I’m not sure how many churches today still incorporate in their worship the traditional “Doxology” sung to the tune of the “Old Hundredth.” It was so common in the past and familiar enough now that in almost any crowd gathered anywhere in the English-speaking world, if you started singing it, you’d likely be joined by the majority—much like the singing of “Amazing Grace.” I’ve always loved it:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The thought of “all creatures here below” praising God captured my imagination as a kid. But it was not until I was older that I realized how much the Bible says about animals (even trees, rivers, mountains) worshiping God. The most direct instance is this passage in the book of the Revelation:

KEY SCRIPTURE:
I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13-14).

This heavenly praise to Christ who is about to ascend the throne of the Kingdom comes after the wonderful truth rendered so poetically in the previous chapter: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (4:11). The KJV says, “For thy pleasure they are and were created.” I like that translation.  From Job 38-41 we know that God takes delight in even the most ferocious and quirky creatures.

Most important, however, is that “all creatures here below” offer their praise in response to the fact that Jesus, the Lamb, died to redeem fallen mankind—those who were initially supposed to be their righteous caretakers—a task we have mostly failed at. Our becoming once again what God made us to be is, in fact, just what Paul hints at in his letter to the church in Rome about nature: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19-21).

This has been a series on pets, but in reality we shouldn’t forget that our pets are merely the animals closest and most dear to us. But in some mysterious way, all living creatures—in their own natures—have a capacity to respond to their Creator. The response we read of most frequently in Scripture is that of praise. We believe that they praise God by doing the work God gave them to do. However else they may praise Him is beyond us—and between them and their Creator (and where we should not interfere). Here’s a thrilling truth about our pets—about all animals: we are all worshipers together! And nature itself is looking forward to our once again becoming, as redeemed “children of God,” not just righteous caretakers, but righteous caregivers.

Theologian Richard Bauckham in his recent book,Living With Other Creatures: Green Exegesis and Theology, has given us some important words to consider:

It is much more obvious that other creatures can help us to worship God than that we can help other creatures to. In the order of praise in Psalm 148 . . . all other creatures are called to worship before humans are called to join them. The creatures help us to worship primarily by their otherness that draws us out of our self-absorption into a world that exists not for us but for God’s glory. . . . The more we praise God with the other creatures, the more we shall want to resist the relentless trend towards total humanizing of the world in which the rest of creation will have become no more than the material from which we have fashioned a world of our own creation. . . . It is not our vocation to absorb the whole created world into our own human life this way. . . . At the present juncture of our history with creation, it is probably most important to emphasize that we need, much more than we have done, to allow creation’s praise by letting it be [pp. 154-155].

We all take “road kill” in stride, not being bothered much about animal slaughter on our highways—unless, of course, it is a pet. But I don’t think their Creator “takes it in stride.” We might be benefited by allowing the sight of such “collateral damage” of human technology to be a reminder to pray again for God’s will “to be done on earth as it is in heaven” when animals will no longer fear us but stand side by side with us in praise and worship of our mutual Creator and Savior.

If you continue reading the biblical story about Nathan and David in 2 Samuel 12 [see Friday’s post], you discover another very important understanding about life and death: because of God’s judgment, David and Bathsheba lost the child they conceived in sin, even though David fasted, slept on the ground, and pleaded with God for seven days to spare the child.  Yet when the child died, David ended his acts of remorse.  His servants were curious about that; so David told them, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

Many biblical commentators believe that what David was implying here is what John Wesley understood: “Seeing [that] fasting and prayer cannot now prevail with God for his life. I shall go to him—into the state of the dead in which he is, and into heaven, where I doubt not I shall find him.” Understood that way this statement by David has brought a great deal of comfort over the centuries to those who have lost loved ones—children especially.  And it would certainly help answer some of our questions about God’s commanding Israel to judge the Canaanites by putting to death every man, woman, and child.  Were not the souls of the innocents more blessed in the loving arms of their Maker than suffering under the abuse of the wicked?

But what does that have to do with the destiny of animals—like the pet lamb in Nathan’s parable?  Consider some fascinating thoughts by George MacDonald in his commentary on Romans 8:18-24:

KEY SCRIPTURE:
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved (Romans 8:18-24).

