Defining the Body, Soul, and Spirit (#5 in a series)

Today's blog is going to define some terms that we need to agree on before proceeding further.

We will start simply with a definition of Heaven — and somewhat surprisingly, the dictionary  definitions of the afterlife's paradise quickly turn complex.

The Jewish Talmud, the Islamic Qur'an, and ancient Sumerian religions of Mesopotamia all refer to seven heavens. Hindu writings name seven upper worlds, which could be thought of as heavens, as well as seven underworlds.  This blog, however, follows a Christian tradition, and for that there is Paul's explicit reference to "the third heaven" when writing to the Church in Corinth.¹ From that, mainline Christianity uses a 3-heaven model which breaks down like this:

3rd. The abode of abode of God, the angels,
and the spirits of the righteous dead.

2nd. The interstellar heaven, outer space.

1st. The atmospheric heaven, Earth's sky.

We recognize that some angels have assignments on Earth, and other angels "did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode," as Jude put it in verse 6, but that is the gist of the three heavens found in the New Testament. 

When we talk about pets in heaven, we are speaking of the third heaven that is the current home to the Throne of God, the heaven where the spirits of Born-Again Believers go upon death of the body. 

The next thing we need to agree on is that if our pets do go to heaven, their qualifications are markedly different than a human being's requirements. Our pets were not created in the image of God, they did not have an ancestor who chose to break his communion with God through disobedience, and they do not need to accept the blood sacrifice of Jesus to be saved and restored. The Bible does not outline a "Plan of Salvation" which they must accept. However, their lives were affected by the fall of Man, and I believe this makes them eligible for "the restoration of all things, which God announced long ago through His holy prophets" which Luke wrote about in Acts 3:21.

In future posts, I will share my thoughts on what "terms and conditions" might apply as a result of man's fall, and whether or not the restoration would apply to a specific animal or to animals in general. Although the Bible never addresses these issues directly as they apply to our pets, it does establish some patterns from which we can draw inferences. But for now, we need to define some more terms—

Body
     The body is the physical structure of a person or animal. It is mortal. It is made from "the dust of the earth."  You may be familiar with Genesis 2:7 where we read that the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground. Animal bodies were formed in a similar manner, as we learned twelve verses later in Genesis 2:19; Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky.
 The body is not the man, for he himself can exist apart from his body, as we see in 2 Corinthians 12:2,3.¹
 If this blog ever uses the word body in another sense to refer to orbs in outer space i.e. heavenly bodies, to mean a grouping eg. a body of evidence, or as the somewhat mystic "body of Christ," that will be clear from the context.

Soul
     The soul of the New Testament is the Greek word ψυχή, psychē.  As such, it is the seat of the emotions. In modern usage, it often includes the intellect. Whereas the body can act as a container and contain life, the soul possesses life: the soul is not dissolved by death. The soul regulates the connection between the physical realm of the body and the spiritual realm of our spirit. Free will, our God-given authority to make choices, is integrated in the soul. Our souls give us our unique personhood, or personality.

Spirit
     The spirit of the New Testament is the Greek word πνεῦμα, pneuma.  It is the confusion about this word that is the reason I am taking time for a post that defines the terms. If you use a regular dictionary, you will find a long list of definitions that may include:
(a) the soul - it should be obvious that this definition will not fit the purpose of our blog.
(b) the power by which the human being feels, thinks, decides - that is the basic definition of the soul, so it will not fit the purpose here either.
(c) a state of mind - no.
(d) the inner character of a person - again, too much like the definition of soul
(e) a supernatural being or entity; used of demons, or evil spirits - no, this definition does not fit either.
(f) enthusiasm - no.
(g) the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit, co-equal, co-eternal with the Father and the Son - too specific for our purpose
(h) incorporeal consciousness - okay, we are getting closer.
(i) vital principle held to give life to physical organisms - useful only if we limit ourselves to a scientific definition, but since reaching heaven is more faith, less science...
...see the problem?

