Part Twelve:  If Animals Inhabit the Prophesied New Earth (i.e., Heaven), What Might It Be Like?

Up to this point, my goal has been to demonstrate that (at least) sentient animals possess an immaterial dimension to their being—a soul—and therefore, we have every reason to believe God will bless them with immortality. What remains to be answered in this series are three things: (1) If earth-bound animals inhabit the new Heaven and earth—Isa. 65:17; Rev. 21:1—what may such a heavenly place be like? (2) What will our relationship with pets and other animals be like? (3) And, most controversial, will this New Earth include non-sentient creatures?  (continued below photo)

Before we get started, I need to remind readers that the Bible doesn’t give us all the information we may wish concerning what it will be like in Heaven. Instead, it’s more like the trailer to a movie—a stirring glimpse of what the full feature will reveal, a partial unfolding of the rose, but not the entire blossom. Still, there is enough information about Heaven in Holy Scripture to allow some reasonable conclusions about animal life that I believe to be sensible.

I’ll expand on this in my last blog post in this series (Part Sixteen), but for now, I want to share Randy Alcorn’s creative imagination of what people and animals will experience in the new Heaven and earth:

The pure air of Heaven filled his lungs. He saw horses and deer and dogs and cats and rabbits and squirrels and badgers and hedgehogs. Until now he’d never thought of animals celebrating or lost in joy, but that’s exactly the impression he got when seeing them run and frolic and play with each other and with people. He saw trees that cast light instead of shadows. Some of them hung heavy with citrus fruits, picked and eaten freely by passersby. . . .

The best parts of that other world, he realized, had been but sneak previews of this one. . . .

       Compared to what he now beheld, the world he’s come from was a land of shadows, colorless and two-dimensional. This place was fresh and captivating, resonating with color and beauty. He could not only see and hear it, but feel and smell and taste it. Every hillside, every mountain, every waterfall, every frolicking animal in the fields seems to beckon him to come join them, to come from the outside and plunge  into the inside. This whole world had the feel of cool water on a blistering August afternoon. The light beckoned him to dive in with abandon, to come join the great adventure (Safely Home, 376).  

 Who would not wish for Heaven to be as Alcorn describes it? But is it a realistic portrayal? Will humans run, frolic, and play with horses, deer, dogs and cats, badgers, and other wild and domesticated animals? How does Alcorn’s description of Heaven measure against biblical revelation? I believe the remaining articles in this series will reveal that it may well be a reflection, and I, for one, look forward to joining the “great adventure” in the age to come. (I give much more details of what the “New Earth” may look like in my book, Will Dogs Chase Cats in Heaven; People, Pets, and Wild Animals in the Afterlife.)

Next week’s blog will explore what the relationship between God’s people and the animal kingdom may be like in Heaven.