How Does God Guarantee a Sin-Free Eternity in a Universe Filled With Free-Will Beings?

[JoeMo]

I had lunch recently with some friends from church; and the question posed for this topic came up in our conversation.  Surprisingly (shockingly, actually), one of my friends said that was easy, God will just take away every being's free will.  My response was how can we freely love and obey God without a free will?  His response was that, out of love and a desire to perfectly obey God's will, we would freely choose to give up our free will; a free-will choice.  At that time, God will take away our free will; and we will be incapable of sin.

His logic was as follows: God created angels with a free will; and a third of them chose to rebel against God's Kingdom.  God created man; and in general, almost all of humanity has chosen to rebel against God.  SOOO ... God will give the "saved" a choice to freely give up their free will or choose to be cast into outer darkness.

This is in conceptual agreement with what another poster here on AS seems to be saying.  I find this concept against my idea of a God that gave us a free will. How can we consider ourselves as sentient beings if all we are is automatons?  On the other hand, I find the question of the topic to be a rather difficult one to answer except to say God will accomplish it - somehow - without taking away our free will.  Maybe it will be a genetic change that takes away our propensity to sin.

I believe that satan has ingrained in us a worldview that the only way to express our free will is to choose to rebel against the rules - be that spiritual, physical, or legislated.  The Holy Spirit's idea of a free will is to choose to abide by the rules of righteousness; in spite of the fact that we can't do so perfectly in our current fallen state.  What think ye?

[Aliensanctuary]

Any human with free will cannot be trusted.

Any human possessing the Sense of Self will be selfish.

Any human without the Laws of YHVH downloaded into their minds will transgress them.

Any human without the Sprit if YHVH in them will become a rebel.

In the Kingdom, humans will have a function. Their purpose is not to be part of another experiment in free will, but to obey the commands of YHVH and contribute their labor to the common good.

Free will/Self will result in endless cycles of rebellion.

[JoeMo]

9 hours ago, Aliensanctuary said:

Any human with free will cannot be trusted.

My issue is that any human without a free will or sense of self cannot truly "love"; we will not be "human" any more.  We cannot truly love and obey without making a conscious choice to do so.  We would just be robots programmed to love.

If we make a free-will choice to give up our future free will; does that qualify?  Or when YHVH puts the law into our hearts, will we just spontaneously do good; instead of spontaneously doing evil and having to make an effort to do good like we do now?

[dgrimm60]

JOE MO

the only  way  this  will  happen  is  when  THE  Devil  AND  HIS  DEAMONS  WILL BE  ILLIMINATED ===

the  saved  people  will  want to  serve GOD THE  FATHER===JESUS===THE  HOLY SPIRIT out of LOVE

has the  Angels  do

dgrimm60

[JoeMo]

2 hours ago, dgrimm60 said:

he only  way  this  will  happen  is  when  THE  Devil  AND  HIS  DEAMONS  WILL BE  ILLIMINATED

Unfortunately, devils and demons are not the only source of temptation.  We generate plenty of our own temptations within ourselves.

[Gustave]

I have pondered this question many times. I wish I had an answer but I don't. It may be one of those things we have to take as a matter of faith. 

[Kevin H]

This question is the heart of the Great Controversy. Before I turn to that may I make a comment that the logic in the question is a lot like the logics behind the American and French revolutions in the 1700s. 

The American Revolution was based on freedom through good laws. This is quoted by Thomas Jefferson in the rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial. And this was seen as making freedom available to all. 

The French Revolution was based on the idea that freedom was the absence of law. This lead to the reign of terror and the conclusion that freedom could only be trusted to the elite and that they cannot trust the common man with freedom and thus needs the elate to control the common man. 

As we look at the Great Controversy. God created the angels and likely life on other planets. They lived possibly billions of years, starting out with a love for God and each others, but a child's "my daddy can beat up your daddy" type of mentality. This needed to grow to a mature love. The Holy Spirit was guiding each heart. As Lucifer stood up leading worship services and seeing beings bow to pray to God it is only natural to wonder what it must be like to be God and have beings praying to you. We do similar things; what would it be like to be President. What would it be like to be a famous athlete, the home-run king, a rock star, a movie star etc. The Holy Spirit lead this natural wondering to leading Lucifer to ask excellent questions about God:

What is the role between God as God and us as creatures, and Lucifer came to realize that love was a law, love for God and love for each other. This would lead to asking if God really was God and did he have a right to tell us the love him supremely and our neighbors as ourselves. What if God is only a higher life form who evolved to perfection and this idea of loving God supremely and our neighbors as ourselves was only a way to keep us in our place instead of looking out for numero uno and working ourselves to the perfection that God reached. 

