We Are Going to Sin Again

People have said to me, "Heaven volition be perfect, merely a sinless environment doesn't mean nosotros can't sin; Adam and Eve proved that. They lived in a sinless identify, yet they sinned."

Information technology's true that Satan tempted them, but he too originally was a perfect existence living in a perfect environment, beholding God himself. Non merely was at that place no sin in Sky; there was no sin in the universe. Yet Satan sinned. Hence, Heaven's perfection, information technology seems, doesn't guarantee in that location'll be no future sin.

Some people also argue that being human being demands free pick, and therefore wemust have the capacity to choose evil in Heaven. If that's true, then we could experience another Fall.

Clearly, this is a question of groovy importance.

Can We Know We Won't Sin?

Christ promises on the New Globe, "At that place will be no more than death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Revelation 21:iv). Since "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), the hope of no more than expiry is a promise ofno more sin. Those who will never die can never sin, since sinners e'er die. Sin causes mourning, crying, and pain. If those will never occur again, thensin can never occur again.

Consider the final part of Revelation 21:4: "For the onetime guild of things has passed away." What follows the wordforexplains Sky'due south lack of death, mourning, crying, and hurting. These are part of an old order of things that will forever be behind us. The sin that caused them will be no longer. We need non fear a second Fall.

Scripture emphasizes that Christ diedone time to deal with sin and will never again demand to die (Hebrews 9:26-28; 10:10; one Peter 3:eighteen). Nosotros'll have the very righteousness of God (2 Corinthians v:21). We won't sin in Heaven for the same reason God doesn't: He cannot sin. Our eternal inability to sin has been purchased by Christ's claret.

For past a single offering [himself] he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14, ESV). On the cross, validated by his resurrection, our Savior purchased our perfectionfor all time.

"Nothing impure will ever enter it [the New Jerusalem], nor volition anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life" (Revelation 21:27). The passage doesn't say: "If someone becomes impure or shameful or mendacious, that person will exist evicted." There'due south an accented dissimilarity between sinners and the righteous. That Satan and evildoers are cast forever into the lake of burn (Revelation 20:ten and 21:viii) shows an eternal separation of evil from the New Earth. Heaven will be completely devoid of evil, with no threat of becoming tainted. Iii times in the final two capacity of Scripture, we're told that those still in their sins take no access to Heaven, and never will (Revelation 21:8, 27; 22:15).

That evil volition have no footing in Heaven and no leverage to touch on u.s. is further indicated by Jesus when he says, "The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdomeverything that causes sin and all who do evil. They volition throw them into the fiery furnace ... Then the righteous volition shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matthew 13:twoscore-43, emphasis added)

Hebrews 9:26 says with an air of finality that Christ sacrificed himself "to put away sin" (NASB) or "to do away with sin" (NIV). Sin will exist a thing of the past.

Nosotros'll exist raised "incorruptible" (1 Corinthians 15:52, NKJV).Incorruptible is a stronger word thanuncorrupted. Our risen bodies, and by implication our new beings, will be immune to abuse. Since the wages of sin is expiry, if we cannot die, and then nosotros cannot sin.

"Anyone who has died has been freed from sin" (Romans 6:seven). Christ volition not allow united states of america to be vulnerable to the very thing he died to deliver us from. Since our righteousness is rooted in Christ, who is eternally righteous, we tin never lose information technology.

Will Nosotros Have Free Will in Heaven?

Some people believe that if we have gratuitous volition in Sky, we'll have to be free to sin, as were the first humans. Only Adam and Eve'due south state of affairs was different. They were innocent just had not been made righteouspast Christ. We, on the other mitt, become righteous through Christ'southward atonement: "For just as through the disobedience of the one human the many were made sinners, so likewise through the obedience of the 1 man the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). To suggest nosotros could take Christ's righteousness yet sin is to say Christ could sin. God completely delivers us from sin—including vulnerability to sin.

Even at present we may "participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the globe acquired by evil desires" (two Peter 1:4). In Heaven there will exist no evil desires, and no corruption, and we will fully participate in the sinless perfection of God.

