We will rise sinless from the grave,
but sinless takes us only from negative to neutral, not to righteousness.
We will rise sinless with righteousness imputed to us just as it was to Abraham (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3)
Seeing that you mentioned Abraham, I had a few interesting thoughts about him while in the shower this morning. Seeing that I am the OP and that my original thesis has largely done its dash, I can deviate into another train of thought concerning faith and righteousness.
Paul says in Romans that Abraham believed God and this was counted to him as righteousness. The fact is that Abraham knew that he and Sarah were well beyond child-bearing age. He never closed his eyes to the truth of that. He didn't pretend that anything was different about him and Sarah. But God had spoken to him and given in the promise that he would be the father of many nations.
Therefore Abraham had a simple choice. Go with the true fact that he and Sarah could never again beget children, or go with what God promised. He decided to go with God's promise. This did not mean that he started to pretend that he and Sarah could now sire children, although on the basis of God's promise he and Sarah recommenced doing the necessary in faith that in God's time Sarah would become pregnant. If he didn't believe God's promise, he wouldn't have recommenced the necessary. (I'm being discrete about how I am expressing it here). This is how he demonstrated his faith in God's promise - by doing what he needed to make Sarah pregnant. Let's not be so heavenly minded that we are no earthly use! God's promise did not mean that Sarah would have a miracle pregnancy without the natural means of achieving it. So, in God's time, Sarah did become pregnant, and Isaac was born.
So, Abraham believed God's promise and then put his faith into action by doing the obvious thing. This makes faith more than just sitting on the couch or in a pew thinking, "I believe". It is doing exactly what needs to be done to demonstrate what is being believed. Faith in terms of Christian conversion is believing the promise that if I turn to Christ as my Saviour, then I am going to start reading and studying the Bible and praying and then following the leading of the Holy Spirit about where to fellowship with other Christians and what works of the flesh I need to forsake in order to walk worthy of my new Christian life. In other words, I am going to do the things that demonstrate my faith in Christ.
This is interesting in the area of divine healing. Faith in God's promise of healing does not consist on pretending that the symptoms no longer exist. It also does not presume that healing has already happened as the result of taking hold of the promise by faith in spite of the symptoms still evident. It also does not include keeping away from the doctor and no longer taking the medication prescribed. It involves a simple choice - do I go along with God's promise of healing, or do I go along with deciding that I am going to remain sick and never be healed? I think that demonstrating faith in God's promise involves doing what the Holy Spirit leads us to do without allowing the sickness to get in the way of it.
There is the story of G C Bevington, a Methodist Holiness preacher, who was to preach at a service, but some time before the service he was laid low with a severe flu-like infection. He knew that God wanted him to preach, and so he prayed for healing. Then he got out of bed with much effort, got dressed, and made his way to the meeting. As he went, he got a little better, and a little more better, until when he got to the service, he was totally fit and preached successfully. He used his faith in God's promise to receive healing in order to do God's will at that time.
It doesn't always happen that way, because God has not promise guaranteed healing on demand. It all depends on what the Holy Spirit says at the time.
Anyway, it will be interesting what discussion this will generate on the thread.
