the problem of heaven

[kidsagainstkows]

I have a question (well, really two) to ask the community here that i thought about the other day.

is there sin in heaven?

if yes, what makes it so special?
if no, then the next question is do people in heaven have free will?

if people have free will, then there must be sin because it is in peoples nature to sin.

if they do not, then it doesn't sound much like a paradise to me, to be a robot.

i look forward to hearing your answers

 

[ebia]

I have a question (well, really two) to ask the community here that i thought about the other day.

is there sin in heaven?

if yes, what makes it so special?
if no, then the next question is do people in heaven have free will?

if people have free will, then there must be sin because it is in peoples nature to sin.

if they do not, then it doesn't sound much like a paradise to me, to be a robot.

i look forward to hearing your answers

Your question seems to presuppose that people cannot become better people, even with God's help.

 

[JasperJackson]

No there will be no sin in heaven. God will have finished regenerating our hearts so that we will not choose to sin any longer.

 

[silence_dogood]

I have a question (well, really two) to ask the community here that i thought about the other day.

is there sin in heaven?

No.

if no, then the next question is do people in heaven have free will?

Yes.

if people have free will, then there must be sin because it is in peoples nature to sin.

In Christian theology, we believe that only those who are born again enter Heaven and the Bible is clear that when one is born again, his sin nature dies and he recieves a new nature that serves God and not sin.

if they do not, then it doesn't sound much like a paradise to me, to be a robot.

Let me ask you this: can you fly? I mean, if you were to flap your arms really, really hard, do you think you'd take off into the air? Of course you don't. That's because it isn't natural to you to fly. And yet, you don't say that you're a robot because you can't fly, do you?

i look forward to hearing your answers[/quote]

 

[silence_dogood]

Your question seems to presuppose that people cannot become better people, even with God's help.

That's moralism, ebia. In Christianity, the idea isn't that we become better people, but that we become new people.

 

[Joveia]

if people have free will, then there must be sin because it is in peoples nature to sin.

This is the key point, because the Bible says that God loves us, and part of God's love is that He respects our right to choose; to go our own way.

It all comes down to what Jesus did for us on the cross. The basic message of Christianity answers the problem of heaven. Here are two great verses on this:

Rom 6:6a: "We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives."

Gal 2:20a: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."

By the mere act of trusting in Jesus' death on the cross we can 'hand in' the parts of our character that are sinful - i.e. that fall below how we ought to act. So heaven will have no evil in it because everyone in heaven will have a goodness that is not their own (Philippians 3:9), because everything about us that falls below what we ought to do was given to Jesus.

The reason why this hasn't happened yet, and Christians still sin, is because God waits until after we die to 'fully manifest' it (Col 3:3).

 

[Emmy]

Dear Joveia. You are right, Jesus took all our sins away when He died for us. I say this with love, God gave us free will, and with this free will we choose not to sin. Jesus told us in Matthews, chapter 23, verses 35-40, " the great Commandment in the Law is: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul, and all thy mind. The second is unto it: Love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Jesus also told us again and again: Repent, exchange your selfish and unloving character into loving God and your neighbour. We must learn to love selflessly, with no strings attached. We must exchange our old selfish " Man" into a NEW MAN, loving God with all our being, and loving our neighbour as ourselves. This is not easy, as you said, but we have years to get better and better, we have Jesus to help and guide us, and we have God to forgive us every time we stumble or fail. Jesus taught us to pray: " Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others." Love is what God wants us to have and share, give God and our brothers and sisters. Heaven is God`s Heaven, and there we will live eternity with our Heavnly Father and each other. And God will know our hearts, He will know how hard we tried to become more and more loving. Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ. P.S Love is the KEY to Heaven, and Jesus took our sins away, but left our love to grow and grow.

 

[razeontherock]

This thread has a glaring omission:

"if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 1 John 1:8

The above posts talk about fixing that in this life which is not to be minimized BUT,

please do not think that compares to God changing us in the twinkling of an eye! We do have a REAL hope to look forward to, this mortality putting on immortality, and for all of that that we CAN understand here and now the OP still ponders a great mystery.

 

[kidsagainstkows]

ebia: i do not presuppose that we cannot become better people, but rather that we can not become perfect people through any currently known about thing, including God. surely you and everyone else has done something that they are not proud of or something that the bible calls sin even if you see no problem with it such as eating shellfish.

Some people have that that they are new people when they go to heaven, then the obvious problem is that "you" did not go to heaven but whatever butterfly form came after you. this means that none of your friends or family or good christian strangers are in heaven but some perverted perfectionist form of them. also if this is true than people in heaven are all the same, with the same moral likes and dislikes. in short, robots.

thanks for your answers and i hope to hear more

 

[ebia]

ebia: i do not presuppose that we cannot become better people, but rather that we can not become perfect people through any currently known about thing, including God. surely you and everyone else has done something that they are not proud of or something that the bible calls sin even if you see no problem with it such as eating shellfish.

