Is Their Remembrance Forgotten?

HAVE you ever visited an old graveyard, such as this one in Tewkesbury, England, and noticed crumbling gravestones with the names nearly worn into dust? It often seems that the dead of three generations or more ago, great-grandparents and further back, have been forgotten. In fact, the Bible states: “For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten.” Does that mean that even God has forgotten them?​—Ecclesiastes 9:5.

Jesus showed that this is not the case when he said: “Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.” Thus, the dead will return in a resurrection to the opportunity of living forever on a cleansed paradise earth.​—John 5:28, 29; Revelation 21:3, 4.

Certainly, Jehovah God, the Source of dynamic energy, who knows the billions of planets, stars, and galaxies by name, will have no problem in recalling the personality and life pattern of the billions of persons who have died throughout mankind’s history. Therefore, the dead, although perhaps forgotten by their descendants, are not forgotten by God.​—Isaiah 40:26.