Momof3inOK wrote:
God did have animals in the Garden of Eden. Before the fall, they communed with humans. Remember, Adam's 1st job was to name them all. Heaven is suppose to be utopia, as the garden was intended. God saved them from the flood. He gave them to us as gifts, companions. Remember He is preparing a place for you still. He only took 6 days for the rest of it. If He created it for the garden, I believe they will be part of the beauty of heaven.
You are correct in that animals were a part of God's creation and God presented the animals to Adam for him to name them. Before the fall of man all was at peace in the Garden which God created for His pleasure. God placed man in the Garden to tend it and also to eat from the fruit of it, not the flesh of the animals. When man fell from grace, God covered their naked bodies with the skin of an animal thus the first blood was shed to cover the sins of man.
So, an animal became the first sacrifice, first blood shed in the Garden and the beast of the wild became an enemy of man, a carnivore, a flesh eater. Thus God's creation was changed from that of being at peace with all creation to having a state of fear instilled in the beast of the wild and man became the hunted prey of the Lion, Tiger, and so on.
In the Heaven and new Earth peace will once again reign with all of God's creation and there will be an everlasting peace without fear, death and disease. Therefore if God created in the beginning the animals that Adam named and placed them in the Garden to be at peace with man, why wouldn't He also place them in the new Heaven and Earth?
The big question is this... will those animals that have lived with us as our fur babies, our children, will they be given a place with us in Heaven? Will we be joined together again? Now that would drive some Theologians crazy and most likely get me driven from the Baptist church if I were to state that as fact.
So where does that leave Rainbow Bridge? I wouldn't touch that topic with a ten foot pole -- only to say that I love the idea of it and it does bring comfort to think that the spirit of our beloved pets do wait for us somewhere to join them once again.
With that I will leave this subject to someone much wiser thanI am.
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Wife Sue
Pets: Rainbow Bridge: Bart, Old Fella, Levi, Charlie, Mama, Hobo, Izzie, Peaches. Others Suzie, Dixie.
Old Fella Burke County Animal Rescue