Do believers who are dead remember and love those who are still living?

[antiquarianbookworm]

My 4 year old son misses his Daddy tremendously (my husband, who was a believer, passed away in May). I talk with him about it regularly & openly & want to answer all his questions and teach him rightly to think about death from a biblical perspective. Tonight as we were lying in bed talking, he said, "I really miss Daddy tonight." So I was reassuring him of my love for him, that Daddy did love him (past tense), and the Lord's love for him. His response was to say, "Daddy still loves me and misses me, too." I wasn't sure how to respond -- what the biblical understanding of that really is. In terms of the missing him part, we talked about how we are to trust God's perfect plan & that He does all things for our good and growth in grace, that even when we don't understand and it is hard, we must still trust God's word and promises. And thus that Daddy understands now and doesn't have the struggle of it being hard -- and that Daddy is content with God's plan, even though it is hard for us.

But my question is: Do believers who are with the Lord actively know and remember those who are still on earth whom they did love? Is it right or wrong to have a child believe that a dead parent who loved them dearly still loves them now?

Many people say to my kids that their Daddy still loves them. I am always uncomfortable with that -- not that he wouldn't love them (as he loved them as much as any father could!) -- but that I don't think Tim is actively thinking about his family he left behind! I'd love a biblical answer to this so I know better how to treat this topic (both with my kids & with adults with whom we talk). As an adult I can process the whole thing differently than a 4 year old, clearly, and understand that the Lamb is all the glory ... and I am content knowing that my beloved's love for Christ has been perfected! But it's harder to explain it to a kid, especially when I don't have all the answers. Thanks!

 

[Miss Marple]

I remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man was dead, and an unbeliever in some sort of hell situation (tormented in flame), yet he had concern for his brothers, asking Abraham to go warn them.

So may I timidly suggest, and I do think it is a weighty matter, that if this unbelieving rich man had concern for his brothers, your dear Christian husband must still be loving you and your boy?

Forgive me if I offer a doctrinal error, but I thought the Rich Man and Lazarus, whether literal or allegorical, is germane.

 

[Ryan J. Ross]

Sarah,

What a heartbreaking scene. I am so sorry for your loss. I think you have counseled rightly. Jesus, in the synoptic Gospels, teaches that earthly relations are transformed into angelic ones in the life to come. Marriage and, I think by implication, parenthood do not exist in the state of (wo)man after death or in the resurrection. I do think, however, that your child(ren) can be comforted by the truth that God has poured out His love on His children and that He was the source of all Christ-honoring, earthly love showered on your little one. He was the sustainer of their father's love and the provider of the same.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Hello Sarah, and welcome to PB!

I would without hesitation say that the departed godly dead remember and love those who are still alive on the earth. When we die we are not merely floating consciousnesses, only aware of and only loving God—but with our mental and emotional faculties immeasurably heightened and alert. Consider: Paul, when speaking in Hebrews 12 of where we actually are (in spirit) when praying: in the heavenly Jerusalem with angels, our Father God, the Lord Jesus, and "the spirits of just men made perfect" (v 23). These latter are not less conscious than when they lived among us, but perfected—insofar as perfection can be obtained without their resurrection bodies, which will be given to them later, at the Resurrection.

In Jesus' parable (or was it a true account?) of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19ff.), He has the rich man recognizing both Abraham and Lazarus, and Abraham recognizing him (and I would assume Lazarus as well). In hell the rich man had a concern for his living brothers, said Jesus, and I would think the perfected saints would have care for those they left behind on the earth.

If we would be even more conformed to our Saviour in the intermediate state (Heaven, before New Earth and our glorified selves on it), and our Saviour is presently much given to interceding for us who are His still here (Heb 7:25; Rom 8:34), may it not be possible that perfected saints—in union with Christ—also intercede? The Holy Spirit will still be indwelling us in Heaven, and it is written of Him that while still on the earth "he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God", and I can believe that in our union with Christ we also may intercede with Him. Such would be our joy. What, will we merely laze around like useless clouds? I think my conjectures are in accord with Scripture.

If, on the mount of transfiguration, the three apostles recognized Moses and Elijah (I don't think they ever saw pictures of their physical likenesses) probably by the nature of their spirits—the essence of their personhood— this is likely how we shall recognize others in Heaven who have not their bodies yet.

I believe we need to think of those who have departed as fully functioning beings—functioning far more fully than when in their mortal states—and those who love according to godliness here, shall they love less in Heaven, when it is written "love never fails" ("Charity never faileth" 1 Cor 13:8)? Christlike love never fails here, nor shall it in Heaven, nor on New Earth. A poem I wrote touches on these things:

WHEN I DIE

I know most of you’ll be sad
and grieve
my presence no longer among you
— not that I was so good
but rather
the Saviour lived in my heart
and gave me grace
to be His brother

And when the day actually comes
I want you to remember
this poem
and the attitude of my heart
toward death,
for it is not an enemy to me
but a friend
and the entrance to Heaven

for Paul said to be absent from the body
is to be present with the Lord,
and that when we depart
we go to be with Christ,
and I trust this will be the case with me
for I cleave to the Saviour
as to my very life
and all my righteousness

so when I breathe my last breath
and my heart finally lies still
(having beat so strongly
with such fierce blood
all these years!)
I will fairly quickly appear
(either by angelic lift, or God’s decree)
in the Land of glory and light

and I will be in my spirit-body
(the resurrection of our bodies yet to come)
astonished, standing, rejoicing
at the beauty God has prepared
for those who love Him
and I will kiss the ground of Heaven
and worship the Holy One
my faithful Shepherd

and I will likely be very busy
getting oriented to my eternal home,
visiting old friends and family,
seeing the sights
of the City of God,
talking with the men and women
whose lives we saw in the Bible
and who touched our hearts all through this life

and
dare I
say it,
setting my eyes upon
and conversing with
His Majesty Himself
the Almighty God, King of Heaven and earth
Jesus Christ my dearest friend

