Top 30 - #4 - Do Animals Go To Heaven?

In honor of MARKINC's 30th Anniversary, we are bringing to you the top 30 questions in Ask Dr. Betters! Here is question #4.
In this episode, Dr. Betters answers the question, "I am animal lover! My pets are truly part of my family. My precious dog Buster is 14 years old and his health is beginning decline pretty rapidly. It just breaks my heart to think he will soon no longer be here with me. Do you believe pets have souls? Do animals go to heaven?"
Dr. Chuck Betters, through the grid of his own faith struggles, including the tragic death of his sixteen-year-old son Mark, has helped myriads of other fellow strugglers in over 5 decades of ministry and rests in the hope that God is sovereign and He can be trusted.
In a world filled with broken people and hopelessness, Ask Dr. Betters is a unique video forum, for Dr. Betters and guests to cut through any confusion and offer sound biblical answers to life’s pressing questions, about suffering and walking by faith in a broken world.
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[@aaronowen4425]

very good video. I had always been led to believe that animals just ceased to exist at death but have come to think there is a very good chance that is not the case... If you believe there was no death before the fall (that is my belief "the wages of sin is death") than that means Adam, Eve and the animals were originally intended to be eternal. the way I see that is the individual animal would have never died if the fall had never happened. That being the case that leads me to believe that God's will was originally for those animals to live forever and that being the case why would that change because of what man did. The animals didn't sin they rode Adam's coat tail into the curse. One verse that a lot of christians use to uphold the belief that they cease to exist at death is Ecclesiastes 3:21 "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" but if you look at it carefully there are things you have to take into account. If you say this upholds that animals are annihilated it causes some other problems. Earlier in the chapter is states that "all goeth unto one place" Well to read the spirit of man goes up as proof then you would by necessity be believing all men end up in Heaven but we know that is not the case - at this point all ended up in the center of the earth (the righteous in paradise and the wicked in hell separated by a great gulf) so man went into the earth as well so man going up must refer to judgment (it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment) the animals need no judgment because they are innocent. then you have Ecclesiastes 3:14 "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.” whatsoever is whatsoever that would also include the spark of individuality that each animal has - if whatsoever God does is forever that spark is forever as well. The story of the ark being a picture of Jesus the pitch (kaparah atonement) Noah and his family had to make the decision to enter the ark but God brought the animals on the ark and they were protected by the same kaparah as Noah and his family. The Hebrew children in Egypt the final plague was brought on because Pharo would not let them take their herds "not a hoof shall be left behind" then that final plague the blood being applied to the door frame protected the first born of the Hebrews but ALSO protected the first born of the herds. During the wandering in the wilderness the Hebrew children left Egypt with the herds however apparently there must have been a prohibition we are unaware of about killing the animals for anything except sacrifices because they murmured about not having meat to eat yet we know they left Egypt with herds and they entered Cannan land with herds so for some reason they didn't use them for food during the 40 years or so it would seem. Also and I will end with this even though there is more but this is getting long - Romans speaks about the creatures anxiously awaiting deliverance with the Son's of God - as John Wesley said "annihilation is not deliverance" If the animals that have suffered are never delivered from their suffering outside of annihilation at death and the animals in the new earth never experienced suffering neither would end up being delivered and would have nothing to "anxiously await" but that problem is erased all together if the creatures that are suffering now experience deliverance in the life to come.

[@AskDrBetters_MARKINCMinistries]

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