Sin in Heaven?

Let’s look at one of the gotcha questions people sometimes throw at Christianity.

Will we have free will in heaven*? I have to say I cannot find a single passage of scripture that speaks to this unequivocally. The answer to this question really seems to stem from what theological camp you belong to.

But let’s say for the sake of argument that the answer is “yes, we will have free will in heaven”.

People will then ask if it will be possible that there could be another rebellion in heaven. Could someone do what Satan did, what Adam and Eve did, and decide to go their own way? Again, the scriptures do not answer this directly, but I believe indirectly they give an answer to the question, which is “absolutely not.”

And the person asking this question will probably object. “If there is free will, how will they not sin?” The reasoning here seems to be that if we have free will it is possible to sin, and if it is possible to sin, we will sin. Or at the very least someone will sin.

This reasoning fails to take into account the experience everyone there will have had.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. ... The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:11-15)

Every person there will have seen the consequences of sin. They will have seen a world filled with corruption and violence, filled with pain and fear and grief. And everyone will see the ultimate end of the path of rebellion, the lake of fire.

Moreover, every human being will know they are there because they were rescued from that by the grace of God.

Have you ever stood at the edge of a cliff? You look down and see several hundred feet of empty air, then a rock bottom. I’ll bet some part of you wondered what it would feel like to step off the edge and fly away like a bird — or Superman. Did you jump off that cliff? If you’re reading this, it’s a safe guess you didn’t. Why didn’t you? Because you didn’t want to plunge to your death. To say, “You have free will, so surely you should have been compelled to jump off the cliff” is nonsense because we’re not forced to self-destructive actions by free will.

Yes, we do self-destructive things in this life. We are afflicted with a sin nature, an inborn tendency to rebel against God that even those who have trusted in Christ retain. But one blessed day that will be gone, and the desire to jump off the cliff will be gone.

In that day, the ability to choose freely, even the ability to sin will not mean that we will sin. We’ll be free of that curse and possess the knowledge Adam and Eve lacked, the personal experience of the results of sin. Been there, done that. We won’t want to go back.


* Here “heaven” will also include the new earth.

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