Although his teachings about the afterlife focused primarily on the resurrection of the dead and the kingdom of God, Jesus of Nazareth (6-4 BCE–c. 30 CE) affirmed belief in the reality of rewards and punishments, such as that described in Jewish apocalyptic texts (e.g. 1 Enoch 14) (Morton 2008, 916-918).

On Hell

Jesus often referred to hell using the term “Gehenna,” or the Hinnom Valley, the place where Manasseh (7th century BCE), king of Judah, sacrificed infants to the god Moloch, as described in the Hebrew Bible (2 Chr. 33:6).

In the first century CE, it was Jerusalem’s garbage dump, known for its fires and harmful fumes. Gehenna therefore became a designation for a place of torment and was regarded as a divinely appointed place of punishment for apostates and other great sinners.

In the first century CE, the word is used for the final place of torment for the wicked after the Last Judgement. As such, those who reject Jesus’ teachings will be consigned to Gehenna (Matt. 5:23, 29), described as a realm of unquenchable fire, to be avoided at all costs, a point Jesus stressed using the shocking imagery of bodily mutilation (Matt. 5:29–30; 18:8–9//Mark 9:43–49).

Moreover, the term “Hades” already boasted a long history among the Greco-Romans, for whom it was the realm of the dead. In Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the term is used to describe a place of fire and torment (Luke 16:23–24). There the rich man not only finds himself but is also able to speak with Abraham, despite the rich man’s inability to cross over to the paradisiacal land of the blessed (16:26). Both Hades and paradise are portrayed as different portions of the underworld, previously known as Sheol, where the wicked are in torment and the blessed comforted. The parable uses conventional ideas reminiscent of Jewish apocalypticism (Hock 1987).

On Heaven

Jesus shared the understanding of Jewish apocalyptic writers who viewed heaven primarily as the abode of God’s divine throne. Heaven is therefore the realm of God (Matt. 5:34; 23:22), and it is where angels behold the face of the Father (Matt. 18:10). Jesus taught his disciples to pray to “our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:9). It is where the angels rejoice over sinners who repent (Luke 15:7).

The Son of Man, a title Jesus frequently used to refer to himself, will be seated in glory in heaven, and the disciples will sit on twelve thrones ruling over the tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28). It is from here that the Son of Man will return in glory and judgment (Mark 8:38; 14:62).

Early Christians commonly held that Jesus reopened a paradise that had been shut since the Fall, of which his promise to the criminal on the cross implies such a restoration: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). Jesus promises his faithful followers that he has prepared a place for them in heaven (John 14:2), where they will never perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Jesus exhorted his hearers to “not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matt. 6:19-20).

References

Hock, Ronald F. 1987. “Lazarus and Micyllus: Greco-Roman Backgrounds to Luke 16:19–31.” CBQ 106:447–463.

Morton, Russell. 2008. “Heaven.” In The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus, edited by Craig A. Evans, 914-919. Milton Park , Oxfordshire, United Kingdom: Routledge. (Apple Books).

Schwartz, Hans 2012.. “Heaven.” In The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology, edited by Ian A. McFarland, et. al, 206. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.