So, for the purpose of this blog topic of Pets in Heaven, here is what I mean when I talk about spirit:
     Humans are triune beings with bodies, souls, and spirit. We are created in the likeness of God. It is our spirit that allows us to have spirit-to-spirit communion with God's Spirit. It is our spirit that, when reborn, makes it possible for us to be sons and daughters of God.
    Our Spirit is "saved" instantly and completely upon our acceptance of the blood sacrifice of Jesus. His sacrifice had to be a blood sacrifice, because when we were created, God put the life in the blood.
Our souls are not instantly "saved." For that, there is a growing-up process known as sanctification, a  progression of developing into holiness like our Father.
     The human spirit and the human soul are so intertwined that most of the time, the two terms could be used interchangeably. But there is one thing that can separate them: the Word.²

For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even as far as the division of soul and spirit. - Berean Literal Bible, Hebrews 4:12

The distinction is important for this topic so that we don't slip over into wonky theology. For example, this text from Romans 8:29,30 is one that can drive immature Bible students bonkers:
For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined He also called, those He called He also justified, those He justified He also glorified.

Let's skip the "the predestined get glorified" argument for now and concentrate on "He (God's Son) would be the firstborn among many brothers," for a bit. It would seem that after the resurrection, Jesus' status changed from "Only Begotten"³ to "Firstborn among many brothers." It becomes important to remember that we became brothers because Jesus became human, not because a sparkly wand made us divine. Although, we do have a likeness of God breathed into us. Pair that up with James 1:18, "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of His creation." 

So we are special. God leaves no doubt about that. But at the same time we are cautioned to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but rather think of ourselves with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of us. cf Romans 12:3


And the point is...
   We must stay mindful that we regard our pets at the proper level in which they were created, neither too high nor too low. Our earth-pets will not be "Cherub Kittens" or "Doggie Angels" in heaven, which is fine, because we are not trying to prove that Fluffy and Rover are anything more than a good pet. We are simply examining the evidence that love for a pet can transcend our present physical existence.




¹ 2 Corinthians 12:2  I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of it I do not know, but God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or out of it I do not know, but God knows—  We can reason that existence in the third heaven does not require a space/mass/time physical-dimension body.
²  The Word is Jesus, as we know from the first chapter of the Gospel of John.  Before Jesus got an earth-body when He was born of Mary, he was the Word. 
³ referenced in John 1:14, 18, and John 3:16,18

A Sidebar Post about God's Answer to Job (a supplement to #4 in the series)

As we noted in Part 4 of our series about Pets in Heaven, God was teaching Job via a listing of rhetorical questioning about creation. We covered the section of God's response to Job which dealt with animals in order to look for indications of His character or design that could either (hopefully) support the idea that our pets can be in heaven or abruptly dash all optimism by showing that is impossible. 

In one regard, God's answer spanning Job 39-41 is probably the best example of multi-tasking different levels of teaching that you will ever find. That makes sense because God was doing the talking!  All the while that God is putting creation into perspective for Job, he is also giving direct information about what He created and still more clues and dots that can be connected when sought out at deeper levels. 

This post serves as a side bar to include a few things that I found to be interesting, although they had little to noting to do with Pets in Heaven. 



The Ostrich • 39:13-18

¹³The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
but are her feathers and plumage like the stork’s?
¹⁴She abandons her eggs on the ground
and lets them be warmed in the sand.
¹⁵She forgets that a foot may crush them
or that some wild animal may trample them.
¹⁶She treats her young harshly, as if they were not her own,
with no fear that her labor may have been in vain.
¹⁷For God has deprived her of wisdom;
He has not endowed her with understanding. 
¹⁸When she proudly  spreads her wings,
she laughs at the horse and its rider.

