How Do We Know We Cannot Sin in Heaven?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | So what assurances do we have that the human fall into sin will not repeat
00:00:10.540 | itself in heaven? This is a question from Nicholas in Camacho, Florida, who sent us
00:00:16.000 | an email to ask. "Pastor John, I have often worried that after some time, after
00:00:21.480 | being in heaven, I will sin against God. If the devil, once perfect and in God's
00:00:26.720 | presence, fell into sin, what does that mean for us who are justified sinners?
00:00:31.360 | Could the sin of Eden be repeated in heaven? The thought that I might still
00:00:36.760 | sin against God when I am in heaven has plagued me for some time. Does the Bible
00:00:41.400 | offer Christians any hope that we will forever not sin once we are glorified?"
00:00:47.200 | Yes, it does, and no, the fall will not be repeated in heaven. So here's why.
00:00:54.120 | The reason that we who are united to Christ by faith in his glorious work on
00:01:02.720 | the cross and in the resurrection is that this blood which he shed seals a
00:01:12.800 | new covenant. That's why it's not going to happen. We're not going to fall like
00:01:20.760 | Satan did or like Adam did. One of the marks of the new covenant is not only
00:01:28.680 | that God gives us eternal life, but also that God commits himself, because of
00:01:36.720 | Christ, to keep us from doing anything that would jeopardize our eternal life.
00:01:41.880 | In other words, the newness of the new covenant is precisely that God is
00:01:48.120 | committed to keeping us from falling away the way Satan did or Adam and Eve
00:01:54.840 | did in their days of innocence. They were not the beneficiaries of the blood-bought
00:02:03.400 | new covenant. We are. Jesus said this at the Last Supper, "This cup is poured out
00:02:11.760 | for you, and it is the new covenant in my blood." And I take that to mean that
00:02:18.520 | everyone who is covered by this blood through faith in Christ is a beneficiary
00:02:26.760 | of that covenant. It's a blood-bought covenant. Those in Christ, covered by
00:02:34.040 | Christ's atoning work, are beneficiaries of this new covenant. And what God
00:02:39.680 | commits himself to do in this new covenant is spelled out in Jeremiah 31,
00:02:46.800 | Ezekiel 11, Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 32—let me just read a few phrases from those.
00:02:54.280 | "I will make"—this is Jeremiah 31, 31 following—"I will make a new covenant with the
00:02:59.880 | house of Israel and the house of Judah," which Jesus now is applying to his new
00:03:03.720 | Israel, the people of God who are in Christ. "That I will put my law within
00:03:09.040 | them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they
00:03:14.680 | shall be my people, and I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins
00:03:17.840 | no more than Ezekiel 11, 19. I will remove the heart of stone from their
00:03:22.680 | flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes
00:03:28.720 | and keep my rules." And here's the best of all—this is Jeremiah 32, 40—"I will make
00:03:35.960 | with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to
00:03:40.920 | them, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn away
00:03:50.280 | from me." Now, that is the bottom line new covenant commitment. Let me read it again.
00:03:56.600 | "I will not turn away from doing good to them. I will put the fear of me in their
00:04:03.080 | hearts." In other words, it doesn't depend on us. God's gonna take charge of keeping us.
00:04:06.440 | "That they will not turn away from me." That's the point of my putting
00:04:11.760 | my fear within them. I won't let them turn away from me. In other words, the glory of
00:04:18.480 | the new covenant is that God will never find himself in the position where his
00:04:25.640 | redeemed people turn against him, because the very heart of the new covenant is
00:04:31.040 | that he won't let it happen. "I will put the fear of me in their hearts. They will
00:04:34.760 | not turn from me." It's precisely this keeping power of God, this keeping
00:04:41.840 | commitment of God, which Jude sees as the mark of God's majesty and dominion and
00:04:49.880 | authority. I preached on this a couple of years ago at Together for the Gospel. I
00:04:54.640 | was so moved by it as I came to the end of my pastoral time, looking back over 33
00:05:00.400 | years and saying, "He kept me. He kept me. I still believe. Can you believe that? I
00:05:05.000 | still believe. I wake up in the morning a Christian every morning putting my faith
00:05:09.400 | in Jesus. Why?" And here's what it says, "Now to him who is able to keep you from
00:05:15.840 | stumbling, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory
00:05:22.360 | and majesty, dominion and authority before all time, now and forever." Why did
00:05:28.960 | Jude rise to that level of acclamation? He did it because he was so stunned that
00:05:38.400 | God has devoted his entire being to keeping his children. That's the
00:05:45.720 | connection, that the very majesty and dominion and authority of God are behind
00:05:50.280 | the stipulations of the new covenant. He will keep his people from stumbling. He
00:05:55.000 | will present us blameless. He will keep us blameless. And here's one more aspect
00:06:00.560 | of the new covenant that underlines the same glorious truth. The resurrection of
00:06:07.800 | Christ led to his new role as the Redeemer in heaven who continually
00:06:16.840 | intercedes on behalf of the saints. Isn't it as though he did a saving work for us
00:06:22.640 | and then he went on a vacation forever, kind of disappeared, and the cross does
00:06:26.280 | it all? No, no. Christ does it all by mediating the work of the cross to the
00:06:34.800 | Father and applying it to us day by day. There's no reason to believe this is
00:06:40.020 | going to cease because Hebrews 7:25 says, "Consequently, he," Christ, "is able to save
00:06:46.520 | to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to
00:06:55.160 | make intercession for them." Amazing. And here's an example of what he prays for.
00:07:02.400 | So what does Jesus pray? Always, forever, into eternity, making intercession.
00:07:07.720 | Luke 22 31, Jesus says to Simon Peter, just before he denies him, "Simon, Simon,
00:07:14.880 | behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. But I have
00:07:19.040 | prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and when you have turned again," when
00:07:23.760 | you have turned again, not if, "when you have turned again, strengthen your
00:07:27.960 | brothers." In other words, the intercessory work of Jesus on behalf of
00:07:32.280 | his people is to pray that our faith not fail. And even though Peter, in that part
00:07:39.200 | of redemptive history, before glorification, denied the Lord, he did not
00:07:43.240 | let him deny the Lord utterly. He didn't let him fail in his faith utterly. And
00:07:48.560 | once we obtain our glorified bodies and are completely conformed, says 1 John,
00:07:56.400 | to Christ when he appears, that eternal intercession of Jesus will keep us from
00:08:04.160 | any sinning. This is what he bought for us in the blood forever. Yes, amen. What
00:08:12.400 | precious blood that is. Thank you, Pastor John. And thanks for listening to the
00:08:16.680 | podcast and for making us a part of your daily routine. And I pray that our daily
00:08:20.920 | work will refresh your soul in the marvelous ongoing work of our Savior. For
00:08:26.880 | more information about the podcast and to search the entire archive of episodes
00:08:30.720 | or download apps for your smartphone or your tablet, go to our online home at
00:08:35.560 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, we are gonna close out the
00:08:41.800 | week with another gem of a question, and that is, "What truths in the world do we
00:08:47.080 | need that we cannot find in our Bibles?" That is a very shrewd question, and I'll
00:08:53.200 | pose it to Pastor John tomorrow. I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to
00:08:56.480 | the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper. We'll see you tomorrow.
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