Where are heaven and hell?

Nowhere, actually. The truth is that neither one exists… yet.

While this answer may be unsettling, the true definitions of these words will quickly show what we mean.

Usually, when people use the word heaven, they are describing a final place to live with God, full of peace and without pain. But in the Bible, the word heaven (or heavens) simply refers to the skies above Earth, where stars and birds are found.¹ In fact, John’s vision of a final resting place without tears or pain in Revelation 21:1–10 describes a new holy city coming down to earth out of heaven—literally “out of the sky”—for God to dwell here with mankind. People will not go live in the sky. This future resting place will be on Earth, and it is here that God will “wipe away all tears,” and death, sorrow, crying, and pain will be gone forever. So while the sky exists, the place we confusingly call “heaven” hasn’t arrived yet.

The word hell is also misleading. Today, it conveys at best a place of separation from God; at worst a fiery pit of indescribable endless torture. Our modern idea of hell is based on pagan folklore, Dante’s Inferno, and similar influences. But in reality, the word translated hell in the Bible simply refers to the grave, or “the unseen.”² This is clear in Psalm 16:10, where King David says God will not leave his soul in “hell” in the King James Version. But David would never enter a place of torment—he is described as a man after God’s own heart!³ For this reason, most modern translations instead read “among the dead,” “the realm of the dead,” or simply the original Hebrew word sheol (grave). Everyone eventually goes there, including David. The grave is very different from the two terms that mention fire: the lake of fire mentioned in Revelation, and a dump where trash was burned in Jesus’ day called Gehenna. One clearly describes a future event; the other (a trash dump) is no longer burning. In short, the fiery place we call “hell” can’t exist today.

As you can see, our traditional ideas of heaven and hell can’t even exist yet. This means no one is in heaven or hell right now.

Let that sink in for a moment. You’ve probably heard someone say their loved ones are “in heaven now,” or that evil people are “in hell forever.” It’s simply not true. The places they are referring to don’t even exist today.

This might come as a surprise to some, since Christians generally believe their concepts of “heaven” and “hell” are real physical locations that exist right now—one a happy place, the other a place of torment—and that people are immediately relocated to one of these two places when they die. However, since these places clearly don’t exist yet, it is obvious that no one is in them.

So where are all those who have died?