The Bible compares the death of a person to a long sleep. We are unconscious when we sleep. We experience nothing during sleep except a few fleeting, uncontrollable dreams. Several hours have passed by the time we awake. According to the Bible, after our deaths, the next thing we experience is that thousands years have passed and the history of human beings will already be over. We, and all other people, will be judged by God according to what we did during our lifetimes.
     The criterion of God described in the Bible is this: Everyone commits sins and falls short of the standard of God. If a person believes Jesus Christ died for his or her sins, all will be forgiven. He or she will be perfect in the eyes of God. He or she will go to heaven and have eternal life. Otherwise, he or she will go to hell to be punished forever for his or her sins.
     This picture raises a number of objections, of course. Is it fair? All kinds of people have all kinds of personalities and do all kinds of different things with their lives. There is good and evil at some level in each person. How can God use a simple dichotomy to judge all people? Someone is not good in the eyes of many people. Can this person go to heaven simply because he or she believes in Jesus Christ? Will he or she still behave badly in heaven? Someone is kind and well-behaved all his or her lifetime. Does this person deserve to be punished forever, as some other criminals despised by society, simply because he or she doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ or even hasn’t had a chance to know him?
     So, let’s suggest a seemingly fairer way. Maybe judgment day is like this. For anyone who believes in Jesus Christ and dies, according to each person’s situation, he or she will have to be educated for a certain amount of time. He or she should be educated for decades or centuries to pay for his or her wrongdoings in his or her past on earth and to learn the qualifications to live in heaven. Eternity has an abundance of time. For anyone who doesn’t believe or hasn’t had a chance to know Jesus Christ, he or she must be educated longer and in a more painful school, which is also called hell. Maybe after thousands or millions of years of such education he or she will be able to go to heaven. The tortures look eternal when they are compared to an earthly lifetime, so the statements of the Bible are still true.
     Maybe our suggestion is closer to the truth or maybe it is completely wrong. Anyway, the Bible says nothing like that. The God in the Bible simply told everyone his dichotomous principle, and he lets everyone choose to believe it or not. It is written in the Bible, “Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy.” God doesn’t have to adjust his standard or make favorable statements to please any person. It doesn’t hurt God or mean anything to him if one of us says, “I don’t like your words so I don’t believe. You should not punish me because I think your standard is not fair. I want to appeal my case to all human beings.”
     It is noteworthy that what the Bible says is what a supreme being would be likely to say. It is unfavorable to a nonbeliever, but it gives a proof for the truthfulness of Christianity. According to the Bible, a person will be with God forever or separated from God forever during his or her afterlife. We do have similar experiences now and then in this world. When a person applies to study in a school, he or she will be accepted or rejected. When a person asks for a job, he or she will get it or not. When a man proposes to a woman, he will receive an answer of yes or no. Sometimes we have a chance to petition to change the result. However, this should not be the case when a person faces God. He doesn’t have to negotiate with anyone. He doesn’t have to trade with anyone. He doesn’t owe anyone for being good or finishing any duty for him. We human beings are not comparable to him. Even the whole galaxy is too small for him. The passages of the Bible look like words from a paramount authority, not words made up by people.
     The descriptions of heaven and hell are vague in the Bible. Obviously, they are parables. Heaven is a beautiful and splendid city. It has rivers and trees so it also looks like a garden. It is just an oversimplified picture giving hope to all people. Hell is a place with worms and torturous fire. People in the first century didn’t like them. Neither do people in the twenty-first century. The Bible looks like the word of God for the people of all times.
     Christianity is quite distinct from all other religions when it talks about judgment. Religions are criticized for using afterlife, something which no one can prove or disprove, to bribe people. But unlike many other major religions, the descriptions of afterlife in the Bible are merely a kind of symbolization. This abstract picture is unattractive to an investor’s mind. A true Christian does not come to Christianity with a trading viewpoint. A true Christian comes to Christianity because he or she loves Jesus Christ. The descriptions of heaven and hell provide evidence that Christianity is the true revelation from God. Moreover, they provide evidence for the exclusiveness of Christianity, i.e., Christianity is the only true religion.

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