Q12. Will I See My Pet in Heaven? (Is it OK for Christians to Eat Animals?)

We were supposed to go into the book of Exodus, but there are a couple of Genesis-based questions that need answers, so please allow me to address them first.  The first of them is whether we will get to see our pets in heaven and the second of them (which is related to the first) is whether it is ok for Christians to eat animals.

The first question is something I personally struggled with as recently as 6 months ago.  Chuckie, my pet chinchilla, which was supposed to live up to 20 years, passed away after just 3 short years, two days before Christmas 2012.

I grieved over him and even googled variations of "will my pet go to heaven?"  There were various websites offering contrasting views, but I was earnestly looking for one that would give a strong scriptural basis to support the answer that I would get to see Chuckie again one day.

Unfortunately, there was none and I have gradually but finally accepted the fact that I would never get to do so.  As a way to cope with and come to terms with the grief, I created a photo album of him on Facebook to thank him for the wonderful memories.  You can view that album by clicking on the link below:

A tribute to Chuckie, RIP (Facebook Photo Album)

The truth of the matter is that God created man different and special from all the other living things such as birds, reptiles and animals.  While everything else that was created was spoken into being, man was the only one that was given life via the breath of God.  Eve, was created from Adam, and hence inherited the same properties.

We read in Genesis 1:

²⁰ And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

²⁴ And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

and then again in Genesis 2:

⁷ Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Man was and is the pinnacle of God's creation.  We are made in His image and meant to have a relationship with Him. While animals have only 2 dimensions -- a body and a soul (the mind, the emotions and the will), man has a third dimension -- a spirit.  And spirit beings are eternal in that they live on forever -- either in heaven or in hell.

Those of you with pets may not want to hear this, but animals unfortunately do *not* have a spirit.  The chickens that were slaughtered to provide that Zinger for KFC and the pigs that were slaughtered to provide the pork ribs for Tony Romas would not be resurrected and go to heaven or hell.  Likewise, my pet Chuckie as well as the other pet hamsters that passed on would only live on in our memories.

Which brings me to the other question about whether it is ok for Christians to eat animals.

I was working as an accounting software consultant from 1997 to 2000, and one of my colleagues back then was a vegetarian.

The surprising thing is that he is not a Buddhist nor a Hindu, but a Catholic! He decided to become a vegetarian (together with his entire family) because he feels that plants are free from diseases such as mad cow disease, bird flu, etc. He also mentioned to me that God's original design was for humans and animals to feed on plants only.

Well, he was right in that sense. We read in Gen 1: 29-30

29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

In other words, carnivores that we know of today such as the lion, the eagle, the shark, etc -- the original design was for them to eat plants. While plants were meant to be food, animals were meant to be Adam's playmates. He however did not find a suitable helpmeet among them, so God created Eve to be his phyiscal, emotional and spiritual companion.

Alas, because of the fall, the original divine food chain became altered. God had to kill one of Adam's playmates (most probably a sheep) and use its skin to clothe Adam's and Eve's nakedness (Gen 3:21). As a result of man's sin, the entire creation started to decay and groan. The ground became cursed. Animals killed other animals. Man hunted and killed animals.

God's original design was for mankind to be vegetarians, but the question now is whether it is wrong for us to eat animals. Personally, I do not think so. Sure, although carnivorous attributes came about due to the fall of mankind, God always causes good to come out of something meant for evil. We read many examples in the Bible where patriarchs ate meat and God did not condemn or punish them for doing so. On the contrary, there are even instances where He even told them specifically to eat meat!

For example, we read in Gen 25:28 that Isaac had a taste for wild game, and also in Gen 27:3-4 that he instructed Esau to get his quiver and bow and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for him to eat so that he may give Esau this blessing before he died. We also read in Ex 12 how the Israelites ate the Passover Lamb. We read in Ex 16 that God sent quail in the wilderness for the Israelites to complement their diet of manna. We read in Lev 7 that any male in a priests' family may eat guilt offerings.

And since animals do not have a spirit, it is OK for us to consume their meat for food. However, let us respect the convictions of those that are vegetarians among us. A fellow brother or sister who is a vegetarian for whatever health reasons will not forfeit his mansion in heaven as a result of this :-)

Q4. Are There Aliens in Outer Space?

I am sure many of us would have read stories or seen movies speculating about there being life on other planets in the universe. The sighting of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) is supposed proof of these alien beings.

ET go away, and don't come back, ever.

Among the all-time top-grossing box-office favourites are "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "ET: The Movie".

So what should our response be as Christians to the question, "Are there aliens in outer space?"

Although Scripture does not specifically mention about the above, such beliefs would not be consistent with the gospel story.

In Gen 1, we read about how God created the heavens and the earth (ie. the entire universe) and out of all the thousands if not millions of planets out there, He chose to specifically place life -- the plants, the animals and finally man -- only on planet earth. We read also in Gen 2:18 that God said that it was no good for Adam to be alone, and so He created a suitable helpmeet for him, Eve.

We cannot find in the creation story any indication that God placed any other life forms elsewhere in the universe. Or that He created any other humans besides Adam and Eve. Rather it says that after 6 days, God looked at all that He had created and said it was very good. And then He rested from His work.

In other words, what the Bible says is that mankind originated from one couple -- Adam and Eve. There was no pre-Adamic race, or extra-Adamic race.

In Romans 5, Paul mentions that through the disobedience of one man, Adam, sin and death entered the world:

Romans 5:12
[ Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ ]
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men.

Romans 5:19
For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

In Rom 8:22, he further states that "the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time" because via that one act of disobedience, the entire universe became cursed.

