Are Our Pets in Heaven?

Photo by: Carla Nammack

By - William J. Senn, National Capital Bible Church

Some years ago, a young friend of mine lost a beloved dog in a terrible fire. He was heartbroken that he was unable to save him. This event motivated me to consider if we, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, might one day see our pets again in Heaven. There are no scriptures which speak directly on this subject. That is true with many other subjects. However, by comparing scripture with scripture, we can often come to conclusions about a subject by inference and induction. Here are the scriptures that I examined related to the subject of “Pets in Heaven” and my conclusions:

First of all, we understand from Romans 5:12-17 that, because of our original parents' (Adam’s and Eve's) rebellion against God, death came into the world. God, because He is perfectly righteous, only had two options after their rebellion: 1) He could straightaway cast them into the Lake of Fire (Hell) for all eternity; then none of us would ever have existed, or 2) because of His great love, He could find a solution that met the standards of His perfect righteousness. In His great love and wisdom, He realized that to save mankind, His perfect Son (the Lord Jesus Christ) would have to 1) live a perfect life, 2) suffer all the pains that we could ever suffer – and yet not sin – to be qualified to save us, 3) die for all the sins of everyone who has lived or ever will live, and 4) rise again to provide victory over death. For all that to happen, God had to allow an environment to exist, after Adam’s and Eve's rebellion, that contained suffering and death. That environment of suffering and death is also referred to as "the curse" in Revelation 22:3 and "futility" in Romans 8:20.

Secondly, we also see in Romans 8:20 that all of creation (all of nature) got caught up in the curse, unwillingly. That is to say that creation did not deserve to be cursed - none of the animals were culpable with Adam and Eve - but the curse had to extend to all of creation, so that the Lord Jesus Christ could enter and live in a cursed world in order to be qualified to save us.

Thirdly, we see in Romans 8:21-22 that all of creation will eventually be set free from its slavery to corruption (and death). We further see this illustrated in Isaiah 11:6-8 where the "the wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the young goat, . . . , and the lion will eat straw like the ox." All of nature will be restored to its condition before our original parents rebelled.

Lastly, our Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:29 that not one sparrow falls to the ground without our Heavenly Father knowing about it and caring about it. He therefore fully cares and is fully in control when one of our beloved pets perishes.

I'm drawn to the following conclusion from these passages: All of our beloved pets, which never deserved to die, but nonetheless had to be a part of the suffering and death of this world for our Lord Jesus to enter, will be brought back to us to live with us in eternity. For these same reasons I also believe every creature, great and small, that has ever lived, will also be brought back to live in perfect harmony together, forever, in eternity. They will live again in eternal, immortal bodies. That is not difficult for the Creator of the universe. It is less than child’s play. He is not bound in the least by the very laws of nature that He created. He is separate and distinct from all those laws.

This post was written by William Senn of National Capital Bible Church. If you have questions about this post or Christianity in general, please contact us today!