Sins,
Sin, and Sinning
Growing up I
heard ministers say that a person needs not only to be saved from the
penalty of sin (justified), they must be transformed (sanctified) in
a way that changes their heart and they will stop from sinning. I
believe that salvation involves all of that and would like to add one
more that we seldom think about.
Not only
does God want to save us from hell and to heaven God wants to make us
“safe for heaven”. When we get there God doesn't want us to mess
the place up.
Apparently a
spirit being such as angels and people are can
sin in heaven. From the little bit we are
told the archangel Lucifer sinned in heaven. Isaiah 14:14
says that he said “I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High." so
God cast him and the third of the angels that followed him out of
heaven.
So if we are
asked “can you sin in heaven” we must overcome our immediate
impulse to say “of course not” and realize that in order to
achieve the quality of love God desires to have, God allows freedom
for created spirit beings (angels and people).
So the
aspect of salvation called sanctification involves trnsformation of
both actions and will. To be “safe for heaven” God must be
certain that a being has been so thoroughly transformed (not just
'reformed') that they will always allow God to be God and not seek to
substitute any other thing, not even themselves.