GLEANINGS — April 27, A.D. 2014                                                                                                           
A Lesser Resurrection?

OK, every minister is asked this question eventually. There's no evading it, so here goes: "Will my pet go to heaven?" Folks want to know! Will Fifi, Max, or Spot rise from the dead? * 

God's word makes clear that He cares for all His creatures. The covenant He established after the great Flood was not only with Noah and his descendants, but with "every living thing," Genesis 9:9,10. God declares to His reluctant prophet that He is interested in the welfare of the many cattle in the great city of Nineveh, Jonah 4:11. Verses like Psalm 104:27, Psalm 145:16, et. al. also underscore this. And when the apostle Paul at 1 Corinthians 9:9 (quoting Deuteronomy 25:4) states that it is not with oxen that God is concerned, he is making a comparison to God's greater concern for His human servants, not contradicting the rest of Scripture that tells of the Creator's kindness to all beings that have the breath of life. 

Another thing to consider is the nature of the world to come wherein God's elect will enjoy, with Jesus the firstfruits, bodily resurrection for all eternity. Peter writes that "according to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." (2 Peter 3:13). In the glory that is to come, the heavens and the Earth will be in complete harmony. God's plan is not to annihilate Earth, but to renovate it. "Behold, I make all things new," proclaims the Lord at Revelation 21:5. Man's eternal home is the place which Christ the Redeemer, the last Adam, has gone to prepare for His own (John 14:2,3). It will be a place similar to but even better (and probably bigger) than the beautiful Eden which the first Adam lost, when sin and death came into this world through him (Romans 5:12). 

Eden was a very material paradise. It had trees, rivers, no doubt flowers and beautiful landscapes...and animals! Why assume that the future, better Paradise of God (Revelation 2:7) would be immaterial, and devoid of those things? Why would animals be excluded from His promise to make all things new? 

But wait a minute! Let's not jump to any conclusions here! Paul reasoned as follows when he pondered the life to come: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known." (1 Corinthians 13:11,12)

What glorious fullness of knowledge and wondrous changes will obtain for God's people when they are perfectly conformed to Christ's image (1 Corinthians 15:52, 1 John 3:2)! The question of whether or not particular animals have risen from the dead might seem childish then. Consider this knowledge that the saints in glory will have - namely that persons they knew on Earth have been condemned to hell. A case in point is that of the eleven apostles and their one time friend, Judas Iscariot. Although we can't embrace emotionally (at present) how this will be, we must assert that no saint will be eternally sad, should it prove that someone they knew and even loved on Earth is not among the redeemed. How much less could it quench their joy, should they learn that the all-wise, loving God did not plan the resurrection of a certain pet?

Hopefully his answer will not be disappointing to you here and now, but in one word the only answer this writer can give, in good conscience, to the question with which we began is: MAYBE (Cf. Ecclesiastes 3:19-21). But you may be certain that if you are an heir of Heaven, you will not experience one shred of disappointment then and there!

* At least one well known Christian leader and teacher of old, Martin Luther, is on record as a believer in "doggie heaven". When a little girl asked him about her pup, Luther is reported to have patted the animal's head and said, "Be comforted, little dog, you too in Resurrection shall have a little golden tail."