So when I am gone
from this life to the next
grieve my absence if you will
but remember with joy
that I walk in newness of life
in City Celestial
and with all your hearts
lay hold upon the mercy of the Saviour

that you yourselves may join me
in an eternity of wonder and bliss
in the Everlasting Kingdom
of the people of God;
so get hold of His Book
and forsake all that would keep you
from walking with God
in the way of His Son

And to my beloved Pola,
wife and friend and fellow pilgrim,
I will await your own entrance here
to your eternal rest and great reward,
and please know how grateful I am
to have had a companion like you
to walk and lie by my side
in the world of this life.​

I think it's surely safe to say your son's departed Daddy loves him dearly.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

1Jn.4:16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Only the living love. Lk.20:38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him. And they who have left here to be with him live now.

In glory the saints are perfectly comforted, perfectly contented, perfectly complacent in the Person and will of him who is their supreme, ardent focus. Ps.17:15; Mt.5:8; Ps.16:11; 36:7-10.

Those who love Christ love his loves. He loves the church, his bride, Eph.5:25. Saints love their fellow saints in this life, Col.1:4; how much more must they love them when sin no longer hinders them? The saints love their past loved ones in the Lord; and surely they are encouraged in that love.

A heavenly saint may be completely full of joy in the Lord. But he may have still greater joy; only let his capacity for joy be increased. There is eagerness in heaven, whether to see the completion of holy justice, Rev.6:10; or the redemption of their own bodies, Rom.8:23. And they who have already entered in stand in the welcome party for those who follow them, Lk.16:9.

Saints in glory do not have omniscience; they do not know of the many loved ones they left behind, how many may there be who fall away before the end? Surely they pray for the church militant, for the whole company of the elect to be completed, for hastening the Day of consummation. They are satisfied in the goodness of God: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Gen.18:25.

********************

A personal story. I know an old man, now departed, who faithfully prayed for close to 40yrs for a loved one's salvation. His passing was followed about a year later by this one for whom he prayed. He professed faith in Christ during that year.

I claim no truth for what follows. I picture a scene in the presence of Christ: that old saint, after embracing his dear Lord, is invited to "turn around" (so to speak) and greet the one who came pursing him at the heels, as it were. "Your labour is not in vain in the Lord."

 

[lynnie]

Right now in heaven, there are fathers who were martyred in recent Islamic killings, who are joining in this:

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.

If the martyred saints who have passed can remember evildoers, and cry out to God to avenge them and deal with the wicked, I would think saints must surely also remember their children left on earth. How can you remember the wicked and not those you loved?

Steve- nice thoughts on joining in the Lord's intercession for the saints.

By the way, I am sorry to hear of this, it is so sad. I will pray for you both in your great loss.

 

[TheOldCourse]

Ryan's point, I believe, is not that they do not love or remember their acquaintances on earth as if they had less knowledge in Heaven or entered into some sort of soul-sleep, but rather that their relationship towards those acquaintances is fundamentally changed. As nuptial relationships cease and a peculiar nuptial love is presumably transformed into a broader communing love, on analogy it seems likely that the same is true of peculiar paternal love. The question isn't whether the departed father still loves him, it's whether the departed father still loves him as a father.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Chris, what you say is true, and yet does not go far enough. To wit, here in this world my wife is the closest friend I have—closer than my male friends, and I have some who are close—so when we arrive in the intermediate state, Heaven, and then onto New Earth, although we will not be married, may not friendships forged here in the furnace endure into eternity?

Of course I speculate here regarding such things, for the way of life on New Earth will be unlike anything we have known here on "Old Earth". Yet, I don't think we will all have single rooms in a celestial hotel of sorts. Nor do I think we shall be "homeless". Although no longer married, if my old earth-wife now Heaven-friend and I want to share a celestial "mansion", such a relationship would be far beyond marriage. As I said, I'm just speculating, but the union of our hearts and spirits wrought together in and by the Lord's Spirit—I'm not talking flesh / sensuality here—is not something I believe the Lord will rend asunder. Our friendships and heart-ties will endure throughout eternity, with new ones ever being built.

True, all our hearts and lives will be swallowed up in the glory and majesty and ineffable torrent of our heavenly Husband's joyous love for us and we will be new creatures with capacities and depths of being we can't imagine now—yet I think there will be some continuity in terms of our personhood (we will have the same bodies after all, but healed and glorified) as well the gifts we developed in this present life. He will be the love of our lives, the life of our lives.

All that to say, the love of an earth-father now Heaven-friend will surpass in love the old manner of love. In all things we shall suffer no loss, but the relative paltriness of old earth will be transformed into the ravishing abundance of New Earth. So yes, Sarah can say to her boy, your Daddy in Heaven loves you, and your Daddy's Saviour and God has even greater love, so learn of Him, and walk with Him and love Him, so we can all be together in the life and world to come.

 

[antiquarianbookworm]

Thank you all, I appreciate all the feedback. I'm still thinking it through - but among other things you've given me Scripture to work through & also some passages I'll read some commentaries on.