Observing History

Q

Recently, you made comments to the effect that departed saints are or will be able to travel back and forth in time observing history. My problem is the lack of scripture support. I’ve thought about this a lot in the past and always come back to the same question. How will God remove our tears if we can see all the people that made the wrong choices in history and are condemned to hell, including the cruelty. I know there seems to be an agreement that we’ll be able to see or understand how God’s plan came together, although I don’t see scripture for that either, but more feasible than observing details that are clearly sad. This sense of sadness really bothers me, how do you explain observing history without extreme sadness?

A

First we have to remember that after the rapture, our life will be filled with unmitigated joy. Rev. 21:4 says God will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things will have passed away.

Second, 1 Cor. 13:12 says after we are perfected we will know fully even as we are fully known. To me that means all the knowledge and experience of the age of man will be available to us.

Third, 1 John 3:2 says what we’ll be like has not yet been made knows to us, but when we see the Lord we will be like He is. That means we’ll see things as He sees them.

These verses mean we will share His perspective of history and will have His understanding of past events.

But the most important thing to keep in mind at this point is that we have no idea of how we’ll think about things like this after we’re perfected. Trying to imagine it is futile, because we only have the experience of our current fallen state as a reference. Instead we have to trust that the Lord will make good on His promise to make our eternity the best thing that could ever happen to us by far.