Last evening Alistair mentioned that we would post the quote from Edward Donnelly on "relationships in heaven". This is in connection with our study in Mark 12:18-27 that we considered in both the morning and the evening.
Relationships in Heaven
But what about those who are nearest to us on earth? Will I still have a special relationship with my wife in heaven? Will you still treat your parents as father and mother? Will our close friends here be our close friends there? It is all very well to look forward to meeting tens of thousands. But are we not created in such a way as still to want an inner circle? Such questions are natural, but not easy to answer.
We will certainly know one another in heaven. King David looked forward to being reunited with his dead son there. ‘I shall go to him,’ he said (2 Sam. 12:23). Paul urges bereaved Christians not to ‘sorrow as others who have no hope. For ….God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus’ (1 Thess. 4:13, 14). The reason for not grieving like unbelievers is that their parting is not permanent. They will meet again. We cannot know less in heaven than we did on earth and so we will recognize there those known to us here. That is surely comforting.
We are also told that many aspects of marriage will no longer be appropriate in glory, where ‘they neither marry nor are given in marriage’ (Matt. 22:30). There will be no reproduction. The husband will not need a helper nor the wife someone to cherish her protectively. Children will not require parental care. The relationship between Christ and his church will be so obvious as to render unnecessary a human illustration. Does this mean, then, that your husband or my best friend will be no more to us than anyone else among the multitudes of the redeemed? I do not think so. For every good thing will be better in heaven than on earth. If God has given you a Christian husband or wife, parent or child, brother or friend, you can be sure that, whatever the parameters of your future relationship with them may be, the friendship will be closer there than it is now. You will know them more intimately, love them more intensely, delight in them more fully. It is impossible that we should lose anything good in that place where good abounds. We can look at Christians whom we love especially and praise God that we will continue to love them, more and more, for ever and ever.
Edward Donnelly, Heaven and Hell (ISBN 0 85151 811 7, 135 pp)