MacDonald believed that the aspects of nature referenced to by Paul were sentient animals, and he asks these questions about them:

Are these not worth making immortal? How, then, were they worth calling out of the depth of non-being? Is it a greater deed to make be that which was not than to seal it with an infinite immortality: did God do that which was not worth doing? What He thought worth making [do] you think not worth continuing made! You would have Him go on forever creating new things with one hand, and annihilating those he had made with the other—for I presume you would not prefer the earth to be without animals!

http://mike-Ivey.fineartamerica.com

If it were harder for God to make the former go on living than to send forth new, then His creatures were no better than the toys which a child makes, and destroys as he makes them. For what good, for what divine purpose is the Maker of the sparrow present at its death if He does not care what becomes of it? What is He there for, I repeat, if He have no care that it go well with His bird in its dying, that it be neither comfortless nor lost in the abyss? If His presence be no good to the sparrow, are you very sure what good it will be to you when your hour comes? Believe it is not by a little only that the Heart of the universe is tenderer, more loving, more just and fair than yours or mine. . . .

I know of no reason why I should not look for the animals to rise again, in the same sense in which I hope myself to rise again—which is to reappear clothed with another and better form of life than before. If the Father will raise His children, why should He not also raise those whom He has taught His little ones to love? Love is the one bond of the universe, the heart of God, the life of His children: if animals can be loved, they are loveable; if they can love, they are yet more plainly loveable: love is eternal; how then should its object perish? [George MacDonald, Book: The Hope of the Gospel, Chapter: “The Hope of the Universe”]

To be truthful, I’m not sure what to make of George MacDonald’s implications.  Because his commentary is a series of questions, I feel confident that MacDonald is expressing a hope and not declaring that the Bible insists that the animals we loved will join us in Glory.  It’s a hope based on what we know about the love of God.

Hubble Deep Space photos

Logic would make the observation that there would have to be a lot of room in heaven for all those animals.  Human logic, however, is finite.  The Hubble telescope, for instance, with its deep space photographs has given us evidence of magnitudes that surpass what human minds can grasp: billions of galaxies each with billions of stars, many of which may be surrounded by untold numbers of planets.  So our Creator has likely made enough of these to give an entire planet to every animal that has ever lived!

Enjoy the blessing of and responsibility for pets while they live, and when their souls return to their Maker at death, know that their ultimate fate is in the loving hands that were pierced for you and whose brow bled from the thorns of the loving curse He intended all along to reverse.  When that happens, we can know that the blessings we have known here will be surpassed in ways beyond present human imagination.  God’s love and care for His creatures is far greater than ours!  Why not take a few minutes to contemplate how amazing our loving Savior is by watching the classic duet by Sandi Patti and Larnelle Harris on YouTube here.
[Crown of thorns image source]

Frisky was by far my most favorite childhood pet. A beagle/fox terrier mix, he was the terror of the local rabbit population—once almost catching one before it ducked into a small culvert. Sadly, his love for chasing rabbits led to his demise.

At 13, and living in Grandville, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids, I could not carry a gun anymore lethal than a BB-gun. So I’d “pretend hunt” with Frisky—often walking the fence rows of the nearby Zondervan farm (where the founders of Zondervan Publishing grew up). One late summer day we were walking a fallow field with grasses and goldenrod over hip high, and I heard Frisky yelp that a chase was on. I couldn’t see him, but started in the direction of the road toward which the two seemed to be heading—only to be stopped short by the chilling sound of screeching brakes and what turned out to be Frisky’s final yelp. The car sped on, and after a short search I discovered my pal obviously breathing his last under a bush near the road. [Beagle/fox terrier mix photo source]

After many tears issued from my broken heart—and my declaration to my mom that “I will never be happy again”—I did the dutiful thing and buried him where our yard met the garden behind the house. There he lay in peace until I was a junior in high school. His rest was disturbed at that time by my act of transplanting some wild red cedars at the same spot, which had not been marked. In my digging I discovered Frisky’s bones, and because I had taken biology the year before, I was curious about the skeleton. After studying it for a while, I decided to honor my beloved pet by cleaning up his skull, painting it white, “gilding” its teeth with gold paint, and displaying it on my bedroom dresser (Remember, I was a teenager!). There it stayed until I left for college—but not before donating the skull to the Grandville High School biology lab. And that’s where Frisky continued to educate for years!  [Boy with BB-gun photo source]

Yes, pets give us great joy—and eventual grief as we outlive so many of them. The love we have for them played an important part in one of the most significant stories of the Old Testament:

KEY SCRIPTURE:
The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”  David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own’ (2 Samuel 12:1-10).

