Will we know each other in heaven?

Suffering, Evil & Hard QuestionsIn theological review

The short answer

The Bible gives good reason to expect that we will know each other in heaven, though it answers the question indirectly. Jesus's teaching that there is no marriage in the resurrection answers a question about marriage, not about recognition. His parable of the rich man and Lazarus pictures the dead recognising one another, and Paul comforts grieving believers with a reunion: the dead in Christ rise, and then the living are caught up together with them, with the Lord.

The fuller answer

The doubt usually comes from one saying of Jesus, so read it for the question it actually answered. Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, posed a puzzle about a woman married seven times: whose wife would she be at the resurrection? Jesus replied that at the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be like the angels. That settles the status of marriage in the age to come. It says nothing about memory, friendship or recognition, and using it to dissolve every earthly bond reads far more into it than its question put there.

In the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven.

Matthew 22:30 (BSB)

Jesus's parable of the rich man and Lazarus, labelled as a parable and read as one, still assumes something its hearers were meant to find natural: the dead in it recognise each other. The rich man knows Lazarus by sight and Abraham by name, across the divide. A story's background assumptions are not its main teaching, and this one's main teaching is about wealth and repentance. But Jesus did not build the scene on amnesia. Recognition after death was apparently an assumption he could use without any hearer objecting that the dead know no one.

Now there was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in joyous splendor. And a beggar named Lazarus lay at his gate, covered with sores and longing to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham from afar, with Lazarus by his side. So he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. For I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, while you are in agony. And besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that even those who wish cannot cross from here to you, nor can anyone cross from there to us.’ ‘Then I beg you, father,’ he said, ‘send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also end up in this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let your brothers listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone is sent to them from the dead, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

Luke 16:19-31 (BSB)

Paul's great comfort passage deserves to be heard for the comfort it actually gives. Writing to believers grieving their dead, he does not say they will meet strangers or no one. He says the dead in Christ will rise first, and then the living will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord, and so be with the Lord forever. The word together does the work. The reunion is real, its centre is Christ, and Paul ends by telling them to encourage one another with these words, which would be odd medicine if the words promised anonymity.

Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (BSB)

Other glimpses point the same way. Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus on the mountain, recognised and named, centuries after their deaths. Jesus promised his disciples they would eat and drink at his table in the kingdom, as themselves, with their names on thrones they recognised as theirs. Resurrection, in the Bible, is the raising of persons, not their replacement. We will know Christ first and best, and the loves he gave us will not need to be unlearned to make room for him. He is not a rival to them. He is their giver.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.

Dig deeper

No answer here is a dead end. Follow the question on, test it in practice, or work the method yourself on the Dig deeper page.

What is heaven like?Heaven, in the Bible's final picture, is a renewed earth, not an escape from one: God dwelling with his people in a vast, garden like city, with death, mourning, crying and pain ended, and a river and a tree of life at its centre. Scripture holds two things together: Paul says no eye has seen what God has prepared, and Revelation still gives real pictures. They are pictures, stated plainly, of a real place.What is the resurrection of the body?The resurrection of the body is the Christian hope that God will raise the dead bodily at Christ's return, transforming the bodies of believers into imperishable, glorious bodies like Christ's own. It is not a soul escaping the body forever: it is the body redeemed. Paul devotes the longest chapter in his letters to it and stakes everything on it: if Christ has not been raised, he says, the faith is futile.What happens between death and the resurrection?Scripture teaches that those who die in Christ are with him immediately, consciously and in rest, while they await the resurrection of the body: to be away from the body, Paul says, is to be at home with the Lord. Jesus promised the dying thief that they would be together in paradise that day. The view called soul sleep, that the dead are unconscious until the resurrection, is stated fairly below, but the direct statements of Jesus and Paul point the other way.What happens when we die?The Bible says we die once, and after that face judgment. For those who trust Christ, death is not the end or a long unconscious wait: Jesus told the dying thief, today you will be with me in Paradise. Beyond that lies what the whole story leans toward, resurrection of the body and a renewed world where death itself is finished.Bible Character: JesusThe Son of God, born of Mary in Bethlehem, who preached the kingdom of God, was crucified for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised on the third day.Bible Character: MosesThe prophet who led Israel out of slavery in Egypt, received the Law on Mount Sinai, and brought the people to the edge of Canaan.Bible Character: ElijahThe prophet from Tishbe who shut the heavens by his word, faced down the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.Bible Character: PaulThe Pharisee who persecuted the church until the risen Jesus stopped him on the Damascus road, and who became his apostle to the Gentiles, travelling the Roman world and writing many of the New Testament letters.Bible Character: LazarusThe friend of Jesus at Bethany, brother of Martha and Mary, who died and lay four days in the tomb, and came out alive at Jesus' call.Lesson: Context changes everythingTwo of the most quoted verses in the Bible are usually quoted wrong. Read them in context and watch what changes.