What about free will and sin in heaven?

Meigan submitted some questions about sin in heaven.

The main question is, What will keep us from sinning when we get to the new heaven and earth? One answer I’ve heard is that we won’t sin because there is no need to, because everything is provided for by God. However, before the fall Adam and Eve sinned even though everything was perfect and provided, so that argument doesn’t make sense to me anymore. Once we get to heaven, will we have total free will? One answer is that we won’t have total free will to sin. Another answer is that, because of God’s presence, we won’t want to sin. But neither of these seem like great arguments to me.

Response from Zach Breitenbach:

The question you are asking is a great one. I’m genuinely curious about the answer myself. This is one of those things God has not revealed to us in the Bible, so we can only speculate about how it might work.

The Bible makes it clear that we will not sin in the new heavens and the new earth. For example, it says, “nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false” (Revelation 21:27). It tells us that those who do evil will be shut out (Revelation 22:14–15), and that it will be a place “where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). All the effects of sin will be gone; there will be “no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

But how will that work? Again, the Bible doesn’t tell us. What it does say is that believers will be perfected or glorified. It describes those in heaven as “the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23). It promises that “when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). And Christ “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). So there will be a transformation of our nature, and sin will no longer be part of who we are. But how exactly this happens (whether by removing our ability to choose evil or by ensuring that we freely never choose evil) is not explained.

If we assume that we will still have total free will in heaven, it raises a question: If God could give us free will without the possibility of sin, why didn’t He create us that way from the start? A major response to the problem of evil is that God allowed the possibility of sin because He gave us free will, and once He chose to make us free, He could not guarantee we wouldn’t do evil. So if it is possible to be free and yet never sin, that complicates this explanation.

One suggestion is that we will still be free to sin in heaven but never will, because we will be so overwhelmed by God’s direct presence that we simply won’t want to. Perhaps God remains somewhat hidden in this life to allow us to make a genuine choice, and those who accept Him will one day experience His full presence; we’ll be so filled with joy and love that sin will never even appeal to us. But the challenge to this view is that Satan and the demons seemed to have very direct access to God’s presence, and yet they fell.

Another possibility is that in heaven we will still have freedom in many respects, but not the freedom to sin. That would not make us robots. We would still have personality, desires, and choices; but God could simply remove the option of sin. And we might gladly accept this limitation, having seen what sin leads to in this world. If someone objects, “Why didn’t God just do that from the start?” the answer might be that our earthly life was the arena where we had to freely choose between sin and God. Once we have chosen God, He can remove the possibility of sin in the next life.

The truth is, I don’t know the answer. And I don’t think anyone this side of heaven can know for sure. Scripture doesn’t reveal the mechanics of how it will work. What it does reveal is enough: there will be no sin in heaven, however God accomplishes that. That is the amazing truth that God wanted us to know for now, and I trust that one day we’ll see the beauty of how He worked it out.

~ Dr. Zach Breitenbach. Zach is part of the Worldview Team and a curriculum writer at Connection Pointe in Brownsburg, IN. Formerly, he served as the Associate Director at Room For Doubt.

What about free will and sin in heaven?

Zach Breitenbach

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