Whom Will You Meet In Heaven? Series

Whom will YOU meet in heaven?

INTRODUCTION

Talk to Christians about heaven and what that will be like, and you have so many variant answers. That is normal, for none of us knows any details and a lot of what we think is more in line with our own assumptions.

What will you do there?

Will we meet our friends and family?

Will we eat and drink?

Do we have jobs or work to do “to keep us busy”?

Will we live in special rooms (that old mansion/room debate of John 14:1)?

Can we talk individually to Jesus?

AND dozens and dozens of other questions we wonder about.

Now I do not intend speaking on any of those except the second one. One thing I will make clear absolutely, is that I reject totally all these accounts and stories about people being taken to heaven to look around. I even heard of one where the claim was made Jesus took him around and showed him all these wonders and the people he met. No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of Man who has come down from heaven.” A lot of these stories come from the Pentecostal/Charismatic side of the fence, and if any of the readers on RR belong to that organisation of people I do not wish to insult you.

Nearly all accounts in this area of “going to heaven to visit” centre around near death experiences with people recovering from a coma or being declared dead and then being revived. All I will say about that is that the brain is an incredibly complex organ and we all know how we daydream even getting carried away in our thoughts; and some can have the most graphic and fanciful dreams (more so when seriously ill). It is not my area of expertise in any shape or form but I am prepared to say none of these experiences can be classed as people going to heaven and returning.

The accounts I have heard of people speaking who detailed their time in heaven when taken there miraculously and returned, and the things they say, is nonsense, e.g. Jesus taking them around on a tour of heaven or being given a message to bring back with them. All these people are either grossly deluded or are liars.

NOW THE QUESTION

Getting back to that second question in the list - Will we meet our friends and family in heaven? Many things I will say can not be proven so we look partly at speculation.

I suppose all of us have a great desire to reunite with family, relatives and people who meant so much to us. Take the case of a mother who lost a very young child, or a man who lost his wife in childbirth a year after marriage, or a spouse tragically lost in a motor accident. These are heart-rending examples but they are part of the trauma we can have in this world. Is there not a burning desire to reunite in heaven? Would God ever deny that?

That brings us to another aspect. Will we know people in glory? For example, that mother who lost a very small child, will she know that one? At the Rapture the new bodies of those who have died, and the bodies of those living at the time of the Rapture, will they have the same bodies (appearances) as when we know them, and if not, what body will they have? I know these questions can not be answered. The resurrected body of the Lord gives some hint.

Will we know Peter, John, Gideon, and almost anyone else? If so how will we know them? Speculation will not answer those questions. Remember Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration, well they knew Moses and Elijah, but how? I am sure Elijah did not greet them and say, Hello, I am Elijah.” In Paradise, before the ascension into heaven, the rich man knew Lazarus, and that may seem an easy one because they were of the same timeframe; however they did not have bodies because they were sprits. How can one spirit know another one before the resurrected body and even then after that?

It is a big mystery. I am sure a man or woman who dies at age 95, wrinkled and in pain, even disfigured, will not have a 95 year old body in the resurrection. We just don’t know, and there is no profit in continuing with the questions. Now that we may have thought about these things, I am going to make a suggestion with no proof whatever.

I think in the resurrection we will all enjoy at the Rapture, because we are all one Church, all one Bride, all one Pearl, all one Spiritual House, all the Household of God, all members the one Body, then I think we shall all know one another from the time of Adam to last soul saved. There will be no strangers in heaven, no aliens (not the science fiction type), no orphans. I know that is gigantic but it sort of makes sense to me, but our thinking is not God’s thinking so who can say?