Misconception #43
Only Humans Get Into Heaven; Sorry, No Pets Allowed
Ask any Christian if they think their pets are going to Heaven, and nine out of ten of them will probably tell you the same thing: “Gee, I guess not, because The Bible says you’ve got to have faith to get in. I mean, sure, God created the animals, but that doesn’t prove they’ll get into Heaven. That’s reserved for people who have a personal relationship with Him, right? How can animals know God the same way humans can?”
Admittedly, on the surface, all this sounds quite logical. Or at least it does as long as you’re content with an oversimplified view of biblical reality. But beware: You might be falling far short of what the whole Book of God says about who gets into Heaven. How about you? Are you really so sure this issue is that cut-and-dry? And could The Bible be that vague about such a vast portion of His creation? Let’s take a moment, then, to search the Scriptures for any clues toward solving this mystery.
The first chapter of Genesis depicts a world in which God first created the animals and then mankind. And when He’d finished: “The Lord found that everything He’d created was good.”1
What’s more, the Scriptures reveal that God created the animals out of the very same material from which He created Adam. To confirm this, let’s re-examine some familiar biblical territory.
And the Lord said: “It isn’t good that man should be alone, so I will make companions for him.” And out of the ground, God formed every beast of the field, along with every fowl of the air; and He brought them before Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam decided to call them that was to be their name.2
Story Continues Below
To hear Correcting Biblical Misconceptions: Part 1, from June 23rd, 2021, where I speak with Zen Garcia, on his show Momentary Zen, CLICK BELOW.
Story Continues From Above
So, what’s this word used for the “ground” from which the animals were created? The word in the Hebrew just happens to be adamah, which, according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, comes from the root word adam, meaning “ground.” How ironic is that? The biblical word for the material God used to create these companions for humanity is actually a derivative of the word for Adam himself.
Could this be why scientists were able to discover a link between the biology of the human and animal kingdoms so essential in their ongoing search for cures to disease? And could this connection between human and animal genetics explain why the “theory” of evolution is so irresistible to the scientific community?
Also noteworthy about this verse is the way it states, in no uncertain terms, that God specifically created animals as companions for humanity, not as slaves—as tradition so often insists—and certainly not as food.
So much for the notion, then, that it’s The Bible that insists that God views humanity as being inherently superior to the animal kingdom. To the contrary, when God said everything He created was good in His sight, He meant everything!
What a shame that most people simply accept the idea that God only created animals to be tools for the sake of His greater creation of humanity. How arrogant are those who choose to hunt and peck at Scripture, ignoring anything that doesn’t support their lopsided interpretation of what they’d like the Scriptures to say.
But such is the power of the three laws of disinformation: Latch, isolate, and repeat.
And to think: How many centuries have rolled by that continue to distort the fallen aspect of the Adamic portion of creation in a way that denigrates the rest of the non-Adamic, which God Himself saw as being good?
Now, this certainly doesn’t mean that the animal kingdom hasn’t suffered because of God cursing Adam and his descendants. Any biblical scholar would readily admit the Apostle Paul was speaking the truth when he said that both the animal and human kingdoms are linked in relation to the Fall of Adam. Speaking to this point, in The Book of Romans, Paul wrote:
Every living creature waits expectantly for the manifestation of the children of God, seeing as how even the animals were made subject to pride, not willingly, but because of Him Who subjected them in hope, because every creature will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of God’s family. Until then, we see how the entire creation groans and agonizes in pain together, and not only them, but we, too, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we who yearn within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, for the redemption of our bodies.3
So, from The Old Testament to The New Testament, the Scriptures are clear. God created the animal and human kingdoms out of the very same material, and He created them in a purposefully united way. To believe otherwise would be to buy into the kind of faulty thinking that only people who are themselves avid proponents of disinformation would gladly believe and embrace.
Not only that but, based on this way of thinking, we’d also have to dismiss what The Bible says about some rather unique encounters between animals and people. In this case, I’m not talking about tall tales of Scripture that are to be seen as fish tales but, instead, the kind that are meant to astonish and amaze, and, in doing so, persuade us to believe and embrace the miraculous.
