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On being reunited with departed loved ones in the next life.

Just as war was breaking out in Europe, the hit song We’ll Meet Again, performed by English singer Vera Lynn, was released in 1939. Knowing that loved ones could soon be heading overseas to fight, and perhaps never to return, was a hard reality to face for so many. The memorable chorus goes like this:

We’ll meet again
Don’t know where
Don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day

For the Christian, there can be real mixed emotions about where we live. Right now, we inhabit a sinful world, but we still find much about it to enjoy. But we also know that this world is not our home, and our true place of residency is still to come. As I just again read in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (4:16-18, followed by 5:1-5):

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

Being holders of two passports, we are always somewhat ambivalent about this matter of where we really belong. Our longing for the next world, and our dislike of this world, in part depends on our personality types – on the sorts of people we are.

I happen to be a bit more melancholic, and I tend to see things more gloomily. I often can see more suffering and evil in this world than good and joyous things. But that is just me. So my daily prayer is for Christ to come – and come quickly. I too often despair of what is going on all around me.

So if folks wanted a brief take on this fallen world, I would reply something like this: it is ugly, demonised, abhorrent, wretched, and full of despicable evil and horrendous suffering. BUT, with Christ there is hope, healing, restoration, forgiveness and a reason to keep going. A simplistic, but accurate account of things – at least as I see it.

All that God made was declared to be good. And it all WAS good. But the Fall negatively impacted everything. When theologians speak of “total depravity”, they do not mean that everything and everyone is as bad as can possibly be, but that everything and everyone has been affected by the Fall, so sin and its effects are found everywhere.

Death and Eternity

Because of God’s common grace, there is still plenty of beauty and truth and justice in this fallen world. Because of His grace, non-believers can create beautiful things, say true things, make just decisions, etc. But because of the presence of sin in the world, and the reality of demonic forces, there is great evil and terror in this world. And there is death.

The Christian always lives with some real tension here. On the one hand, we can appreciate all the good things of life, but we also know that a far better world is coming. Then and there all wrongs will be righted, and former relationships will be renewed.

That is, for most of us, one of the great beauties of heaven: being reunited with friends and loved ones who have already passed away. Sure, being with our Lord and Saviour forever will be the greatest good, but once again being with those who have departed from this life will be wonderful indeed.

My mother and father have passed away many years ago now. My wife has now been gone for almost a year and a half. A number of my friends and colleagues have also departed for glory. The older you get, the more death and loss you experience. Thus, the thought of Heaven is a real anchor for the soul. And knowing that you will see those who have already departed certainly helps us to keep on keeping on.

Last month, I quoted from the great preacher Charles Spurgeon on the issue of Heaven. I made use of the 2011 book We Shall See God: Charles Spurgeon’s Classic Devotional Thoughts on Heaven by Randy Alcorn (Tyndale). It features 50 of the best writings by Charles Spurgeon on the topic, along with some commentary by Alcorn. That earlier piece is found here.

In this article, I want to look at just one sermon and bit of commentary, titled Knowing Our Loved Ones in Heaven. The text Spurgeon uses for his 1855 sermon is Matthew 8:11^, which reads: “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Here is part of what Spurgeon said:

If we have known one another here, we shall know one another there. I have dear departed friends up there, and it is always a sweet thought to me that when I shall put my foot, as I hope I may, upon the threshold of heaven, there will come my sisters and brothers to clasp me by the hand and say, “Yes, thou loved one, at last you are here.”

Dear relatives that have been separated from you, these you will meet again in Heaven. One of you has lost a Mother—she is gone above. And if you follow the track of Jesus, you shall meet her there.

We shall recognize our friends. Husband, you will know your wife again. Mother, you will know those dear babes of yours—you memorized their features when they lay panting and gasping for breath. You know how you hung over their graves when the cold sod was sprinkled over them and it was said, “Earth to earth. Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes.” But you shall hear those sweet voices once more; you shall yet know that those whom ye loved have been loved by God. (pp. 94-95)

Reunited

Alcorn then offers this commentary on what he said:

Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India in the early 1900s, wrote,

“Shall we know one another in Heaven? Shall we love and remember? I do not think anyone need wonder about this or doubt for a single moment. We are never told we shall, because, I expect, it was not necessary, for if we think for a minute, we know. Would you be yourself if you did not love and remember? … We are told that we shall be like our Lord Jesus. Surely this does not mean in holiness only, but in everything; and does not He know and love and remember? He would not be Himself if He did not, and we should not be ourselves if we did not.”

Bible scholar W. G. Scroggie echoes the sentiments of many believers: “If I knew that never again would I recognize that beloved one with whom I spent more than thirty-nine years here on earth, my anticipation of heaven would much abate. To say that we will be with Christ and that that will be enough is to claim that there we shall be without the social instincts and affections which mean so much to us here… Life beyond cannot mean impoverishment, but the enhancement and enrichment of life as we have known it here at its best.”

Augustine said, “We have not lost our dear ones who have departed from this life, but have merely sent them ahead of us, so we also shall depart and shall come to that life where they will be more than ever dear as they will be better known to us, and where we shall love them without fear of parting.” He also said, “All of us who enjoy God are also enjoying each other in Him.”

Throughout the ages, Christians have anticipated eternal reunion with their loved ones.

Paul tells the Thessalonians that they’ll be reunited with believing family and friends in Heaven: “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope… God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him… We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them… And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14, 17-18, niv).

Our source of comfort isn’t only that we’ll be with the Lord in Heaven but also that we’ll be with one another. Christ is “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last” (Revelation 22:13, NIV). He alone is sufficient to meet all our needs. Yet God has designed us for relationship not only with himself but also with others of our kind. After God created the world, he stepped back to look at his work and pronounced it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). However, before his creation was complete, he said there was one thing — and only one — that was not good: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18, niv). God planned for Adam, and all mankind, to need human companionship.

Jesus rebuked the religious leaders for imagining they could love God without loving people (Luke 10:27-37). The spiritual-sounding “I will love just God and no one else” is not only unspiritual; it’s impossible. If we don’t love people, who are created in God’s image, we can’t love God (1 John 4:8).

Puritan Richard Baxter, whom Spurgeon regarded as a pastoral mentor, looked forward to being with Christ first, but he also anticipated being reunited with dear friends: “I know that Christ is all in all; and that it is the presence of God that makes Heaven to be Heaven. But yet it much sweetens the thoughts of that place to me that there are there such a multitude of my most dear and precious friends in Christ.”

On the New Earth we’ll experience the joy of familiarity in old relationships and the joy of discovery in new ones. As we get to know one another better, we’ll get to know God better. And as we find joy in one another, we’ll find joy in him. (pp. 95-97)

All that sounds good to me. I will seek to be of use in this life, and as far as possible, enjoy what good there is. But I will forever long for the next world. No more death and dying and sin and suffering. But many wonderful reunions will occur instead. That is worth getting excited about.

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Republished with thanks to CultureWatch. Image courtesy of Adobe.