I was recently having a discussion with someone about raising the dead, and the conversation turned to whether we should raise animals from the dead or not. He posited that the resurrections we see in the Bible are all of humans being raised from the dead, and so in order to keep with Divine Order we would need to stick within that boundary. Furthermore, since we have been given animals to eat for food (Genesis 9:3), God has expressly permitted us to kill and eat them which means they shouldn’t be raised from the dead. If one person has either of these thoughts then likely many more do, so I want to share with you what I replied with to explain that yes, we should indeed resurrect animals and how we can know that is God’s will for us.
We first have to remember that what we see modeled in most of the Bible isn’t actually God’s end-goal for creation. This means that while yes, Jesus only is recorded as having raised people from the dead and all 12 resurrection accounts in scripture are of humans, that isn’t meant to be a limitation. So what is the end-goal of all of this, and how is what the Bible shows us not a limitation placed upon us? First, God’s plan for us never changed from the beginning, which was for mankind to fix all of creation. This means that creation as we observe it throughout the Bible is not in its ideal state. And this is extremely important to keep in mind as we identify what God’s standards for things are, because His standards don’t always match with what we can currently observe in the world around us. Think about it. We’ve only ever seen creation subjected to frustration and decay. We have never seen creation in its natural state, a state we normally term as “transfigured”. Yes, like Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, that is the end-goal for all of creation, and Romans 8 tells us that having our bodies transfigured is the firstfruits of that. Which means our transfiguration is the beginning of all creation experiencing the same thing! Second, in light of that end-goal, we need to adjust our expectations and remove the lid of limitations we tend to place upon ourselves and how we read the Bible. With those two things firmly in mind, I’ll address the two initial items—whether we should resurrect anything non-human, and whether animals are meant for us to kill for food.
1. Resurrecting anything non-human
It doesn’t really matter whether we are talking about animals, plants, or anything else—all creation is in bondage to decay per Romans 8, and it is our job to liberate it. As I mentioned above, this means that nothing in creation should be subject to death or decay, and to the extent that they are, it is our job to fix it. Romans 8 does tell us the pattern, which is that the transfiguration of creation begins with us, but it does not at any point limit it to us. In fact, if it were to limit it to us, then all creation that isn’t a human would still remain in bondage and we wouldn’t be liberating anything besides other humans. But that isn’t what the Bible teaches.
Yes, we only see Jesus and others raising humans from the dead, but it clearly states that not everything Jesus did was recorded and it states that we would do greater because Jesus was going to the Father. He also said in John 16:12 (my paraphrase) “I have more to tell you than you can handle right now, but the Holy Spirit will reveal it all to you later.” This means that Jesus would not have used the Bible as a limiting standard to tell us to only do what is explicitly written about in the Bible because He was expecting the Holy Spirit to tell us more later on. And what about all of the things Jesus did that weren’t written about in the Bible? The argument that we should or should not do something because it is not mentioned in the Bible is a weak argument at best. Electronics aren’t written about in the Bible and yet you are reading this using an electronic device right now. Quite often, especially when we come across things not explicitly written about in Scripture, using the Bible to identify underlying principles is far more useful than identifying specific actions or tasks which are knowably incomplete for the reasons mentioned above.
So how do we see principles in the Bible matching with raising animals? First, ALL death is an enemy of God. If we see death, we have authority to reverse it—not just death if it occurs in a human body. Second, Jesus commanded the disciples to raise the dead—He did not specify “dead humans”. Third, what is the end-point we see in Revelation 21? This gives us a glimpse of what it should look like—when the old order has passed away (it already did and was completed in 70 AD), there should be no more death (Rev 21:4). No more death isn’t “no more death for humans” but no more death at all anywhere for anyone or anything in all creation.
In the conversation he also mentioned that by paying attention to things like resurrecting animals that it could shift our focus away from our actual mission, which is bringing eternal life to people. The idea is well-meaning, but the problem is that the idea is incomplete. While it is true that part of our mission is to release life and immortality to other people, that isn’t the whole mission, and limiting our job to bringing eternal life to people is not the whole story. Our mission on earth from Heaven is probably better understood as “ending the reign of death in all creation and extending the reign of life in Christ Jesus to all of it.” We see this articulated in Romans 5, dealing with the end of one governmental system (death) and the establishment of a better governmental system (Life in Christ Jesus), but this isn’t just about humans. It begins with humans, but doesn’t end there.
2. Killing animals for food
This is a subject that is related to something I discuss in-depth in my book “The Gospel of Life and Immortality”. Chapter 11 talks about living from Heaven’s supply and not requiring food as an energy source, and it is probably one of my favorite chapters in that book. I don’t think I specifically address killing animals, but the concepts I explain in that chapter have obvious applications to this subject. Killing animals for food was basically a concession God made for humans, but it is not the end-point. We will eventually cease killing animals for food entirely because all death will be done away with. It is permitted, but even Paul said that not everything that is permitted is beneficial. It is a for-now thing, not a forever thing. This goes back to what I mentioned initially about needing to look at things from a perspective of the end-goal and God’s standards. When death and decay no longer manifest in any form in all of creation, there is a chance it will even become impossible to kill animals because the state of death simply will not exist any longer. Even if it is still possible to do, there will be zero need or reason to do so, nor will we have any interest in killing them. Killing and eating them in the future only makes sense if we are required to consume animals as a source of food, which we aren’t. And I’m not just limiting that to animals and saying everyone should be vegetarian. We will not require food of any kind, and as such all food will be consumed for enjoyment, not sustenance, and creation will have transfigured in such a manner that it can give up its bounty to us for our enjoyment without it diminishing itself as well. In other words, a tree can give us a fruit and yet simultaneously not lose the fruit even while we are holding and eating it because the power of life makes that possible. We can take a leaf off a tree and yet the tree does not lack its leaf because the power of life makes it so. As Apostle Tommy Miller puts it, the goal of God was for “people that look like Him in a creation that looks like Heaven”. And there is no death or lack or limitation in heaven. As such, any time we look at creation through a lens of limitation or lack then we are putting carnal limits on things that God never intended, and He is calling us higher in our perspectives.
The bottom line is that we will get the opportunity to partner with God to reverse all decay in the animal kingdom because we will be reversing it in the entirety of creation. This naturally includes animals, but extends vastly beyond just animals. Our job as stewards over creation is, in part, to fix everything that is broken, which means all death and decay must (and will) go. Raising dead animals is one tiny example of that. So if anyone has ever wondered if we can or have permission to raise animals from the dead, if it is part of what salvation and the gospel covers, or even if we should be eating animals for food, just know that we have been given a mission from God along with the power and authority to carry it out, to put all death under His feet and to bring restoration and life to all creation through enforcing and extending what Jesus did on the cross to all creation!
