animals in heaven?

​In writing about the dogs that passed through my childhood last post I briefly raised the question of whether or not there will be animals in heaven. For this post, let me take a little more time with that question. It is not as frivolous as many suppose.

1. When we think of heaven we often mislead ourselves. I spent a good deal of my childhood imagining floating around on a cloud and playing a harp – and having wings of course! As one comes to rely more on what the Bible actually says and less on pop-culture representations, that picture fades away. Our eternity will be spent on a new earth – a physical planet like this one only restored to pre-curse conditions; i.e. no sickness, death, etc. and all of us living in harmony with God and thus – with each other. This is infinitely more attractive than the cloud/harp thing! God made a perfect home for us – it’s called earth. We broke it. Even in its broken state the earth is a place of wonders. Try to imagine it without the limitations imposed by the curse. It is not for nothing that the curse is imposed in Genesis chapter 3 and Revelation chapter 22 exclaims – There will be no more curse! You will also note, if you read the last two chapters of Revelation, the presence of nations, the New Jerusalem coming down from the new heaven to the new earth, and God making His home with us again – on the new earth. We get back everything that was lost in Adam’s sin (we’ve all made our own contributions so no complaining!). Adam had fellowship with God on earth. So shall we. Adam was a stranger to the concept of death. So shall we be. Adam got to enjoy the process of taming a wild earth and making it like the garden God established. We know something of that even now but it will be sooooo much better without the curse! So, remember, our eternity is to be spent on a new earth. (Are there souls of men currently living in the present heaven? Another post sometime!)
2. God furnished the first earth with plants and animals. When we live on the new earth, should we not expect the same. Remember also, God did not sanction eating the animals until the covenant with Noah. Another future post! But I take it as axiomatic that the new earth will have plants and animals. For what I am about to say you may have to do some sorting out and decide on distinctions (if any) between the Old Testament golden age to come and the New Testament new earth and also between the millennium (if you take that literally) on the old earth (if that’s where you think the millennium will be) and the new earth, etc. I can only say that I have settled all such questions in my own mind and my conclusions lead me to look back on certain Old Testament passages and think – Well, duh! If we are to speak of a coming time when the wolves, lambs, lions and calves will all get along splendidly and little children will play with the beasts from the wild, the bear will be gentle and even creepy crawlies like scorpions and serpents will be safe companions for infants…. Either that’s all metaphor and hyperbole – OR – when that time arrives, we will still be dealing with animals!
3. OK, if we accept an eternity on a physical new earth complete with plants and animals, we may still wonder whether these will be all new animals or whether some of our familiar animal companions from the old earth will put in an appearance. This is more difficult and consensus is hard to come by. But begin with this – as assumed above, the curse that fell on us fell on the earth itself too – the earth attained a propensity for weeds and brambles that we find frustrating and learned a few other tricks to guarantee that we would only get bread by the sweat of our brow. That perfect home God provided us with was warped – like a house knocked out of plumb, flush, and square. The Apostle Paul expands on this thought in Romans 8:19-22, For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

Nearly an entire cosmology develops from Paul’s understanding of the curse. First, we should understand that curse was imposed IN HOPE. But we should also understand some things about ourselves. We were given dominion over God’s creation and the task of ‘improving it’ – tilling it, cultivating it, ordering it. Again, I think we should understand the garden of Eden as a model given by God for us to follow in our stewardship of the entire planet. In other words, as appointed caretakers of God’s creation, we are to improve and elevate it. Creation’s stock rises with ours. This is ‘godliness’ - literally – ‘eusebia’ – the injection of good – we make things better than we found them. But – as per Paul’s understanding – if the stock of creation rises with ours – it also falls with ours. When we make ourselves less, the creation over which we have dominion as stewards also becomes less. So, the creation was subjected to futility because of our sin. Our relationship with creation changed accordingly – the weeds and thorns thing. But note also as is clearly implied in the first two chapters of Genesis, the beast from the wild seemed not to be a threat of any kind to Adam and Eve. In the curse, our relationship with the animals changed as well. For myself, I do not imagine that the serpent was the only animal capable of communicating with Adam and Eve on a higher level than we are currently accustomed to. Again, assuming a literal interpretation, you will notice that Eve’s initial response was not – Holy Smokes! A talking Snake! If you are with me so far then you look for the creation to be set free from its slavery to corruption one of these days – as we are restored – creation will be restored – all we lost in the curse will be restored – including our relationship with the animals.

1. If the preceding is not compelling to you, you can probably stop reading now. But I mentioned C.S. Lewis’ thoughts along these lines last post. You can read his thoughts in a lighter form via all the talking animals in the Chronicles of Narnia or, in a more serious presentation in The Problem of Pain, particularly chapters nine and ten. Condensed version – if we accept Paul’s notion of our relationship to creation, even now, in the midst of the fallen world, we may in some ways elevate the creation around us. Lewis would say we did so in a general way by creating domestic dogs from the wild stock of wolves. We refine the process in individual relationships, perhaps like mine with Bandit. (Some Kabbalists insist we do the same thing by eating animals if we use the energy we gain from them for good. That’s a little beyond my scope at present!) But, Lewis, thinks – those specific animals we have become especially responsible for and elevated by our exercise of godliness in relation to them – THOSE animals may well be resurrected as individuals and the godly relationship continue. I taught Bandit to climb trees on this earth. Imagine what he might learn given eternity! Other animals – those not elevated by these kinds of relationships, many of them (flies, worms, etc. but possibly wolves as opposed to dogs, etc.) not capable of elevation – Lewis imagines simply pass away and new animals will live in their place on the new earth.

Well, that’s C.S. Lewis anyway. I am persuaded there will be abundant animals on the new earth. If I get to renew my acquaintance with Bandit that will be just one more joy piled on joys already innumerable.