesn’t care enough about me to stop them. Both are false. God does care about you, and God will stop bad things from happening to you. Just not yet. He knows everything that is going to happen in this world, and He has set a time that only He knows about for when He’s going to end this world and make a new one, where nothing bad will ever happen to us again. But that time is not now. And so, even though God does care about you, He knows that it’s not time to stop the bad things from happening.

God knows that our time in this world is brief. Our lifetime is like a blink of an eye compared to eternity. Romans 8:18 – “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” The pain, the hardships, the heartache that we experience here will one day seem like nothing. And so, God would much rather have us learn from our hardships and develop our character by going through those hardships than take away our problems altogether. He wants us to learn by going through those hard experiences.

7-8. God planned who He wanted (or wants) me to marry. God has the perfect job in mind for me. Again, those are both false. Christians sometimes think that God has their life all planned out. But He doesn’t. God is our Father, our Parent. You know what kind of parent plans out their children’s lives for them? Controlling ones. “You will be a doctor because I was a doctor.” Or “You will do this because I never had the opportunity to do it.”

God isn’t like that. God loves us, and He wants what’s best for us. But He’s not going to make every decision for us. He’s given us some guidelines. He’s said that He wants us to marry another Christian so that they can support us in our faith and help us run our family according to God’s principles. But He doesn’t pick the exact person He wants you to marry. 

Likewise, God has said that He wants you to be fair and honest and hardworking in your job or career, and He wants you to do things with excellence, but He doesn’t tell you what specific job you need to get or even what field of work you should be in. He lets you figure that out.

You see, just like a good parent, God is much more interested in what kind of person you are than what you do for a living. He’s much more interested in who you are than what your job is or how much money you make or how successful you are compared to your colleagues. With God, you can just be. You don’t have to do anything other than just to be the kind of person God created you to be.

9-11. I talk to God when I pray, and He actually talks back. God gives me what I pray for. God works miracles for us if we have enough faith.

I have had God talk to me, and God did talk to people in the Bible. God does and did answer prayer. God did and does work miracles. The question is, How often does God do those things?

We read about all the miracles that God did in the Bible and all the people He talked to, and we think that that must be normal. We think that’s how life is supposed to be. But it’s not.

The Bible is like the news. We watch the news, and we see stories about people being shot and houses burning down and all kinds of other strange happenings. And if we looked at the news the way we look at the Bible, we’d think, Wow! Everyone’s being shot, and everyone’s house is burning down.

But we know that’s not true. We know that the news shows us the things that are not normal, that are not happening to everyone. That’s why it’s news. If those things were normal, we wouldn’t need anyone to tell us about it because we’d already know.

It’s the same way with the Bible. The Bible shows the big things, the highlights, the things that were not normal because there’s no reason to tell you about the normal things because you already know what normal life is like. And it shows us those big things over the course of about 4,000 years. If you take all the miracles that God did in the Bible and all the times that He talked to people and all the times that He answered someone’s prayer and stretch them out over 4,000 years, I think you’ll find that on most days, God didn’t do anything. There was no news to report.

Now, of course, I’m exaggerating, because the Bible probably doesn’t tell us every little thing that God did. But you get my point. God talking to people, and God doing miracles, and God answering prayer is not an everyday occurrence. You may never experience those things. And it’s not because there’s anything wrong with your faith. It’s simply because they don’t happen very often. God is, for the most part, letting things take their natural course.

If God doesn’t talk to you, it’s not because He doesn’t like you or because He doesn’t have anything to say you.

12. Oh, but that’s getting into our last question. God wants to communicate with me.

That one is true. God has a lot to say to you, and He will talk your ear off all day long, every day, until you die if you’ll let Him. He just doesn’t talk to you the way I’m talking to you now.

You see, God has already said pretty much all He needs to say to you. He even had some people write it down and give it to you in the form of a book. I’m talking about the Bible, obviously. It is God’s Words, and when we read it, God is speaking to us, telling us everything that we need to know about Him and about ourselves and about what He wants for us and about what He’s eventually going to do for us when Jesus comes back.

God wants to communicate with you, through the Bible. And He wants you to communicate with Him through prayer. Prayer is not for us to tell God what we want and expect Him to do it. Prayer is simply for us to talk to God. I’ve said before that the thing God wants most out of us is a relationship. Talking to God, praying to Him, telling Him about your day or what you want to see happen is part of that relationship, and there doesn’t have to be any expectations involved.

You know, my wife will sometimes come home from work and tell me about a problem she’s having with a co-worker or about a task she needs to get done. She doesn’t expect me to do anything about those things. She simply wants to talk to me. And that’s the same thing we can do with God. We don’t need to expect Him to fix everything, because He’s probably not going to. But we can still talk to Him and be in that relationship with Him.

We can tell God what we want to see happen, and we can ask Him to do things. Just know that He’s not obligated to do them and that He does still care about you if He doesn’t. Prayer is about the relationship, not miracles.

Follow-up Discussion:

Q1. Have you ever heard other Christians or other churches saying that some natural disaster was God’s punishment or judgment on the world?

What do you think is wrong with that type of thinking? Or is that type of thinking wrong?

A1. When we say that God causes natural disasters as a punishment of some sort, it makes God seem unfair. Because you know that when a hurricane happens, there are Christians who are killed or whose property is destroyed too. So, is God punishing everyone in that area? Or just the unbelievers?

When you say that God is not punishing us but that He’s just allowing things to take their natural course and that He will punish us individually in the end, then you get a fair picture of God. He deals with us individually at the judgment instead of letting Christians suffer along in a natural disaster along with everyone else.

Q2. Has you ever been to a funeral and heard someone say, “Well, God wanted to take them”?

