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Do babies go to heaven when they die? Are they babies there or adults? Will we remember our lives in heaven? Will my dog be in heaven? Will Jesus still have his scars in heaven? Will we eat in heaven?
These are some of the questions my four little kids have asked me about heaven. I like to think that as a rather highly educated student of the New Testament, I am prepared for most questions. However, theirs are often more penetrating and honest than questions adults ask.
Do you have little kids? Then they likely ask you similar questions. Let me take my best stab at helping you answer some of these.
Do babies go to heaven when they die? Absolutely. Matthew 19:14 says that the kingdom of heaven belongs to little children. And King David in the Old Testament agreed that after his child had died, he would stop praying for him because he had reached his eternal destiny in heaven.
Although some well-meaning Christians advocate something be done for the infant before or even after death, the parents who have not done so should not worry about the eternal fate of their child.
This applies also to unborn children. In what is considered to be the oldest book of the Bible, the main character (a righteous man who experiences a world of pain) laments that he was born in the first place, wishing he would have simply died as a fetus and gone to be with God.
Aborted, miscarried and stillborn children are in heaven, every one of them.
Are they babies or adults in heaven? The honest answer here is that we don’t know. I believe it is more likely they are adults, since there is no indication of babies in heaven. That said, there is nothing wrong with picturing your baby as a baby in heaven.
Will my dog or cat be in heaven? Although I would love to say that dogs make it in and cats are sent to … well, another eternal destination (only joking, cat-lovers), we cannot make that distinction. This is actually a hard one. There seem to be animals of some kind in heaven, so the possibility cannot be ruled out that pets go to heaven.
You might take this as a teachable moment for your child. Animals and humans are different. They are both created by God, but there is an important difference. The Bible teaches that we are created in God’s image. In other words, when we meet God in heaven we might expect him to look a little like us. We should not expect him to look like Fido or Fluffy.
The hard reality that you might not want to tell your kids is that animals don’t seem to have the same “spirit” that humans do, which makes it difficult to believe that they have an afterlife.
Will we remember our lives here, in heaven? Yes. Luke 16 tells a story of two men who very much remembered their lives on Earth. Incidentally, one of these men was in heaven and one was in hell and yet they both seem to remember their previous lives on Earth. The big difference will be that we will have new and whole bodies in heaven. But that does not mean that we forfeit who we are in this life.
Will Jesus still have his scars in heaven? Yes. Revelation 5 describes Jesus looking like a lamb that had been slain. He also has his scars when he sees the disciples in the upper room after his resurrection.
While our bodies will be whole without blemish, his will still bear the mark of saving mankind so they can be in heaven.
How do we go to heaven? By trusting Jesus. He made the way open for us through his death on the cross. And anyone can get in through their faith in him – no matter what they have done.
Communicating this to your kids can teach them their value as a person better than 100 self-esteem lessons.
