During a recent public appearance, Pope Francis comforted a boy whose dog had just died, saying, "One day we will see our animals again in eternity. Paradise is open to all of God's creatures." In 1990, Pope John Paul II said animals have souls, but then Pope Benedict gave a 2008 sermon that seemed to say the opposite.

So let's clear up this papal perplexity, Pastor John. What do you say? Do pets go to heaven? Let me say something about the Pope's words first, the Pope's plural. They're all partly ambiguous. Paradise is open to all God's creatures. Does he mean they will all be there? I doubt it, because the devil's not going to be there, and he's a creature.

So that's not—open to all God's creatures. Hmm. What does that mean? He seemed to settle it when he says, "We will see our animals again in eternity." I'm not sure what "see" means there, really. Some ambiguity there. Animals have souls. Hmm. That's ambiguous, it seems to me, because the Pope knows—he knows his Hebrew— that nefesh, the word that's usually translated "soul," is also translated "living thing." So any being with breath and blood in the Old Testament is distinguished from the plants, and it had life.

The Old Testament didn't think about plants having life, because they had no breath and they had no blood in that sense. And so breathing and blood-coursing things had nefesh, which is usually translated "soul," and it didn't mean soul like we usually mean it for the human being who has a soul in the image of God.

So frankly, I'm not sure what the Popes meant. Their words seemed to me to be slippery, and we'd just do better saying, "What does the Bible say?" So I'll give some thoughts on that. When God created the world, the creation of man is set apart as unique from the animals on day six and is described as creating us in the image of God.

So the soul of man is different from the soul— that is, the coursing of the blood and the breathing of life—found in animals. Man is unique and is meant to have a unique destiny. When the Son of God enters history, He comes as a human being, not as an animal, and He saves humans, and He conforms humans to His own nature as the God-man, not the God-animal.

So by creation and redemption—so the words from Genesis at the beginning, the words of incarnation— God confers on man the unique standing as created in His image and redeemed into God's very family by making Christ the elder brother of this single race of beings called humans. So I really want to emphasize the utter distinction between humans and animals like the Bible does.

Animals, different from us, are conceived in the Bible of not having unique capacities that make them have a personal relationship with God. They can't have it the way we have it. You can hear this in Psalm 32 9, "Be not like a horse or a mule, which don't have understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle." In other words, when the psalmist wants to illustrate the loss of a distinctive thinking capacity of the human being, he uses animals as the illustration.

They don't have it. Animals are unlike man in that they simply perish, and that's that, according to the Bible. There's no thought of them being in the realm of the dead, in shield, like humans, with some future in the same way that man is. There was always the sense in the Old Testament, even the Old Testament that didn't have the clearest vision of eternal life.

There was always the impulse in biblical faith, Old and New Testament, that man would not merely perish, but would have a future beyond life here. But beasts, they simply perish, Psalm 42 12, Ecclesiastes 3 19. So the animals, all of them, are seen in relation to man as what?

As food. This is amazing. I just read this in my devotions. That's why I thought of it. This is a crucial evidence of the different place that animals have in God's creation. In Genesis 9, here's what God says to Noah after the flood. "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, and upon all that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea into your hand.

They are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you." That's what? Every living thing is food for you. I mean, could you say it any clearer? Animals are in two absolutely distinct categories. One is in the image of God, and the other is eaten by things that are in the image of God.

And he says, "And as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything for food." So in God's mind, there's man, and there's everything else that lives. There is man, and there's food for man. It's hard to be sentimental about this. But it is an absolute qualitative distinction between man and animal.

So if there is any possibility that animals will be in eternity, in the new heavens and the new earth, it's not based on their being like us, or having a soul, or being cute, or lovable, or in the same category that we are. Man is unique. Man is in the image of God.

Man is the focus of salvation through the God/Man, Jesus Christ. So the likelihood that animals will be in the age to come, and I think it is a likelihood, is based on Isaiah 11 and Isaiah 65. It goes like this. Count these animals as I say them. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fatted calf together, and the little child shall lead them, the cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox, the nursing child shall play upon the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." That's Isaiah 11. Here's Isaiah 65. "The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, the lion shall eat straw like an ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food." Oh my.

"They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord." I count 10. Ten animals named in describing the age to come. Now, you might take all that as symbolical pictures of peace, but it seems to me a very odd way of talking if you don't mean it literally.

No animals are going to be there, but let's use animals to illustrate human peace. I think that's weird. No, it looks to me like they're really going to be there. The reason I take those texts so seriously is that when I ask a couple of questions, I give a certain answer.

Here's the question. Did God create a group of beings only to destroy them in the end? A whole group, like animals. Let's have animals for history and no animals for eternity. I doubt it. Did he create amazing diversity in the animal realm only to simplify everything by getting rid of all that diversity in the age to come so that you have stunning, amazed worship at God's diversity and creation in history, but you don't have it in the age to come?

That's all gone. I doubt that. And so it does seem to me from these two texts and from those two principles that there will be animals in the age to come now. Lastly, with regard to specific pets being raised from the dead, that would, I think, be pure speculation.

The only biblical pointer that might cause you to think that would be that God intends you to be fully happy in him. And if the presence of that pet is essential for you to know and love God that way, I suspect he'll be there. That might be what I would say to a four-year-old.

On the other hand, to the 15-year-old or the 35- or the 85-year-old lady who just lost her cat, I would say it is spiritually perilous to cultivate a love for an animal that has such a prominent place in your heart you think you need him for eternity. Thank you, Pastor John, for tackling this question.

We need to break for the weekend, but we will return on Monday to talk about parenting teenagers, specifically talking to teenagers. And if you're a teen or the parent of a teen, don't miss our episode coming up on Monday. Until then, please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

And as always, you can visit us online at desiringgod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a wonderful weekend.