Can we see what is happening on earth from Heaven?

Question 10167.

Can those in heaven see what is happening down here? It is one of the most frequently asked questions in any pastoral ministry, and it is almost never asked out of curiosity. It is asked by a widow, or by parents at a graveside, and behind it lies a longing to know whether the person they loved is still somehow present.

I want to answer honestly, which means saying both what Scripture affirms and where it stays silent, because a comfort built on speculation will not hold weight when it is needed most.

What the Bible actually affirms

Scripture is clear that believers who die are conscious, at rest and with the Lord. Paul says to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord, and that departing to be with Christ is far better. Whatever else is true of those in heaven now, they are awake, they are themselves, and they are happy in a way we have not yet experienced.

Scripture also shows a degree of awareness. In Revelation 6 the martyrs under the altar cry out asking how long before their blood is avenged, which implies they know that history is still running and that justice is still outstanding (Revelation 6:10). They are told to rest a little longer, so they are also aware that there is a schedule they are not being shown.

Jesus says there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. That is joy in the presence of those in heaven at an event on earth, which means news travels. Whether the redeemed watch it directly or are told is not stated, and I am not going to pretend the text says more than it does.

The great cloud of witnesses

The verse everyone quotes is Hebrews 12:1, with its great cloud of witnesses surrounding us as we run the race (Hebrews 12:1). It is regularly preached as a stadium full of departed saints watching our progress and cheering us on. It is a moving image, and I am not at all sure it is what the writer meant.

The Greek word is martys, from which we get martyr, and it means one who testifies rather than one who spectates. The whole of chapter 11 has been a parade of people who bore witness to God by faith. They surround us as testimony, in the way a courtroom is surrounded by evidence, rather than as an audience in the gallery.

That does not rule out awareness among those in heaven. It simply means this verse is not the proof of it. If we want to know what the departed can see, we shall have to look elsewhere, and elsewhere is thinner than most people expect.

Where Scripture stays silent

There is no passage that says the dead in Christ observe our daily lives. No verse tells a grieving husband that his wife is watching him make the tea. The silence is total, and I think it is deliberate, because the alternative raises questions God has not chosen to answer.

Consider what it would mean. If those in heaven see everything here, they see our sin as well as our progress, our funerals as well as our weddings, our failures with the children they left behind. A heaven with a live feed of earth would be a heaven with grief in it, and Revelation says God will wipe away every tear.

So my instinct is that whatever awareness the departed have is filtered through the perspective of glory. They see as God permits and understand as God explains, which is quite different from the sentimental picture of relatives peering over the battlements.

Two errors to avoid

The first error is the seance. Scripture forbids attempts to contact the dead in the strongest terms, and the prohibition in Deuteronomy 18 is not softened anywhere in the New Testament. Whatever answers a medium, it is not your mother. That warning matters more now than it did a generation ago, because the traffic in mediums and spiritualist churches has grown.

The second error is subtler and more common in evangelical circles: talking to the departed as if they were present. Speaking at a graveside is one thing, and grief has its own language. Addressing the dead as guardians and helpers is another, and it quietly relocates trust from a living Saviour to a departed relative.

Both errors come from the same place, a longing for connection that is entirely natural. The answer is not to scold the longing but to point it at the person who can actually be addressed. Jesus is alive, he hears, and he is the one who holds your loved one now.

What about the rich man and Lazarus?

The rich man in Luke 16 is aware of his five brothers and concerned about their destiny, which is often produced as evidence that the departed know what is happening here. It is real evidence, though it needs care. He knows he has brothers and knows the kind of lives they lead, which he knew before he died.

What he does not have is any ability to reach them. Abraham tells him they have Moses and the Prophets, and that if they will not hear those, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead. The passage is not designed to satisfy our curiosity about the afterlife. It is designed to send us back to the Scriptures while we still have time.

I take from it that awareness in the next world does not translate into influence in this one. The dead cannot help us. The living Word can. That is a rearrangement of priorities most of us need.

The comfort that is actually on offer

When I sit with the bereaved I do not tell them their loved one is watching. I tell them something better and better attested. Their loved one is with Jesus, is more alive than we are, has finished with pain and with sin, and will be raised bodily when the Lord comes. Every one of those statements can be defended from Scripture.

I also tell them that the reunion is real. Paul comforts the Thessalonians precisely by telling them they will see their believing dead again, and that we will be together with them and with the Lord. Christian hope is not that the departed are near us now, but that we will be with them then, and permanently.

If you want to explore that further, my article on whether we will recognise people in heaven goes into the reunion itself, and where believers go when they die deals with the intermediate state.

What those in heaven are actually doing

Rather than speculating about what those in heaven can see, it is worth noticing what Scripture positively says they are doing. Revelation shows them worshipping, resting, waiting for the completion of God’s purposes, and in one case asking a direct question about justice. It is an active picture rather than a passive one, and there is not a hint of boredom in it.

They are also described as being in the presence of the Lamb, which is the detail that makes everything else make sense. If the departed were chiefly occupied with watching us, then we would be the centre of their world, and we are not. Jesus is. That is not a demotion for our loved ones. It is the fulfilment of what they wanted most while they were here.

This reframes the whole question rather helpfully. Those in heaven are not standing at a window looking back at a life they lost. They have arrived at the life they were made for, and the things that filled their attention here have been put in proportion by the sight of God.

I sometimes put it to grieving families like this. If your mother could speak to you now, she would not tell you she was missing your kitchen. She would tell you that everything she believed turned out to be true, and rather better than she had imagined. The awareness those in heaven have is an awareness soaked in that discovery, whatever its extent.

So, now what?

If you are grieving, take the comfort God actually gives rather than the one popular sentiment offers. Your loved one is not hovering. Your loved one is home. That is a far greater thing, and it does not depend on what any of us can imagine.

And if the thought of those in heaven watching would have changed how you live this week, do not wait for that to be true. The One who certainly does see you has invited you to live in his sight, and to live in the sight of God is the only audience that has ever mattered. Who are you living in front of?

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Hebrews 12:1, ESV