I had a really deep conversation with some close family members over dinner, and we ended up on the topic of what happens when we get to heaven, specifically whether we’ll have any awareness of the loved ones who didn’t make it there with us.
Do you remember your unsaved family members when you are in heaven? That must be torment…
Forgetting unsaved family would feel like losing them twice.
Isaiah says the former things won’t come to mind. Maybe it means the sorrow finally loses the hold it has on me now.
The Bible never says we lose our memories in heaven, and Jesus still has the scars from what happened to him on earth.
Revelation 21:4 says God wipes away every tear.
Once we see God’s justice and mercy, we’ll agree with his judgments, even about the people we love most.
Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus shows some awareness of family.
Only God fully knows what happened in anyone’s heart.
Either way, pray for them and talk with them about Christ while they’re still around.
Leaving hearts to God freed me to keep praying, and Randy Newman’s Bringing the Gospel Home helped me start those family conversations.
The rich man pleading for his 5 brothers has always struck me, since even in torment he still remembered and worried about his family.
In 65:17 ‘former things’ means the old order of suffering and grief that won’t trouble God’s people anymore… It doesn’t read like God wiping specific people out of our memory.
I don’t think I could ever call eternal punishment for finite choices “just,” even while still loving someone. Maybe trusting God means accepting there’s something about his justice and mercy I can’t grasp yet.
Former things are passed away (Revelation 21:4). If that’s true, I can’t see how painful memories of lost loved ones would still weigh on us there.
The martyrs in Revelation 6 are asking God to avenge their blood… they wait and acknowledge what happened and God honors that with white robes.
It feels validating because it shows we don’t have to suppress our memories to be whole in eternity.
God says He’s creating new heavens and a new earth, and the former things won’t come to mind. We’ll be glad and rejoice forever in what He creates.
This is one reason I’m drawn to annihilationism (the idea that the unsaved cease to exist rather than suffer eternally). But it does change things. Remembering them in heaven, I mean. It feels less brutal somehow.
The whole memory-wipe idea feels Orwellian to me.
If heaven needs not knowing what happened to the people I love most, it can’t be heaven, at least not for me.
You’ll be so focused on worshiping God that nothing else will even register. Complete peace, all attention on Him forever.
Hard to imagine heaven involves some memory wipe after Luke 16. The rich man could recognize Lazarus and Abraham from across that chasm. It wasn’t vague awareness, he knew exactly who they were.
No sadness in heaven. Or maybe we won’t be able to see what’s happening on earth either, or both… But watching family go through hard things down here while we’re up there would be its own torment.
Loving others and keeping His commandments has given me more peace about unsaved family than anything else.
Our theology might be technically right. It should sound like Jesus weeping at Lazarus’ tomb first, long before it sounds like a courtroom summary.
Maybe family grief gets transformed too, through belonging fully to God’s household.
Luke 20:36. “They can’t die anymore.”
Souls in God’s presence, still remembering being killed, ask how long until it’s set right.
Memory of earthly life seems to stick around, but it comes out as crying to God for justice instead of despair.