Related to this is what happens if people decide not to love. God claims to be both just and merciful. Is it really possible to be both? For God to be just don't sinners need to die (probably God imposing a death penalty) but for God to be merciful he will have to have a way of sinners living, does that mean that the  law of love is not that import after all?

These were excellent questions. Lucifer and other beings could have come to understand these and it would have deepened their relationship with God. But the mystery of iniquity is why Lucifer did not look for answers. Instead he let pride take over and he just congratulated himself for being clever enough to think up these questions. 

God worked long with the angels and the universe. The original purpose of earth was for the angels and others to look for evidence. Now God could have just done something powerful to lay all questions a side. But freedom of choice was too important to God. He wanted them to look for hints and evidence and to make decisions based by faith step by step. There are a couple of Bible verses that point towards this such as the words translated "Without form and void" in Genesis 1 and in Genesis 2 the indication that there was a time before when man was around to cultivate the ground. But we are not given the details about this time. The waters described in Genesis 1 is also the idea of chaos. What ever happened here became chaos, but also the angels and other life forms made decisions on what they were seeing for who knows how long, but they decided which side of the Great Controversy to be on. 

Once that choice was made proof finally came as the Spirit of God hovered over the chaos and said "Let there be light" and there was a very special week. While the two sides were formed they were still growing. Had Lucifer and the others who sided with him just continued to experiment among themselves their hearts would have remained soft enough for God to continue to work with them. But instead they decided that they wanted to attack the newly formed beings, who were basically children. This child molestation would have needed them to harden their hearts and thus make it even harder for God to reach them. 

As time went by the two sides continued to make choices, as they saw the events of human history they continued to look at the hints and evidence and characters developed. History continued to the Christ event and the cross. Had Jesus not decided to go through with it that would have shown that God was indeed selfish and did not live up to the law of self sacrificing love, and therefore God could not be trusted and would have broken the life giving connection between creator and creatures. But as Jesus kept loving and allowed the sin issue to come between him and the Father and the Spirit and killing him all the life in the universe had closed their probation as they formed an unshakable decision that either nothing can make them want to leave Jesus or nothing can convince them to come to Jesus. It was only humanity that was continuing to make up our minds. 

But even as they closed their probation there is still growth for all eternity for the saved and until the lost finally die. This continued growth is where the investigative judgment fits in and other events. But this is what happens. We grow to either where we will rebel continuously or where nothing can shake our relationship. If your friend is married does a day come when his spouse will give up freedom of choice to be faithful to him because if she keeps her freedom of choice she will cheat on him? On his children's 21's birthday to they give up their freedom of choice otherwise they would not love their parents? Or does he on their 21st birthday give up his freedom of choice so that he can continue to love his children? (Hey, maybe we should force parents to give up their freedom of choice when the child turns 13 to get through the teen years).  Just as spouses can use their freedom of choice to love and be faithful to each other, just as children can use their freedom of choice to  choose to love their parents and parents to choose to love their children.

[JoeMo]

20 hours ago, Gustave said:

It may be one of those things we have to take as a matter of faith. 

It's the only way I can take it.  I can't wrap my head around it.  Kevin's post was very well stated.  But I still wonder - can someone's decision really hold forever?  That is a VERY long time. Actually, it is timelessness.

[Kevin H]

6 hours ago, JoeMo said:

It's the only way I can take it.  I can't wrap my head around it.  Kevin's post was very well stated.  But I still wonder - can someone's decision really hold forever?  That is a VERY long time. Actually, it is timelessness.

Don't forget that 2/3 of the angels and the beings on the other planets except for earth have been using their free will to Love Jesus for even longer than us who have used our freewill to sin. And it has only been the past 2,000 years that they could do this with the event of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to have them close their probation. 

And after all we have been through, how many people are going to say "Hey, I really miss cancer and attending funerals, sickness and being stolen from and abused was just so much fun,  let's start those days all over again!!!"

