All Dogs Go to Heaven?

Lost my dog of 14 and a half years today.  It's amazing the little things one takes for granted when they have a pet for such a long time and moments after they're gone, you miss them.  Like when I was laying on the couch watching t.v. like I've done so many times before, Ranger (named after the NY Hockey team) would stick her nose in my face.  It more often than not annoyed me, but what I'd give to have her stick her disgusting snout in my face.  The little things in life, which really turn out to be the big things that impact us so often get lost in the shuffle.  It's a lesson we never learn, until it's too late.  

There was a popular movie when I was younger called, "All Dogs Go to Heaven."  The plot surrounded around dogs who were also angels, because they had died and gone to heaven.  It's a story I have always laughed and never took seriously.  But when I got the news early this morning that the dog I have had since I was in first grade had passed away, the theologian in me began racing for answers.  The theologian in me had none.  No dogs go to heaven, no dog or pet makes it to everlasting life...or do they?  I stumbled upon this:

Q. My four-year-old son wants to know if he will see his dog when he dies and goes to heaven. Will he? Do I tell him that even though God created all the animals too, people are the only ones that go to heaven?

A. In the "Q&A" column of the January 1995 issue of the "Northwestern Lutheran" (the official periodical of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod), Rev. John Brug gives the following helpful response to the question, "Will there be animals in heaven?"

Since animals do not have immortal souls, we might think the answer is no. Several facts, however, make one hesitant to be satisfied with a simple "no." Our eternal home is a new earth (Isaiah 65:17ff, 2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1). Isaiah 65:25 speaks of it as a place in which the wolf and the lamb live together peacefully.

This may be figurative language, but one other passage suggests animals might be in our eternal home. Romans 8:21 says that "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage." In this present, sin-cursed world, we inflict suffering on animals, and they inflict suffering on us. At Christ's coming, when this world is freed from the effects of sin, animals, too, will be freed from suffering.

That text also says the creation will be "brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." That might mean there may be plants and animals in the new earth as there were in the first earth. If there are animals on the new earth, they will be good creatures of God as the animals of the first earth were.

In short, the answer is a cautious "maybe."

A cautious maybe.  From where I'm sitting right now, I'll take that.  It is the curse of sin upon the world that leads to tragedies such as losing a pet.  And it is just another reminder of how creation waits and groans for that day when there will be no more tears, no more pain, and no more fear.  Christ's victory on the cross and His resurrection is what assures us that this day is coming.