I know. You think I’m going to talk about how perfect heaven is going to be in the future. Yes, heaven certainly is and will be perfect. But that’s not exactly what I mean by “The Future Perfect.”
What I’m referring to by the future perfect is the future perfect tense. To resurrect some high school grammar, the future perfect tense refers to the past in the future, as in “When I finish writing this, I will have written 194 posts.” It describes what the past will be like at some future point.
And that does bring me to the subject of heaven and a question I have about it. I am a free moral agent. That means I can choose to do good or evil. So the question I have is, will I not also be a free moral agent in heaven? And if so, will it not be possible that I could sin again?
“But you’ll be perfect,” you say. “You won’t have any reason to sin.”
But angels are free moral agents and they’re perfect. And yet, at some point, one of them sinned and fell (Luke 10:18). If an angel as perfect as Lucifer fell, isn’t it possible that it could happen again?
Enter the future perfect tense. One of the primary differences between us and angels is that we are redeemed. That means in eternity future we will have been from the other side, from the kingdom of darkness, from the land of un-god. In other words, in heaven, our pasts will be astonishingly different from angels’ pasts. And that difference means we will play a very significant role among the free moral agents who make up heaven. Here’s why.
We know from the way Satan tempted Adam and Eve that Satan’s main accusation against God is that He arbitrarily withholds good from us; that there is good, amazing good, apart from God. And so, having actually experienced what it is like to live apart from God, one of our roles in heaven will be to refute that argument. Having lived in the land of un-god – having experienced the pain, suffering and hopelessness it brings – millions and millions of us redeemed will be able to say, “NO! There is nothing good apart from God! In fact, the only good we ever did experience in that life came from God.”
Of course, proving that there is nothing good apart from Him means God is allowing all permutations of sin to manifest themselves in human history, a maddening and terrifying experience for us all. But the end result is an innumerable company of angels and the redeemed loving God and glorifying God freely, fully and forever, never again to rebel and sin against Him.
And that is a perfect future.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1:27 (ESV)
“No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Psalm 84:11 (ESV)
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