The ostrich is an odd bird any way you look at it. Verse 13 contrasts the ostrich with the stork; in Job's culture, the stork was a symbol of parenting. I'm not sure what to say about "abandons her eggs" in verse 14. As bad as that seems, Australian scientists found that eggs lightly buried in sand on a sunny day were slightly safer than if the mother had been sitting on them because the presence of the mother would attract predators; they are so big that they are... a sitting duck?  Whereas, if she was not there the chance of the eggs being discovered was more random. And as for verse 15, the egg shells of an ostrich are as tough as pottery and it would take a pretty heavy wild animal to crush them by trampling. In tests, they would withstand up to 200 pounds, of course, that is measures under steady pressure and not jumping on them. Wisdom, mentioned in verse 17, cannot be directly matched with intelligence, however, relative to body weight, the ostrich does have an extremely small brain.

The Horse and the Hawk

In the fourth post of the series, God Purposefully Made Animals, I said that these three animals have a spirit-realm component in their descriptions. They all have traits unique to their species which no amount of evolutionary theory can adequately explain—it seems as if they were designed for man before mankind was created. Perhaps you could explain why humans would connect with these animals at an emotional level, but that does not show why the animals... 

Horse • 39:19-25 

¹⁹Do you give the horse his might? 
Do you clothe his neck with a mane? 
²⁰Do you make him leap like the locust? 
His majestic snorting is terrible.  
²¹He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength; 
He goes out to meet the weapons.  
²²He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; 
And he does not turn back from the sword.  
²³The quiver rattles against him, 
The flashing spear and javelin.  
²⁴With shaking and rage he races over the ground, 
And he does not stand still at the voice of the trumpet.  
²⁵As often as the trumpet sounds he says, ‘Aha!’ 
And he scents the battle from afar, 
And the thunder of the captains and the war cry.
 
    If I were asked what is Jesus' favorite animal, I would guess the horse. While you could make a good case for the lamb, I think the horse beats it by a nose.  The lamb symbolizes aspects of Jesus' first coming to Earth in human form, but the horse embodies aspects of His next coming. Yes, I know the Bible uses the Lion to express His Kingship, but the horse is the animal that takes the King to war. Any real man is going to be attracted to valiant power of conquest, and Jesus was/is a real man.  A King does not want conflict to continue forever, but in this season, until Satan is cast in the Lake of Fire, I think Jesus is partial to his horse. 

This description of a horse in Job shows an animal that likes what he is doing, and presumably likes humans as well.   The horse has a place on the battlefield, the ability of fearless strength, and a role in the mission. Our take-away point is that God's design and plan includes strong relationships between animals and humans.

Birds • 39:26-30
²⁶Does your skill teach the hawk to use its pinions,
Stretching his wings toward the south?
²⁷Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up
And makes his nest on high?
²⁸On the cliff he dwells and lodges,
Upon the rocky crag, an inaccessible place.
²⁹From there he spies out food;
His eyes see it from afar.
³⁰His young ones also suck up blood;
And where the slain are, there is he.

Depending upon the translation you use, the bird in this passage might be an eagle, hawk, falcon, or buzzard. Whichever you like, it is a bird of prey.¹ We tend to think of falconry as a practice of medieval Europe, but there is archeological evidence and pictographs of birds hunting for men in the ancient world as well. While mankind does train these birds to hunt for him, God reminds Job that the ability to fly and spot a potential dinner at a distance are things God designed. Moreover, God's design is so efficient that the bird can meet its own need for food and have both time and energy remaining for being of service to man.  The birds have a place on the cliffs, an ability for searching, and a role in cleaning the environment of carrion.

Behemoth and Leviathan • Chapters 40 and 41

First off, neither of these animals are "pets." Behemoth is a land monster and Leviathan is a sea monster. If dinosaurs² are in the Bible, then these are them! I am including them in this supplementary post because they help us understand how God thinks about His creation, and the better that we glimpse at God's thoughts, the better we can see that He has a plan across the Ages, and possibly see how our pets fit into that.

