Can I tell you a little about our family dog, Lady? She’s a beautiful, loving black English Lab who turns 10 years old this week on December 7. Although December 7 is Pearl Harbor day, we will celebrate it because Lady has brought us peace, love, and joy. When our last dog, Snowball, passed away, our son Colton urged us to get another dog, and our son Jackson picked her out. From the time we brought her home, Lady has been a true companion. She has brought comfort in rough times, and compounded our joy in good times. She has this funny way of howling when she’s happy, like she can hardly contain her joy. She takes us on long walks, lays beside us as we watch TV, and has this strange sense of knowing when we need her close. One year, we celebrated her birthday with a dog cake and sang “Happy Birthday” to her. Now, whenever anyone has a birthday, she starts howling and jumping around when she hears, “Happy Birthday.” We do love Lady, and we thank God for her. And I think that’s fitting, because our pets, and all animals, are beautiful gifts from God.
ALL GOD’S CREATURES
Isn’t it interesting that when God created the world, he didn’t just create us humans, but instead He filled the earth with such a variety of animals! And God called this “good.” God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:24, 25). I have always been told that animals don’t have “souls,” but according to the Bible, they do! Genesis says that when God breathed spirit into Adam’s body, Adam became a nephesh, or a “living soul” (Gen. 2:7). The same Hebrew word, nephesh, is also used for animals, who have the “breath of life” in them (see Gen. 1:30, 6:17, 7:15, 22).
Although animals do have the breath of life in them, God created only humans uniquely “in the image of God.” Animals were made “according to their own kinds,” but the “kind” after which we were made was God Himself. The “kind” of God we see in the Bible is loving, relational, responsible, and caring. We are to reflect that kind of God by sharing an intimate relationship with Him, becoming more and more like Him as He has revealed Himself in His Son, Jesus. God created us humans to be His representatives in this world, to carry out His loving care over the world he created, including animals.
God created us to be caretakers of animals, and “he holds us accountable for how we treat them.”[1] As Proverbs 12:10 states, “The godly are concerned for the welfare of their animals.” God loves the animals he created. When God saved Noah and his family in the flood, he made sure that animals of every kind were also rescued. And after the Flood, God made a covenant not only with Noah and all mankind, but “with every living creature” (Gen. 9:9-17). When God sent Jonah to rescue Ninevah, God was concerned not only for the people of Ninevah but also for its animals (Jonah 3:7-8; 4:11). God’s Sabbath rest is not only for humans, but for animals as well (Ex. 20:9-10).God loves animals, and even animals praise God (see Psalm 148).
Animals reflect the glorious creativity of God. As Randy Alcorn writes, “Consider what’s visible in otters, dogs, and countless other animals: God’s playfulness. I for one have praised God for and been drawn to him by the playfulness, exuberance, love and devotion in the dogs I’ve had over the years. They communicate the beauty of their Maker.”[2]
WILL THERE BE ANIMALS IN HEAVEN?
Have you ever thought about heaven as also being filled with the beautiful animals God created? But there definitely will be, and I believe we will be able to pet lions and ride zebras because “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat” (Isa. 11:6). The Bible makes clear that the current creation is cursed, “subjected to futility, not willingly, but in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom. 8:20,21). But this curse will not last forever. In fact, the new dawn has already begun in the resurrection of Jesus: “For the creation waits in eager longing for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and we also, who have the first fruits of God’s Spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as children, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:19, 23). The God who created this vast, intricate, beautiful, glorious world will also “make all things new” (Rev. 21:5), and “every creature in heaven and on earth” (including the animals) will sing to Jesus, the Lamb who suffered for us (Rev. 5:13).
But what about our pets? Will they be in heaven too? As Joni Eareckson Tada says, “If God brings our pets back to life, it wouldn’t surprise me. It would be just like Him. It would be totally in keeping with His generous character…Exorbitant. Excessive. Extravagant in grace after grace. Of all the dazzling discoveries and ecstatic pleasures heaven will hold for us, the potential of seeing Scrappy would be pure whimsy—utterly, joyfully, surprisingly superfluous…Heaven is going to be a place that will refract and reflect in as may ways as possible the goodness and joy of our great God, who delights in lavishing love on His children.”[3]
So this Saturday we will sing Happy Birthday to Lady, and as she howls and jumps for joy, we will howl, too, and thank God for her.
[1] Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Carol Stream: Illinois, Tyndale, 2004), p. 391.
[2] Id, p. 395.
[3] Joni Eareckson Tada, Holiness in Hidden Places (Nashville: J. Countryman, 1999), p. 133.