How would you feel if someone said that to you?

A2. I would feel like God was picking on me, like God deliberately chose to take my loved one away from me. And I would think, God is the bad guy here. He made this person die.

That’s not a very fair picture of God, is it? It’s much more accurate to say that God is letting things take their natural course. Sometimes, it happens to me; sometimes, it happens to you. It’s just random chance. God isn’t deciding who lives and who dies. He isn’t picking on anyone.

Q3. If God doesn’t punish us in this world, how do we know when we’ve done something wrong? Does God have any way of correcting us before we get to the judgment?

A3. That’s the role of our conscience and the Holy Spirit. God has given us all a conscience to know the basics of right and wrong, and He gives every Christian the Holy Spirit to live inside of them and remind them of what God has said.

John 14:26 – “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

God also lets us suffer the natural consequences of our decisions. If I go out and get drunk and then, get a hangover, maybe that hangover will help me understand that I shouldn’t drink so much next time.

So, God doesn’t punish us, but He does tell us when we’ve made a mistake through our conscience, through the Holy Spirit living inside of us, and through the consequences of what we do.

Q4. Have you ever heard God talking to you?

If you ever did hear God talking to you, how would you know it was Him?

A4. When you have an idea that you know you didn’t come up with, that’s God talking to you. But you also have to test it and make sure that it really is God talking to you. An easy rule to keep in mind is that God will never contradict Himself. He will never tell you something that goes against something He’s already said in the Bible. So, if that voice you hear tells you to do something that doesn’t agree with the Bible, then you know it’s not God talking to you.

Q5. Have you ever had God answer your prayer, or have you ever seen God do a miracle?

A5. I don’t want to say that God can’t talk to us or answer our prayers or do miracles, because He can and does. I simply want us to understand that throughout the course of our lives, it’s pretty rare for those things to happen and that we shouldn't expect them on a regular basis.

What is the New Heavens and the New Earth?

When Jesus comes back, raises and judges the dead, and destroys this world, where will we go then? Back to Heaven?

2 Peter 3:10-13 – But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new Heaven and a new Earth, the home of righteousness.

We will not go back to Heaven but will be given a new Heaven and a new Earth, our new home. It will be a renewal (a restoration of creation), when God will make the world how it is supposed to be.

Acts 3:21 – He must remain in Heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as He promised long ago through His holy prophets.

Revelation 21:1-7, 22-26; 22:1-5 – Then I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth, for the first Heaven and the first Earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her Husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' He Who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!' Then He said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.' He said to me: 'It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be My son. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life…

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him. They will see His face, and His Name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

Isaiah 11:6-9 – The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea."

On the New Earth:

• We will see God face to face (Revelation 21:3; 22:4).
• There will be no pain, or sadness, or death (Revelation 21:4).
• There will be no sin (Revelation 21:27).
• All creatures will live in perfect harmony with one another (Isaiah 11:6-9).
• We will be allowed to eat from the tree of life again (taken away in Genesis 3) and so, we will live forever (Revelation 22:1-5).

Though not specifically stated, I believe that we can also infer that life on the new Earth will be what God intended life on this Earth to be like. Adam and Eve worked the Garden of Eden. So, I believe that humans on the New Earth will be able to work at things that they enjoy. We won’t simply worship God all the time but will live as God intended Adam and Eve to live – working, being creative, enjoying each other’s company, engaging in hobbies, and yes, basking in the presence of God.

Will there be Animals in Heaven? And Will My Pet be in Heaven?

The Bible says that there will be animals on the New Earth. But will there be animals in Heaven?

 

From the description of the creatures in Heaven, we know that God certainly honors the animals.

Revelation 4:6-8 – In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings.

Whereas the Bible doesn’t tell us for sure that there are actual animals in Heaven, we can draw some reasonable conclusions from the passages we’ve looked at.

First, God likes animals. He made them. Why would He not like them enough to bring them to Heaven?

The Bible never says that animals have a soul like humans do, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t. It simply means that the Bible doesn’t address the issue.

Animals are victims of the Fall. It wasn’t their fault humans sinned and brought death into this world. So. why would God not give them the chance to live on in Heaven?

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Romans 8:18-22).

But does that mean that an exact animal from Earth will be in Heaven or the New Earth, or will there simply be animals in general?

I think the answer to that lies in what we see happening with humans. The human from Earth is the same one that goes to Heaven or the New Earth. God doesn’t create a new person to be in Heaven or the new world with Him. He uses the ones He already has.

It would most likely be the same with the animals. Why would God create new animals when He already has plenty on earth? He only needs to bring the souls of those same ones to Heaven and the new creation.

I fully believe that God loves each of His creations as individuals, whether they be human or animal, and that if there are animals in Heaven and on the remade earth, they will be the same individual animals that have already been created here and now.

What is Heaven Like?

Revelation 4-5 – After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.

In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

“‘Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty,’

who was, and is, and is to come.”

 Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, 

to receive glory and honor and power, 

for you created all things, 

and by your will they were created 

and have their being.”

Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll 

and to open its seals, 

because you were slain, 

and with your blood you purchased for God 

persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. 

 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, 

and they will reign on the earth.”

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, 

to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength 

and honor and glory and praise!”

 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb 

be praise and honor and glory and power, 

for ever and ever!”

 The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.”

So, what is Heaven like?

The scene is one of worship. God is, indeed, worthy to be worshiped like this.

But there is much more to life than worship. God created us to do more and to live a balanced life. That’s why Heaven, and this worshipful scene, will not last forever. There will be a New Heaven and a New Earth for us to live new lives. Heaven is not eternal.