Job accepts behemoth and leviathan as real, existing creatures, and we should too. But we also need to be aware that parallel spiritual and physical descriptions are being made. Many animals have gone extinct in our natural realm since Job's time, but that does not mean that the animal's spiritual existence or its implications are dead.  These chapters can also be read at the level of being an allegory; it is not a question of either/or, it is both. One can read the natural descriptions of these creatures and, if you are looking for it, a picture of activity in the unseen realm of the supernatural will pop out at you.


And this is the take-away for our Pets in Heaven discussion:
     God, who is supernatural, creates life that fills a place or a niche in His plan, endows these creatures with the abilities they need for their specific role, and describes them to Job within the context of His answer for the challenge that had just concluded in the heavenly court. Job had not only survived to the end physically, (one of the conditions of play had been that Satan could not kill him), but Job had come through a supernatural ordeal with his heart for the Lord intact.  (Job had questioned God, but never lost reverence for Him, never cursed or denied Him.)
     In Job 42:5, Job is saying, "My ears had heard of you before, but now my eyes have seen you." He had heard the oral tradition of his ancestors; his ears had heard the stories going back to Adam. But now,  Job's eyes were enlightened and he saw God speaking from a whirling Spirit-wind. It is significant that the Lord spent nearly the entire speech elaborating on Creation because this underscores the reality of "on Earth as it is in Heaven" where Earth is a counterpart of Heaven.

None of this proves that our pets will go to heaven. In fact, God's answer to Job lends a greater degree of support to it being the other way around: that pets on Earth had counterparts in Heaven! What we do get a "faith-proof" for is that animals have places, abilities, and roles in both the physical and spiritual realms.   


Footnotes

¹ The predatory bird in verse 26 has shorter wings than the vulture in 27; short wings mean sharper turns in a forest environment and a wider wingspan is better for hunting in open areas.
² The word dinosaur was first used in 1841. It did not exist at the time the King James Version was translated into English. Prior to that time, the common word for such creatures was dragon. When translated as crocodiles or hippopotami, the description God is giving to Job does not fit.

God Purposely Made Animals (#4 in a series)

Here is the premise for today's post:

We will look at some things God did in putting animals on Earth, and then we will look for indications that these purposes might have value in the next world—If we can find clues that our pets would have a role to fill in Heaven, then this adds support to the idea that God will take them there.

But first we will start with this Spoiler!
"The Peaceable Kingdom" is a popular topic for painters, especially those who paint in either the Folkart or Renaissance styles. (The one on the left is by Edward Hicks, one of over 60 that he painted.)
These paintings are based on prophetic verses found in Isaiah.

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD.
This is Isaiah 65:25, and most probably refers to the new heavens and the new earth from the context of the previous verse 17.


 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 
 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
That passage is from Isaiah 11:6-9 and specifically mentions earth, not heaven. Because the phrase, "in that day" is in subsequent verses, many scholars believe that this refers to the Millennial Kingdom on the current Earth.  

This blog is not the time or place for the debate over these passages not really being about heaven;  I want to stay on-topic and there is a lot to cover today.  For our purposes, I will remind you that Earth is patterned after Heaven, and Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven," Matthew 6:10.  Just accept this: When the world runs according to God's will, Heaven and Earth are using the same blueprints.

Purposeful Provision for Animals 

Back when the Internet was young and Boolean searches still held a fascination for me,  I had this idea of writing a Bible Bestiary. The plan was to go through the Bible and write about every animal mentioned in a manner that would be instructive for middle-school students. I was tutoring several hyper-active boys at the time, and such a book would have been a good fit into the curriculum. It was a fairly ambitious project, and so when real life started making demands, it fell by the wayside. But I did get far enough to discover that animals were designed to have real, functional roles in human lives. 