Some people have that that they are new people when they go to heaven, then the obvious problem is that "you" did not go to heaven but whatever butterfly form came after you. this means that none of your friends or family or good christian strangers are in heaven but some perverted perfectionist form of them. also if this is true than people in heaven are all the same, with the same moral likes and dislikes. in short, robots.

thanks for your answers and i hope to hear more

Well,
a) that shouldn't be a complete discontinuity - a good deal of the point of Christian discipleship now is developing the virtues approrpriate for that future hope, so there will always be a necessary and major completion to do, but it shouldn't be unanticipated in what has gone before.
b) its not becoming a different person, but becoming the person one truely is. If someone is sick, do you refuse to heal them because it will change who they are, or are you enabling them to be who they are?
c) I don't know why you think it excludes diversity nor makes someone a robot. I suggest that's not inherent, but simply a lack of imagination.

 

[drich0150]

I have a question (well, really two) to ask the community here that i thought about the other day.

is there sin in heaven?

if yes, what makes it so special?
if no, then the next question is do people in heaven have free will?

if people have free will, then there must be sin because it is in peoples nature to sin.

if they do not, then it doesn't sound much like a paradise to me, to be a robot.

i look forward to hearing your answers

We are told no that there will be no sin in Heaven.

Like you said, Freewill is simply the ability to sin.

In this life we have been given over to "freewill/sin" so that we may choose to either be with God in the next life, (In God's will) or we choose not to.. To Choose the Next life is to choose to be without Sin.

..And your right "Heaven" is not for everyone. Those who willfully choose to be outside of God's expressed will in this life, can see Heaven as a very bad place.

This is why A truly Righteous God will not drag someone kicking and screaming into Heaven, especially when they have spent his life putting distance between themselves and God. Subsequently this is why you all have the "other" option available to you.

 

[ebia]

Can I suggest reading The Great Divorce.

 

[Joveia]

ebia: i do not presuppose that we cannot become better people, but rather that we can not become perfect people through any currently known about thing, including God. surely you and everyone else has done something that they are not proud of or something that the bible calls sin even if you see no problem with it such as eating shellfish.

There's something I really agree with here, which is that our failings seems so hard to overcome that, even though God can do anything, it seems almost beyond even His power to fix things. This is why God's solution, somehow, required something as 'messy' and inconvenient as the cross, despite His unimaginable power.

Some people have that that they are new people when they go to heaven, then the obvious problem is that "you" did not go to heaven but whatever butterfly form came after you. this means that none of your friends or family or good christian strangers are in heaven but some perverted perfectionist form of them.

I think this view comes from making things into 'sin' issues that are not sin issues. Sin is failing to treat someone the way you'd like to be treated. If I am really rude to everyone, and then I suddenly feel, 'Hey, it hurts my feelings when people do that to me', and stop doing it, then have I lost personality? Am I a perverted perfectionist in that area? We wouldn't say so.

In exactly the same way, being consistent with your own ideals is not being a perverted perfectionist, and that's what heaven involves: straight down the line consistency between what we say and what we do. A complete lack of hypocrisy in any shape, way, or form.

also if this is true than people in heaven are all the same, with the same moral likes and dislikes. in short, robots.

There will be a range of personalities in heaven. This is shown by how even though two people are nice it doesn't mean that they will become best friends. This is because even though two people might share being nice, they don't share a whole, huge range of other aspects to their personality, values, and interests, so they aren't particularly close. This illustrates how we will all have goodness in common in heaven, but we won't be the same.

 

[98cwitr]

I dont believe that there is sin in heaven...God separated Himself from man because of sin, destroyed the earth because of sin, came back to earth because of sin, and saved us from sin. Therefore, in separation, it is logical to conclude that He is no longer in the presence of sin, thus being in heaven.

It is people's nature to sin, before I knew what sin was I was sinning. The point is that once that these things are self-evident to us there will be no desire to sin anymore...we will have fully spiritually matured.

 

[Ttery]

I have a question (well, really two) to ask the community here that i thought about the other day.

is there sin in heaven?

if yes, what makes it so special?
if no, then the next question is do people in heaven have free will?

if people have free will, then there must be sin because it is in peoples nature to sin.

if they do not, then it doesn't sound much like a paradise to me, to be a robot.

i look forward to hearing your answers

I Believe people can go to Heaven with sin. (I'm researching that at this time)

But, you don't think people would sin in front of God Himself. Do you?

I Believe people still have free will in Heaven. They CHOOSE to do GOOD.


If you need deeper details I could provide them.

 

[Jpark]

Never mind.

 

[Adoniram]

ebia: i do not presuppose that we cannot become better people, but rather that we can not become perfect people through any currently known about thing, including God. surely you and everyone else has done something that they are not proud of or something that the bible calls sin even if you see no problem with it such as eating shellfish.

Some people have that that they are new people when they go to heaven, then the obvious problem is that "you" did not go to heaven but whatever butterfly form came after you. this means that none of your friends or family or good christian strangers are in heaven but some perverted perfectionist form of them. also if this is true than people in heaven are all the same, with the same moral likes and dislikes. in short, robots.

thanks for your answers and i hope to hear more

Your first statement is partially correct. We cannot, in this life, become "perfect" people, because we still reside in an imperfect and corrupt body. As Christians, we lose the desire to remain habitual sinners but we still struggle with the fleshly desires and fail on occasion. Paul talks about this.

