Author and apologist Dr. Sean McDowell has researched and discussed many aspects of the Christian life—including heaven. McDowell recently answered one of the toughest topics and questions with an approachable truth.
“Would you say that [people in heaven] can’t sin?” asked an audience member at a recent event.
Sean McDowell Says in Heaven, We’ll ‘See Sin for Exactly What It Is’
As an apologetics professor at Biola University, Sean McDowell speaks at schools, conferences, and universities. After taking a question from the audience from a recent event, McDowell jumped into a conversation about heaven.
“In heaven and in glory…creatures are free,” an audience member said. “But they don’t sin. Would you say that they can’t sin?”
McDowell answered the question by noting what other philosophers and theologians have said. Many believe that “once you get to heaven, the actual free will and capacity to sin is gone.” But McDowell doesn’t follow this theory.
Over the last few decades, McDowell has studied the Bible, consulted theologians, philosophers, and fellow apologists, and navigated the cultural ebbs and flows. In his latest book, “Apologetics for an Ever-Changing Culture,” he helps ministry leaders in “conveying and upholding the Christian faith in our contemporary cultural context.”
“I actually think when we get to heaven, we see sin clearly for exactly what it is,” McDowell argued. “The lure is completely gone.”
Those in heaven have been transformed inside and out, with new, heavenly bodies.
McDowell further explained three temptations: “the world, Satan, and our fallen nature.” In heaven, “there’s no more Satan,” he said, and “no more world in the negative sense.”
So, that leaves our natures, which have been transformed when we get to heaven. McDowell compared how we view sin now with distorted vision as “through a glass, darkly. So we justify sin and explain things away.”
To illustrate his point, McDowell described a specific sin—albeit quite morbid—that doesn’t tempt him in any way. “I could do it, but I never will,” he admitted.
McDowell said that he would never walk “above the 5 freeway” and “push my 13-year-old son off,” wondering “if he’ll be able to survive the trucks going by.”
The morbid example drove McDowell’s point home. “There’s nothing you could do to tempt me to do that,” he said, noting even the promise of indescribable wealth.