What does this hateful in terms of human freedom? Some people suggest our gratuitous choice is a temporary condition for the present life and won't characterize us in Heaven. Merely it seems to me that the capacity to choose is office of what makes us human. It's hard to believe God would be pleased by our worship if we had no pick but to offer it. It's one matter for him to enable u.s.a. to worship. It's another for him to force us to do so or to make it automated and involuntary. Christ woos his bride; he doesn't "gear up" her so she has no choice but to love him.

Imagine a husband who desires his wife'south dearest, and to insure that love, he injects her with a chemical to remove her free volition, tomake her dear him. This is not love; it is compulsion. In one case we become what the sovereign God has made us to be in Christ and one time we meet him as he is, so we'll meet all things—including sin—for what they are. God won't need to restrain u.s. from it. Sin will have admittedly no appeal. It volition be, literally, unthinkable.

The inability to sin doesn't inherently violate complimentary will. My inability to exist God, an angel, a rabbit, or a flower is not a violation of my gratuitous will. Information technology's the simple reality of my nature. The new nature that'll be ours in Heaven—the righteousness of Christ—is a nature that cannot sin, any more than than a diamond tin be soft or blue tin be red. God cannot sin, yet no being has greater free choice than God does.

Theologian Paul Helm says, "The freedom of sky, then, is the freedom from sin; not that the believer simply happens to exist free from sin, just that he is so constituted or reconstituted that he cannot sin. He doesn't desire to sin, and he does not desire to want to sin."

Will We Always Be Tempted?

Will we exist tempted to turn our backs on Christ? No. What would tempt us? Innocence is the absence of something (sin), while righteousness is the presence of something (God'due south holiness). God volition never withdraw from united states of america his holiness; therefore we cannot sin.

We'llneverforget the ugliness of sin. People who've experienced severe burns aren't tempted to walk into a bonfire. Having known death and life, we who will experience life will never want to go dorsum to death. We'll never be deceived into thinking God is withholding something adept from usa or that sin is in our best interests.

Satan won't have any access to us. But even if he did, we wouldn't be tempted. We'll know not only what righteousness is but likewise what sin is—or was. We'll e'er know sin'south costs. Every time nosotros encounter the scarred hands of King Jesus, nosotros'll remember. We'll come across sin every bit God does. It will be stripped of its illusions and will be utterly unappealing.

Considering our hearts will be pure and we'll come across people equally they truly are, every human relationship in Heaven will be pure. We'll all be faithful to the beloved of our life: King Jesus. Nosotros couldn't practise anything behind his back even if we wanted to. But we'll never want to.

We'll love everyone, men and women, but we'll bein love only with Jesus. We'll never exist tempted to degrade, utilise, or idolize each other. We'll never believe the outrageous prevarication that our deepest needs can be met in whatever person but Jesus.

Frequently we human activity as if the universe revolves around the states. We take to remind ourselves it's all about Christ, not us. In Heaven nosotros'll see reality as information technology is and will, therefore, never have to correct our thinking. This will exist Heaven'south Copernican revolution—a paradigm shift in which nosotros'll never once more encounter ourselves as our center of gravity. Jesus Christ volition be our undisputed heart, and nosotros won't want it any other fashion.

Volition We Really Be Perfect?

Someone e-mailed me this question: "In Heaven, will some people still exist annoying? After all, eternity's a long time!" Annoyance is sometimes caused by others' sin, our own, or both. Since sin will exist eliminated, so will annoyance. That doesn't mean people won't have idiosyncrasies, only that they won't exist rooted in sin, and none of the states will dethrone or dismiss others.

Jonathan Edwards said, "Even the very best of men, are, on earth, imperfect. But it is not so in heaven. In that location shall be no pollution or deformity or offensive defect of any kind, seen in whatsoever person or matter; but every 1 shall exist perfectly pure, and perfectly lovely in heaven."