Nathan’s parable is instructive in many ways. It affirms that the making of gentle animals into personal pets has been in practice for millennia and that pets often have an honored place in the household as virtual members of one’s family. Further, David’s reaction indicates that he understands well the compassion people have for their pets and the grief that is felt at their loss.

[I’d like to continue this discussion of pets in my next post. In the meanwhile, you might enjoy reading a story of mine about a pet pigeon that I rescued from the Zondervan barn: “Conversion of the Birdslayer.”]

I’ll never forget the almost mystical experience a friend and I had on a July day at the top of Beartooth Pass just north of Yellowstone. We had stopped to see what a couple other folks were looking at down a slopping shoulder that still had a large patch of snow that was reflecting light and evaporating rapidly in the hot sun, which created a low ground fog.  There seemed to be an animal apparition moving in the mist—seemingly a couple feet off the ground.  It was walking straight toward us with slow deliberation.  When it moved out of the snow and onto the dark stony soil, we could finally see that it was a mountain goat with its winter wool only half shed.  We remained mesmerized (with cameras clicking) as it walked to within ten feet of us before crossing the road toward higher ground.  The photos I shot show why it seemed at first to be some disembodied animal spirit.

But back to our question. What clearly distinguishes people from animals is not the possession of a soul or spirit: it’s what theologians call the imago Dei: Mankind was created “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27). Animals were not.  Further, people were made responsible for the other living creatures because he has power and dominion over them.  Being in God’s image and working in God’s service, man is the earth’s responsible species (Gen. 1:26-30; Psalm 8).

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind : cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind “; and it was so (Gen. 1:24).
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living being (Gen. 2:7).
All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” (Eccl. 3:20-21).

John Wesley in his classic sermon on man and animals, “The General Deliverance” (Nov. 30, 1781), speaks of our responsibilities to animals. In the sermon, Wesley shows great compassion and concern for the “brute creation,” and even states his belief that man and animals share self-motion, understanding, will, and liberty. He even believed that before the Fall animals had “some shadowy resemblance of even moral goodness” in that as people were to obey God, animals were to be subservient to people. Yet when he speaks of people, Wesley says that “man was God’s vice-regent upon the earth, the prince and governor of this lower world. . . . What makes the barrier between men and brutes? . . . It is this: man is capable of God; the inferior creatures are not.”  I’m not sure, though, what he means by that.

Wesley also believed, as do many Bible scholars, that the animal kingdom was cursed because of Adam’s sin and that it does not give much evidence today of what its glory was in Eden. He understood that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ provided for the redemption of mankind—and of the animal kingdom. He was convinced that the present suffering of animals under the curse and under the cruel hand of fallen man would be recompensed by their sharing in the glory to come. In reference to Romans 8:19-22 and Revelation 21:5 he believed that “the whole brute creation will then undoubtedly be restored, not only to the vigor, strength, and swiftness which they had at the creation, but to a far higher degree of each than they ever enjoyed.” C. I.  Scofield adds, “Even the animal and material creation, cursed for man’s sake, will be delivered by Christ.”

This begs the question as to whether there is a soul or spiritual essence in each individual animal that survives death and will once again, in the “general deliverance,” be reunited with a glorified body. Do all dogs really go to heaven? The Bible, of course, does not say. However, since the Bible does say that in the future messianic kingdom there will be animals freed from the curse (Isa. 11:6-9), it is not out of the question to suggest that such animals could be the same ones who left their sin-ravaged bodies on the old earth and were graced by the Creator to now inhabit new bodies. However, that would indeed be merely an assumption—yet the hope of many (C. S.  Lewis and George MacDonald, for instance).

