Introduction
I recently lost my pet springer spaniel Oscar and a friend of mine asked this very question, will Oscar be in heaven now? This is a good question to which I quoted Revelation 22:14-15.
‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.’
The text says that the ‘dogs are outside’ of God’s presence, that was a joke and not obviously to be taken literally. It’s a good question and although it may bring a lot of comfort to many animal lovers who lost their pets, we need to see what the Bible actually teaches.
The Bible states that both man and animals have the ‘breath of life’, that is, both man and animals are living beings, Genesis 2:7 / Genesis 1:30 / Genesis 6:17 / Genesis 7:15 / Genesis 7:22.
There’s no doubt that animals are precious in God’s eyes but the main difference between human beings and animals is that humanity is made in the image and likeness of God, while animals are not, Genesis 1:26-27.
Being made in the image and likeness of God means that human beings are like God, capable of spirituality, we have a mind, emotion, and a will, and they have a part of their being that continues after death.
Remembering that the Hebrew word ‘Adam’ means ‘man.’ ‘Life’ like animal life, is something which Adam shared with every other living creature created by God. But the difference between the other creatures and man lies in the fact that God said, ‘Let us make Man after our own image, after our likeness.’ Genesis 1:26
Only with reference to man is this said, and it’s this ‘likeness to God’ which uniquely constituted man as a rational and moral being, possessing a conscience that enabled him to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong, obedience and disobedience. It’s in this sense that man is a soul, a self, having self-awareness and self-consciousness.
Now look at Genesis 1:26 again, ‘God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
This shows us that man is not only superior to all other living creatures on Earth because he possesses this moral awareness. This also shows us that the gulf between man and the rest of creation was further emphasised and endorsed when God assigned to him dominion over all other living creatures, Job 32:8.
If we consider the body to be ‘Earth-conscious’, and the soul to be ‘Self-conscious’, we may think of the spirit as being ‘God-conscious’. In other words, it is that part of man’s nature which enables him to reach out to and communicate with God.
It’s the spiritual dimension in man’s character, and, here again; we see the difference between man and other creatures. It’s only man says who can say, ‘My soul thirsts for God, for the living God’. Psalm 42:2.
It’s only man who is encouraged to ‘seek after Him, in the hope that they might feel after Him and find Him.’ Acts 17:27.
It’s only man who is given the assurance that ‘He is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being’. Acts 17:27.
The ‘soul’ is man’s unique self, it’s the part of his being that, because it’s rational and moral, determines the actions performed by his body, and which, therefore, renders him personally accountable for what he does.
And so, it is man’s ‘soul’ which will ultimately be either saved or lost, depending on his response to the offer of the salvation which was made first possible by the coming of Christ into the world.
When an animal dies, their bodies are buried, and their spirit goes back to God. Solomon says at death, the body returns to the dust of the earth, and the spirit goes back to God who gave it. Ecclesiastes 12:7.
I really miss my dog, Oscar, he brought me a lot of joy and was a source of comfort at times and although it sounds nice and brings people a lot of comfort, I believe that animals don’t possess a soul and have no promise of eternal life and the Bible teaches us that it’s only the faithful soul which will live forever with God in heaven.
