Will we know our loved ones when we get to heaven?

Q. Will we know our loved ones when we get to heaven?

Yes, I am convinced that we will. The Bible depicts heaven as a place where individual personalities are still distinct and recognizable. Jesus said, for example, that “many will come from the east and the west and take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” A hymn that I like very much (“Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand”) sums up this idea well in what I consider to be biblical language:

Then oh what glad reunions on Canaan’s happy shore,
What knitting severed friendships up, when partings be no more.
Then eyes will shine with gladness that brimmed with tears of late,
Orphans no more fatherless, nor widows desolate.

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Author: Christopher R Smith

The Rev. Dr. Christopher R. Smith is an an ordained minister, a writer, and a biblical scholar. He was active in parish and student ministry for twenty-five years. He was a consulting editor to the International Bible Society (now Biblica) for The Books of the Bible, an edition of the New International Version (NIV) that presents the biblical books according to their natural literary outlines, without chapters and verses. His Understanding the Books of the Bible study guide series is keyed to this format. He was also a consultant to Tyndale House for the Immerse Bible, an edition of the New Living Translation (NLT) that similarly presents the Scriptures in their natural literary forms, without chapters and verses or section headings. He has a B.A. from Harvard in English and American Literature and Language, a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Gordon-Conwell, and a Ph.D. in the History of Christian Life and Thought, with a minor concentration in Bible, from Boston College, in the joint program with Andover Newton Theological School.

2 thoughts on “Will we know our loved ones when we get to heaven?”

    1. I don’t actually see an inconsistency between people retaining their personalities/individual identities in heaven and their not retaining the roles that they had while on earth, for example, husband and wife. Marriage is something that God instituted at creation to serve specific purposes on earth. However, the foundation of a happy and healthy marriage is friendship between the spouses, and I am confident that that friendship continues in heaven.

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