There are many things about heaven that we don’t yet get to know. But Scripture does indicate that there will be something about our bodies in heaven that doesn’t quite match the way we look here on earth (I Corinthians 15:35-44).

For starters, it’s not obvious that children who die in infancy will be babies forever in heaven. Nor is it obvious that a person who died from a long painful illness will still look like they did on their deathbed. So it makes sense that we shouldn’t assume that people in heaven will look like they did the last time we saw them on earth.

Yet God always knows who we are. No matter where we go, no matter what happens to us, God doesn’t have any trouble seeing us and knowing us (Psalm 139).

Cremation doesn’t make it any harder for God to recognize us. Indeed, even with burial, at some point a person’s physical remains are no longer recognizable – to human observation. But nothing that happens to our bodies after we die will ever prevent God from knowing who we are in heaven.

At a class reunion, people I hadn’t seen in thirty years recognized me, even though I look a lot different from how I looked in high school. So it seems reasonable to suppose we will not have any difficulty knowing one another in heaven. Our appearances will have changed, and yet perhaps we will look more like ourselves than ever before.