Today, we are going to take a quick look at the Book of Job. Job, you may remember, was the guy who lost his main business, his reserve source of income, and all ten of his children through Sabaean raiders, some sort of electro-maggnetic phenomena, and tornadic activity all on the same day. Next, he develops a smelly, itchy skin disease. Then the real assault begins when three of his fairly clueless friends try to comfort him with explanations that were little more than faith-destroying, doubt-filled platitudes. His wife was a little more blunt: Curse God and die! The final attack comes in the form of an upstart theologian named Elihu¹ who tells Job that this is all Job's own fault because of his pride.  The reader, however, knows from chapter 1 that the "pride" in this case was the Lord's as He was the one bragging on His servant Job. Eventually, from chapter 38 through 40, we get 123 verses of God talking non-stop. This is the longest running quote of God in the entire Bible and most all of it is calling attention to His attribute of Creator by asking an extended series of rhetorical questions.

Because these are written as questions, we have to do some basic deduction to convert them to facts, but it is not that hard. So here are a few things God says to Job about animals:
• God provides for young ravens when they cry out, even though they are nasty birds and were thought of as being evil omens; God is a provider. 38:41
• God is aware of and watches over animals giving birth in the wild. At a time when a doe is most at risk both internally in the physical and therefore incapacitated to defend externally against predators, God is there; God attends life. 39:1-3
• God placed the wild donkey in the wilderness, implying that every animal has it's unique place to belong and for some animals, that place is our home; God matches habitats to an animal's nature and needs.  39:5-7
• God makes a distinction between wild oxen and domesticated ones with this line of questioning; we can deduce that God's character will also recognize the "trust factor" in a pet and owner relationship. 39: 10-12.
• Job 39:13-18 are about the ostrich. This passage is commentary, not the rhetorical question format, so I am mostly skipping it for now, except to say that it marks a turning point in God's instruction to Job.
• God asks multiple questions about the horse which show its design and purpose in war. If we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, we will notice another layer that the Lord adds to His teaching in this last set of animals: He is now using these final animal-examples (39:19-30; and chapters 40 and 41) to more directly address the scene at the beginning of the book.  

Here is a flashback to the opening scene in Job 1:6— "Now there was a day when the members of the heavenly court (divine council) came to present themselves before Jehovah, and the Accuser (Satan) came with them."

The Book of Job opens with a glimpse into the spiritual realm where Jehovah-God is holding a council meeting.  Now, toward the end of the book, the final sets of animals, our domesticated horse and the hawks/falcons, along with two monster-types, behemoth and leviathan, all have a spirit-realm component in their descriptions, but that is a rabbit trail that I will have to pursue later. For our "Pets in Heaven" blog, we will just leave it at this: Animals can have a role and purpose in the Spirit realm.
• Last, but certainly not least, we revisit a scripture that was introduced in #2 of this series where young girls were playing with a tethered pet bird.  This scripture was presented as a contrast and it is actually a very strong indication that the Lord wants us to enjoy pets!  As great, and as strong, and as evil as the juxtaposed leviathan is, the inspired scriptures count a small pet bird as a suitable balance of goodness.  41:5 

This is not the last time that I will be talking about the Lord wanting us to enjoy pets. Part of His purpose for animals as simple as wanting to delight us. If you have a hard time believing that now, don't worry; there will be more scriptural proofs in the blogging ahead. 

To review, here is what Job showed us today:
    God is a provider who values the life of animals by tending to their needs and supplying them with a habitat perfectly matched to their needs. He recognizes (of course He does, He designed it this way!) that humans and animals can build trusting relationships, and that some of these relationships could extend into the spiritual realm. He had a purpose in doing this.

Nothing that the Lord revealed about Himself in his discourse with Job indicates that He considers these animals to be generic filler on this planet. They were treated as individual animals.
 



Footnote

¹ Elihu - When translated into English, there are five men by this name in the Bible. But this one, Elihu, son of Barachel, has an extra Hebrew character in his name...  One of the sources that I looked up speculated that this could be because he came from the greater Levant, outside of Israel in both time period and geography. The elements of his name could carry a particle of negation (not, no, neither); or they could mean to swear or to wail.