 | The Reverend Doctor Cathy Northrup was born in Ft. Meade, MD, and was raised in a variety of places in the United State and Germany, as her father was in Counter Intelligence with the Army. She graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN, with a double major in English and Religion. She graduated from Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC, and practiced law with the Federal Reserve Board for a number of years before attending Union Theological Seminaryin Richmond, VA. She graduated from Union, and served several churches in North and South Carolina, at the same time obtaining her Doctor of Ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ. Dr. Northrup is currently the Pastor/Head of Staff of First Presbyterian Church, Wichita, KS. She is married and has two black Labrador dogs who were rescued from abusive situations. You can contact Dr. Northrup at cnorthrup@firstpresbywichita.org or by phone at (316) 263-0248, ext. 26. |
Religion
2006-11-01 08:56:00
Will we all get along in Heaven?
There are many verses in the Bible that show heaven to be a place of absolute happiness, including 1 Corinthians 2:9. My wife and I have been married for many years. I am happier being with her than with anyone else. Suppose I die first, and she remarries, and all of us (me, her, and her new husband) end up in Heaven. Will I spend an eternity watching her with her new husband? Will he spend an eternity watching me with her? How does all of this work out?
ANSWER: In Jesus' conversation with the Sadducees in Matthew 22:23-33 (see also Mark 12 and Luke 20), the Sadducees asked Jesus a similar question, not with genuine concern about the answer, but as "bait" or a "trap" for him. They didn't believe in the resurrection, so they were challenging him. He knew that they weren't really interested in his answer, so he addressed their question less pastorally than one might in the first part of his answer, and in the second part of his answer, he addressed their intent.
I sense you ask this question with genuine concern about the answer, however, especially given your situation. My answer, then, would be that as Jesus said, life after death is something beyond a continuation of the kind of life we know here on earth; our minds cannot even comprehend what eternal life will be like. We do know, however, that, as you note, it will be pure joy. We are to hold fast to that. I would add that an early theologian warned Christians not to "speculate about the future in heaven." His point was that we are to trust in the promises of God and not be anxious about trying to "figure it all out."
I find Job's wisdom helpful here. Job noted that he should not "utter what he did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." He noted only "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at last he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another."
