Book 4 of Musings Heaven and Sin

Dying and going to Heaven does not insure we will not sin against God.

Only the formation of Christ, the Wall, in our personality guarantees we never again will be guilty of sin and rebellion against the Father.

Part of our Christian mythology is that the sin question is settled by our dying. The idea is that we are bound with sin now, and this is regrettable. However, when we die and go to Heaven we will not sin any longer. We will live happily ever after in a place where there is no sin.

This is an interesting viewpoint, but it is supported neither by Scripture nor by logic.

It is not supported by Scripture in that there is no passage that tells us we will be delivered from sin by dying and going to Heaven.

It is not supported by logic in that sin began in Heaven around the Throne of God. Satan was one of the two cherubim who guarded the Throne. Satan decided to exert his own will rather than obey the will of God. This was the beginning of all sin.

There is no holier place in Heaven than the Throne of God. If sin began that close to the Throne of God, how can we teach that once we enter Heaven we cannot sin because there is no sin in Heaven?

Also, if it were impossible to sin in Heaven, why does the Lord place such importance on our gaining victory over sin during our discipleship on the earth? If sin ceases to be a problem when we die, it seems to be a waste of time and effort to devote so much attention to overcoming it now.

Since God has given us a will, it always will be possible for us to sin, now, in Heaven, after we are raised from the dead, and while living on the new earth. We always will be able to choose to disobey God, just as Satan did.

There are three operations that will help us with the problem of our sinning.

First, the Lord promised us, in the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Matthew, that in the last days the Lord's angels will remove from His Kingdom all sin, and all who continue to practice sin, who refuse to be delivered.

Second, if we have followed the Lord faithfully, bearing our cross, when our flesh and bones are raised from the dead they will be clothed with a body that has no sinful nature in it.

Third, Christ is being formed in us. Christ is a wall against sin. Our new, born-again nature, if it is nourished and permitted to grow, will provide us with righteous desires, with a desire to do God's will from our heart.

These three Divine interventions are God's provision for us so we will not perish because of our sinning. But to die and go to Heaven does not solve our problem. What we are, we are, and will continue to be. Physical death does not change what we are in personality.

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! (Isaiah 14:12)