[Aliensanctuary]

Upon baptism in the Jordan, the Spirit of YHVH entered Jesus Christ, removed his Sense of Self, and activated his mission, which was to teach humans about the Kingdom of YHVH, and, via the Spirit, to heal them, even to raising them from the dead. 

At some point, the Spirit will raise everyone else from the dead, and those who choose to be washed up in the Living Waters of the River of Life will experience a memory-wipe, lose their sense of Self, and have the Laws of the Kingdom programmed into their minds. The Spirit within will prevent future transgressions. This is the New Covenant.

After baptism by Water and Spirit, the memory-wipe will render humans as children, just as Christ taught. 

They must go to school for a time  in order to train for their mission, or job assignment. Floating on clouds with angel wings while strumming harps on a perpetual vacation is a teaching of fake religion.

Most humans will be service workers onboard the New Jerusalem, a huge, Self-sustaining  city from the stars. 

Many of the humans will work in food production, including raising animals. Others will maintain services in the city, keeping it clean and functioning until the New Earth is reached.

There will be no more need to experiment with free will in humans. As Jesus Christ became Selfless for the greater good, so will the humans, the only way to prevent evil from rising from the ashes of human history. 

[Aliensanctuary]

Each human will be assigned to one of the 12 Tribes and will live and work in their assigned zones. Their secret password will allow or restrict access to other zones. 

[JoeMo]

7 hours ago, Aliensanctuary said:

Most humans will be service workers

The Bible says we will be priests and kings in the Kingdom; not mindless automatons.

"And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." (Rev. 1:6)

"And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth." (Rev. 5:10)

Also note that it says we will rule on earth; not in some gigantic spaceship.

[Aliensanctuary]

Those who work in the Temple will be priests, receiving tithes and offerings of food and animals for their own consumption. 

Was Jesus Christ a mindless automaton? Neither will humans in the Kingdom be robots. 

If anyone wishes to keep the option to transgress the Laws of the Kingdom, they will probably refuse to be baptized by water and Spirit in the River of Life. 

[thx4mercy]

On 6/21/2019 at 9:33 PM, Kevin H said:

And after all we have been through, how many people are going to say "Hey, I really miss cancer and attending funerals, sickness and being stolen from and abused was just so much fun,  let's start those days all over again!!!"

This goes along with what I heard once, "We will have the capacity to sin (in heaven), but we won't want to."  Just like the angels in heaven now, they still have the power of choice.  But when they see what our world is like now, there is no way they would be tempted to follow Satan.

[Aliensanctuary]

Because the Earth is all but destroyed and is uninhabitable for humans and animals, they must evacuate the planet. That is the purpose of the New Jerusalem, nearly 2/3 the size of the moon. This city is what is referred to as "heaven". Heaven means "up", or "sky", or "where YHVH dwells". This city, of course, will be in space, since it is too large to land on the Earth.

When people say they want to go to heaven, they really mean the New Jerusalem, a city from the stars where each will have a "mansion", or space to live. There are many, many mansions in the New Jerusalem. Of course, there will be a time when a new home planet will be ready for the humans to settle and the New Jerusalem will move on to other destinations.

In the Kingdom of YHVH, Self cannot exist, otherwise it will be pointless to save the humans if they continue to transgress the Laws of the Kingdom.

[8thdaypriest]

This earth has been the lesson book - the live demonstration, of rebellion and lawlessness vs love - played out for all to see and/or experience.  The lessons learned must be so profound that they remain permanently etched in the minds of those who are granted life eternal.   Hence the reason they are sooooooooo very painful, for everyone - the innocent and the guilty alike.  

Yes we can agree, that one cannot love without the indwelling spirit of God.  But He does not invade the personal "space" of created sentient beings without their permission.  Those who are granted life eternal will be those who have invited, and greatly desired, and welcomed that indwelling - the melding of the divine mind with their own created minds. 

We have His promise that this indwelling will one day bring us to keep His law of love - perfectly.  

Even now, who of us really wants to sin.  I don't.  I hate it when I act petty, or rudely, or think selfishly.  I so much want to be "like Him".  It is so wonderful to realize that "He knows that we are flesh",  and He loves us every one.   It is so wonderful to contemplate a society in which I can fully trust everyone without reservation.