Just for argument's sake, let us suppose that God did create life on some other planet. Wouldn't the devil equally want to cause havoc on that planet since by his very nature, he is an adversary and opponent to the Lord? That being the case, what would make that human on that planet better at withstanding temptations compared to Adam? The argument will then lead to God having to redeem that race as well, Jesus having to have another genealogy through that other man, Jesus having to die for them, and so on. When we take the argument to its logical conclusion, we find that it does not fit in with Scripture. After all, we know that Jesus died for sins once for all (Heb 10:1-3) and cannot be dying all over again for some extra-Adamic race.

So why do people choose to believe that aliens and UFOs exist then? This is because they do not want to believe in a God that is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. They do not want to admit that they are sinners in need of a Saviour.  Rather than believing what the Bible says about creation, they are exchanging truth for a lie (Rom 1:25), believing that somehow, there is a "higher" and "more intelligent" form of life that is able to send spaceships halfway across the universe. God is taken out of the equation.

The unidentified flying objects are at best figments of someone's imagination, and at worst demonic distractions to puts doubts in the minds of people about the credibility of the Bible, since they present an alternative and inconsistent viewpoint to the creation story.

The devil uses different ways and means to get mankind not to believe in God. After all, he is fighting for the souls of men. So we need to be go back to the firm foundation of the Word, and use that to reject counterfeit versions of creation -- be it evolution, or aliens life forms, or some other fascinating story that is devoid of God.

So there you have it.  There are no aliens in outer space, because such a belief is not consistent with the creation story and the gospel story in the Bible.

Next up: Q5. Why did God punish some people yet allow others to get away scot-free?

The answer to this question requires context, and for that, I will first need to introduce the concept of what a pastor friend of mine terms "The Scarlet Thread".  Stay tuned!

Q2. Where Did Adam and Eve's Grandchildren Come From?

OK, let's get down to answering the 1st of the tough questions mentioned in the introductory post, which is "Where did Adam and Eve's grandchildren come from?"

Mom's way of explaining to us the facts of life.

Sometime in the late 1970s, my mom brought my 3 sisters and I into her room one evening, and showed us a book with cartoon illustrations entitled, "Where Did I Come From?"

Basically, that was her way of teaching us about the birds and the bees.

Afternote: I just checked and found that the book is available on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-Come-Peter-Mayle/dp/0818402539

Now with the advent of the Internet, we as parents do not need to bring up this topic because our kids find out about it online or via their peers.

Anyway, back to those days of growing up.  It was impressed upon me that science and the Bible were supposed to be kept separate, and never the twain shall meet. For example, science tells us that the universe came into being via a big bang millions of years ago; the Bible describes how God created everything in 6 days, just over 6,000 years ago, in 4,004 B.C.  Science tells us that we evolved from monkeys; the Bible tells us that we are all descendants of Adam and Eve.

After learning from that book my mom showed me about how humans procreate, and also being told that incest is a crime (even till today), I had a burning question but did not dare to ask anyone about it...

Given that Adam and Eve were the original and only pair of humans on earth, their sons Cain, Abel and Seth, and other children must have come forth from them. No problem with that. But what about the next generation, ie. their grandkids? How did they come about?

There was only one logical answer -- that Adam and Eve's children must have procreated among themselves!  I quickly perished that thought and asked the Lord to forgive me for even harbouring it.

In recent years, I have come to realise that science and the Bible should support each other, or rather, science should support the Bible.  If that is to be so, we should not and cannot run away from tough and difficult questions, but rather seek the answers out fervently so that we can have a settled peace of mind.

For the answer to this (and all other burning questions for that matter), we have to go back to Genesis, in particular chapter 3, whereby Adam and Eve had just partaken of the forbidden fruit, and God kick-started His redemption plan by declaring to Adam, Eve and the devil that a day will come when Jesus (as Eve's seed) would defeat the devil.

If you were the devil, what would you do upon hearing this? Try your utmost to prevent the prophesy from coming to pass!

And so we see him going to work on this straightaway.  In just the next chapter, Gen 4, we read the famous story about the very first murder -- where Cain killed his brother Abel.  When the devil saw that God had accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's, he must have mistaken Abel to be the promised one, and thus inspired Cain to kill Abel.

This view is supported in the New Testament, where John, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recorded in 1 John 3:12 "Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother..."

Thankfully, God was always at least one step ahead of the devil, because Adam and Eve produced another son, Seth (Gen 4:25), and it was through this son that the line continued.

We read in Gen 5:4, "After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters".  Adam's sons and daughters would have had to marry one another in order to have children. In particular, his sons Cain and Seth would have had to marry either their sister or niece.

Before one gets nauseated, do remember that God had commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Also back then, the only command that God told man *not* to do was to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  It was thus perfectly acceptable for a person to marry his own sister, or cousin, or niece, because the effect of the fall would take time to manifest in terms of genetic abnormalities. Hence, we find that Abraham married his half-sister Sarah, while Jacob married his cousins Leah and Rachel.

For that matter, after the flood (which took place in 2,348 B.C.), Noah's grandsons had to marry his granddaughters since everyone else besides his family had perished. It was only many generations later years during the time of Moses (circa 1,450 B.C.) that God said specifically that one could not have sexual relations with his sister (Lev 18:9). By then, the effect of the fall would have been of significance, and marrying a close relative would increase the chances of duplicating a particular gene mutation (which is the medical grounds upon which secular societies forbid incestuous relationships).

So there you have it.  Adam and Eve's grandchildren came as a result of their children marrying among themselves.  And so did Noah's grandchildren, from whom all of us are descendants of.

And it was part of God's command to be fruitful and multiply, and also steps taken towards fulfilling that first prophesy whereby one day, Jesus would come in human form to redeem mankind back to God.

Afternote:  A sister sent me the following link, 
"Who Was Cain's Wife?", 
Thanks Pearly!