Will we know the people we know on earth in heaven? Will our relationships remain in heaven? Will we recognize others? Also, we've heard that you can look down at hell- which means we'll see our peers that didn't follow Christ. Wouldn't we feel sad to see our friends in hell? Isn't heaven supposed to be full of happiness and no sorrow? To summarize all the questions, ''What happens to our relationships in heaven and our emotions?''Great questionS! Let me try to answer them briefly.
Will we know the people we know on earth in heaven? Will we recognize others? Yes. But only those who have faith in Jesus. John 20:16 tells us that though Jesus had a physical, glorified and new body, the disciples still recognized him and 1 Corinthians 15:49; 53 tell us that we will bear the likeness of Jesus' glorified body in heaven. Therefore, we will be able to recognize, interact with and be relationship with each other. That gives Christians great hope! It also gives us great motivation to evangelize our unsaved loved ones.
Will our relationships remain in heaven? Matthew 22:30 says, "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” - which indicates that the nature of our relationships will be different. In fact, they will be better. We will be surrounded by great numbers of believers (Revelation 7:9), and all our needs will be met, including the need for companionship.
Wouldn't we feel sad to see our friends in hell? Isn't heaven supposed to be full of happiness and no sorrow? This is a difficult one to answer. If you read Revelation 21-22, you find that heaven is a perfect place with no suffering, tears or sadness. Additionally, we will in be in complete agreement with God (1 John 3:2). What does this mean for our loved ones in Heaven? We will agree with God that they do not belong there because they are refused to accept God's offer of salvation. As hard as it is to comprehend this: We will not be saddened by their lack of presence. For more information, please read this previous post.
Summarily, heaven is a place of exploration, fun, community and worship. The best life you can imagine on this planet cannot even compare to heaven. This gives Christians great hope but also a great burden to evangelize as many people as we can.
[Answered by Pastor HM]