Rom. 7
19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

The unbeliever gives no thought to whether what he is doing is pleasing or displeasing to God. He is spiritually dead, having no understanding of Godly things, and no desire to live a life pleasing to God...it just doesn't enter his mind. He lives his life as he chooses to day by day. But when one "believes," he is spiritually reborn, and grows in understanding and the desire to live a life that is pleasing to God. Yet, at this point, he still inhabits a corrupt body which succumbs to fleshly desires on occasion.

But where you are wrong in your understanding is in the power of God to change us. The believer's corrupt body, when it dies, will be raised up incorruptible. Paul likens this to a seed that, when planted in the ground, dies and gives birth to, not another seed, but a completely new plant.

1 Cor. 15
35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” 36 Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. 37 And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.

42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

What will this "incorruptible" body be like? No one knows for sure but it will be a real and physical body, like that which Jesus had after His resurrection.

1 John 3
2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

We also know this because Jesus gave three of His disciples a glimpse of what His glorious visage was.

Mt. 17
1 Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; 2 and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. 3 And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.

The three disciples saw Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, in clothed, recognizable bodies. And they were conversing, which implies intelligence and will. So that leads us to believe that in heaven, we will inhabit, as Paul explains, incorruptible bodies, yet be recognizable as individuals. The "sin nature," which inhabits our present, and corrupt bodies, will have been completely eradicated. Our desire, our "will," will be to do only what is pleasing to the Lord. It will be our utter and complete joy to do so. We may all be united in our desire to please God (nothing wrong with that), but we will indeed remain individuals. There will be no "robots" in heaven.

 

[Emmy]

Dear razeontherock. When Jesus was on Earth, He told us to become as perfect as God is perfect. God is Love, and what God wants from us is 1) Love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our minds. 2) Love our neighbour, all others, friend or foe, As we love ourselves. Jesus told us the truth, unless we love God as He deserves to be loved, or unless we love each other as we love ourselves, we will not be able to return to our Heavenly Father, who is ALL LOVE. It is true, God can change us in the wink of an eyelid, but that would make us puppets who do as they are programmed. God could have given up on us, but instead Jesus God-Son gave His Blood to pay for our sins and transgressions, we were free again to return to where we came from. And God wants to live eternity with His sons and daughters who have learned to overcome selfishness and any sort of temptation. Jesus paid God`s Holy Law and Jesus is waiting to lead us back to God. We have years to learn to love as God wants us to love, Selflessly with no strings attached, and love each other as we love ourselves. God wants OUR LOVE, not His Love bestowed on us. I say this humbly and with love, razeontherock. One more thing, to make us think. God is Love but God`s Law of Justice will mete out fair and good rewards for All, even the world, Good for Good, and fitting consequences for NOT GOOD. That is God` s way of teaching, God is Love, but God`s eternal Law of Justice will repay, we reap what we sow. (Even the world knows that) Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[kidsagainstkows]

hey guys sorry for the long absence and thank you for your replies.

first thing i notice is a response to my "butterfly" argument wherein i stated that people do not go to heaven as they were on earth, but rather a perverted perfection of that said person was who went to heaven.

this was combated with the analogy of the sick person, saying in part, do you not heal a person who is ill, just because the person is better does not make them different or perverted (let me know if that is an unfair characterization).

my response is as follows. if a person is sick, where they are unable or less able to function in society, then we must as good people restore their ability to function, however, we do not remove their every mole, wrinkle, imperfection, habits, and eccentricities. because if we do this, we risk removing what makes that person unique. we risk losing the essence of the person.

also i would like to thank drich0150 and Adoniram for their straight answers.

as a sort of aside Adoniram: you are very much correct in the statement that atheists do not think about Gods will when we do things. we do not care about gods will because we do not think that there is a god. Atheists are a decentralized group which cannot be said to agree upon anything policy wise except for the existence of god. in our ranks are Buddhists, Pagans, naturalists and spiritualists. so while i can only speak for myself when i say this, but i do think about society when i do things. i do the things that beneficial for the world and i abstain from things that would not be. things that are indifferent i do or do not do based on my views and moral standards.

thanks again for all of the comments and i look forward to hearing more.

 

[Joveia]

my response is as follows. if a person is sick, where they are unable or less able to function in society, then we must as good people restore their ability to function, however, we do not remove their every mole, wrinkle, imperfection, habits, and eccentricities. because if we do this, we risk removing what makes that person unique. we risk losing the essence of the person.

You're right in that if we, or God, removed aspects of ourselves that are just 'personality,' then there would be something wrong with heaven. I.e. eccentricities, non-moral imperfection, and such. But the Christian view is that God only removes aspects to us that fall below how we ourselves would ideally like to be treated. So if we can't figure out how something is a moral failing, it probably doesn't fall under this.