Life After Death

A precious child was dead and the father was in great sorrow; but in his sorrow he comforted his heart with this assurance, "I shall go to him but he shall not return to me."

The father was David, the great King of Israel, and David believed in the hereafter. He believed that his child was in heaven and that in the end he would go to him there and he would recognize him and know him as his own dear child.

Author John R. Gunn notes that in literature outside the Bible we find the same belief ... that we shall know our loved ones and friends on the other side. In The Odyssey, Homer represents Odysseus in the world beyond meeting and talking with many whom he had known on earth.

In all ages men universally have believed in a conscious life of mutual recognition in the hereafter. The very fact of its universality is a warrant for regarding it as a prophecy of the truth. For truth is universal; error is sectional.

Another fact is this: self-consciousness is a characteristic of life and there can be no consciousness of self without a consciousness of others. It follows as a logical sequence that if immortality is a reality, heavenly recognition is a reality.

But our supreme authority is the Bible itself. All through the Bible there are glimpses into the heavenly world and every glimpse reveals the redeemed in blessed and happy companionship. We accept the Bible's assurance that we shall know each other in Heaven as positive and certain.

In this assurance we comfort our hearts concerning our departed dear ones and friends who have died in the faith with a sure confidence we expect to see them and know them in the world above.