Evangelical scholar John Piper in his book Future Grace includes a poem he wrote about the coming kingdom. These lines underscore the often unexpressed hope many of us have about pets that have died:

And as I knelt beside a brook
To drink eternal life, I took
A glance across the golden grass,
And saw my dog, old Blacky, fast
As she could come. She leaped the stream—
Almost— and what a happy gleam
Was in her eye. I knelt to drink,
And knew that I was on the brink
Of endless joy. And everywhere
I turned I saw a wonder there.

In the light of all we know about the grandeur of God’s creation, about His love for mankind, about His care for the sparrow that falls, and about His plan to include the animals in the future kingdom, we certainly have grounds for considering with great remorse the manner in which mankind has added evil cruelty to the effects of the Fall already borne by the animals. It certainly would please the Creator for man, the crown of creation, to begin to behave more in keeping with the way we will be expected to behave in the kingdom to come when there truly will be “joy to the world.”

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow.
Far as the curse is found.

While many who hold to the authority of the Bible today are convinced that animals have souls, it’s likely that the majority believe they don’t. Whatever the opinion, it seems probable that the beliefs of most Christians on this issue are not based on clearly understood biblical passages. The reason for this isn’t hard to determine: the Scriptures that make reference to the soul are general and rather confusing.

[Note: One of the most referenced WOC posts is the one written on animal souls in July of 2009.  It was a long post taken from an article I wrote a number of years ago.  Because of the high interest in the topic (apparently a common Web search topic) I am repeating it here in two parts: today's post and the following one.  Please feel free to comment on them. ~DO]

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind : cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind “; and it was so (Gen. 1:24).

Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living being (Gen. 2:7).

All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth? (Eccl. 3:20-21).

A simple answer to the question of animal souls based on the first two chapters of Genesis would affirm that animals do have a soul of some sort. In Genesis 1:20, 24 the Creator calls for the water and the land to bring forth “living creatures.” The Hebrew words for this expression are nephesh chay. The term chay is derived from chayah, a root word meaning “to live.”

The term nephesh is from the root word that means “to breathe,” and it is translated throughout the OT as “soul.” The King James Version of the Bible translates the expression nephesh chay as “moving creatures that hath life.” Curiously, however, the KJV translates the expression as “living soul” when it is used to identify mankind in Genesis 2:7: “and man became a living soul.” It’s likely that the two different renderings of the same terms have led to the understanding that animals merely have life but people have souls. The New International Version, on the other hand, avoids this dichotomy by translating both uses of the expression as “living creature.”

To complicate matters even more, in Deuteronomy 12:23 the word nephesh is used to explain why blood should not be eaten with the meat: “But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life (nephesh) and you must not eat the life with the meat” (NIV). This is echoed in Lev. 17:11 and other passages regarding the levitical laws. This would appear to give nephesh a material meaning. So in one instance it seems to be more non-material as the “soul” and in another instance it seems to be material.

Even more confusing is the fact that in the account of the Flood it speaks of the destruction “of every creature that hath the breath of life (ruwach) in it” (Gen. 6:17 NIV). The Hebrew term ruwach is usually translated as “spirit” in most other OT passages where it is used. This word is used in Ecclesiastes 3:21 to refer to both the “spirit” of people and the “spirit” of animals. So it appears that even “spirit” can be attributed to both animals and mankind. The more direct Hebrew meaning of ruwach is also “to breathe” or “exhale.” So the two words that are variously translated “soul” and “spirit” actually have a similar meaning. This no doubt adds to the controversy about whether or not people are composed of three parts or two (trichotomism vs. dichotomism).

Nonetheless, these and several other Scripture passages give support to the belief that animals do indeed have a soul/spirit. Even conservative Bible scholar C.I. Scofield, who strongly influenced the Dispensational views of many Baptist and Bible churches, comments, “In the sense of conscious life [implied by the term nephesh], an animal also has a soul.”  What’s unfortunate is that many non-Christians conclude that there is no fundamental difference between people and animals.  That conclusion, however, is unfounded. What clearly distinguishes people from animals is not the possession of a soul or spirit: it’s what theologians call the imago Dei: Mankind was created “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27). Animals were not.  Further, people were made responsible for the other living creatures because he has power and dominion over them.  Being in God’s image and working in God’s service, man is the earth’s responsible species (Gen. 1:26-30; Psalm 8).