This is truly a troubling question. My parents passed some
years ago without the slightest indication that they had placed their faith in
Jesus. While it is possible that He savingly came to them in the twilight
moments of their earthly existence, I have no concrete reasons to believe this.
How then do I console myself, and what consolation will I
find in heaven? Well, for one thing, we do not know much about the nature of
eternal separation from God. However, this is little consolation.
Will we eternally grieve for our loved ones? Well, from the Biblical
descriptions of heaven, it doesn’t seem likely. But does this require that our regret
will be lobotomized or our memory erased, diminishing our humanity?
This doesn’t seem likely, but I admit that I do not have the
answer to this dilemma, and I don’t think that Scripture provides one. This
means that we must, meanwhile, live in uncertainty and discomfort about the
possibility of heavenly grief.
But why doesn’t God give us an answer? While I am assured
that He does have a satisfying answer, I think that we are unable to profit
from some answers. For example, we are not given any clear Biblical assurances
about the fate of children who die prior or after birth. Perhaps there is a
good reason for this. If the Bible had revealed that all children who died
before an age of accountability would go straight to heaven, we might be
righteously tempted to kill our children to insure that they will go to heaven.
Perhaps we cannot positively handle this kind of knowledge.
Perhaps this principle also pertains to the fate of our deceased loved ones? In
“Handbook of Christian Apologetics,”
Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli reason:
·
If there are people you love and identify with
so deeply that you simply cannot see how you could possibly be happy forever
without them…then one of the jobs God may have put you on the earth for is to
do everything you can for their salvation. (272)
Perhaps a detailed Biblical explanation why we will not
suffer heavenly regret might undermine our motivation to plead our loved ones (and
even others) into heaven, as we ought.
No comments:
Post a Comment