Will We Really Be Perfect?

Someone e-mailed me this question: “In Heaven, will some people still be annoying? After all, eternity’s a long time!” Annoyance is sometimes caused by others’ sin, our own, or both. Since sin will be eliminated, so will annoyance. That doesn’t mean people won’t have idiosyncrasies, only that they won’t be rooted in sin, and none of us will degrade or dismiss others.

Jonathan Edwards said, “Even the very best of men, are, on earth, imperfect. But it is not so in heaven. There shall be no pollution or deformity or offensive defect of any kind, seen in any person or thing; but every one shall be perfectly pure, and perfectly lovely in heaven.”

In Heaven we’ll be perfectly human. Adam and Eve were perfectly human until they bent themselves into sinners. Then they lost something that was an original part of their humanity—moral perfection. Since then, under sin’s curse, we’ve been human but never perfectly human.

We can’t remember a time when we weren’t sinners. We’ve always carried sin’s baggage. What relief it will be not to have to guard our eyes and our minds. We will not need to defend against pride and lust because there will be none.

In Heaven we won’t just be better than we are now—we’ll be better than Adam and Eve were before they fell. Our resurrection bodies may be very much like their bodies were before the Fall, but we’ll be a redeemed humanity with knowledge of God, including his grace, far exceeding theirs.

Of course, Adam and Eve will be with us too, in their resurrection bodies. No one will know better than they what we’ve missed. They will have lived on the original Earth, the fallen Earth, and the New Earth. (That’s why they rank high on my list of people I want to talk with.)

In Heaven we’ll be perfectly human, but we’ll still be finite. Our bodies will be perfect in that they won’t be diseased or crippled. But that doesn’t mean they won’t have limits.

The term perfect is often misused when it describes our state in Heaven. I’ve heard it said, for instance, “We’ll communicate perfectly, so we’ll never be at a loss for words.” I disagree. I expect we’ll sometimes grasp for words to describe the wondrous things we’ll experience. I expect I’ll stand in speechless wonder at the glory of God. I’ll be morally perfect, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be capable of doing anything and everything. (Adam and Eve were morally perfect, but that didn’t mean they could automatically invent nuclear submarines or defy gravity. They were perfect yet finite, just as we will be.)

Someone asked me, “If we’re sinless, will we still be human?” Although sin is part of us now, it’s not essential to our humanity—in fact, it’s foreign to it. It’s what twists us and keeps us from being what we once were—and one day will be.

Our greatest deliverance in Heaven will be from ourselves. Our deceit, corruption, self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, hypocrisy—all will be forever gone.

Theologian and novelist Frederick Buechner anticipates the new “us” on the New Earth: “Everything is gone that ever made Jerusalem, like all cities, torn apart, dangerous, heartbreaking, seamy. You walk the streets in peace now. Small children play unattended in the parks. No stranger goes by whom you can’t imagine a fast friend. The city has become what those who loved it always dreamed and what in their dreams she always was. The new Jerusalem. That seems to be the secret of Heaven. The new Chicago, Leningrad, Hiroshima, Beirut. The new bus driver, hot-dog man, seamstress, hairdresser. The new you, me, everybody.”

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By Randy Alcorn
Eternal Perspective Ministries
39085 Pioneer Blvd.   Suite 206
Sandy, OR 97055
(503) 668-5200
www.epm.org
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com