In Heaven we'll be perfectlyhuman being. Adam and Eve were perfectly human until they bent themselves into sinners. Then they lost something that was an original part of their humanity—moral perfection. Since and so, under sin'south expletive, we've been human but never perfectly human.

We can't remember a time when nosotros weren't sinners. We've always carried sin's luggage. What relief it will be not to have to guard our eyes and our minds. We will not need to defend against pride and animalism because there will be none.

In Sky we won't merely be better than we are at present—we'll be better than Adam and Eve were earlier they brutal. Our resurrection bodies may be very much like their bodies were before the Autumn, simply we'll exist a redeemed humanity with knowledge of God, including his grace, far exceeding theirs.

Of course, Adam and Eve will be with us too, in their resurrection bodies. No ane volition know better than they what we've missed. They will have lived on the original Earth, the fallen Earth,and the New Earth. (That's why they rank high on my list of people I want to talk with.)

In Sky we'll exist perfectly homo, but nosotros'll still be finite. Our bodies will be perfect in that they won't be diseased or crippled. But that doesn't hateful they won't take limits.

The termperfect is often misused when it describes our land in Sky. I've heard it said, for instance, "We'll communicate perfectly, so we'll never be at a loss for words." I disagree. I look nosotros'll sometimes grasp for words to describe the wondrous things we'll experience. I wait I'll stand in speechless wonder at the glory of God. I'll exist morally perfect, but that doesn't mean I'll be capable of doing anything and everything. (Adam and Eve were morally perfect, but that didn't mean they could automatically invent nuclear submarines or defy gravity. They were perfect even so finite, just every bit nosotros volition exist.)

Someone asked me, "If we're sinless, will we still be human?" Although sin is part of us now, it's not essential to our humanity—in fact, information technology's foreign to it. Information technology's what twists usa and keeps us from being what we once were—and i day will exist.

Our greatest deliverance in Heaven will be fromourselves. Our deceit, corruption, self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, hypocrisy—all volition be forever gone.

Theologian and novelist Frederick Buechner anticipates the new "us" on the New Globe: "Everything is gone that e'er made Jerusalem, like all cities, torn apart, unsafe, heartbreaking, seamy. You lot walk the streets in peace at present. Small-scale children play unattended in the parks. No stranger goes by whom you can't imagine a fast friend. The metropolis has become what those who loved it always dreamed and what in their dreams she ever was. The new Jerusalem. That seems to be the secret of Sky. The new Chicago, Leningrad, Hiroshima, Beirut. The new bus driver, hot-dog human, seamstress, hairdresser. The new yous, me, everybody."

What Is Our Hope of Living without Sin?

What's the hope nosotros should live for? It's more than than liberty from suffering. Information technology'due south deliverance fromsin, freeing us to exist fully human. Paul says, "In this hope nosotros were saved" (Romans 8:24). What hope? The words of the previous poetry tell u.s.a.: "the redemption of our bodies" (five. 23). That'south the concluding resurrection, when expiry will be swallowed up and sin will be reversed, never again to touch us. This is what nosotros should long for and alive for. Resurrection will hateful many things— includingno more than sin.

Is resurrected living in a resurrected world with the resurrected Christ and his resurrected peopleyour daily longing and hope? Is information technology office of the gospel you share with others? Paul says that the resurrection of the dead is the hope in which we were saved. It will be the glorious climax of God'due south saving piece of work that began at our regeneration. Information technology will marker the final terminate of any and all sin that separates united states from God. In liberating usa from sin and all its consequences, the resurrection will gratuitous the states to live with God, gaze on him, and relish his uninterrupted fellowship forever, with no threat that anything will ever again come betwixt us and him.

May God preserve united states from embracing lesser hopes. May nosotros rejoice every bit we conceptualize the height, depth, length, and breadth of our redemption.

For more data on the subject of Heaven, see Randy Alcorn'southward book Heaven.

Photo by Winggo Tse on Unsplash

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Source: https://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Feb/1/will-we-have-opportunity-sin-heaven/