What about sin in this Day Age? Are we absolutely now without any vestige of sin? Are we as sinless as they who are in Paradise?
I am aware that gainsayers will immediately mock the maintenance of our inheritance now. They will ridicule the things put forth on this website. That is their lot, and in reality is of no real concern. It is their destiny. They are actually magnifying God’s holiness and justice this way. They are confirming through their lives that they are of those who are outside the city and away from the mountain. But, I also know that there are many real believers in Jesus (citizens within the city and upon the mountain) who have legitimate questions and concerns about the sinless language held forth as the present inheritance of all of God’s holy ones. They are repetitively told and themselves deeply believe that they are redeemed sinners, journeying to the promised land, Heaven above, the abode of the souls of the righteous where their sin problems will be finally cured.
The answer to these true concerns is simple, direct, and straightforward. We have inherited sinless perfection, or another way to phrase it is, we have inherited from the Lord sinless maturity. This is our realm of reality. This is God’s eternal purpose now fulfilled. This is how God expects us to live today. He expects us to believe that He has done away with Satan, sin, and death in the second coming of His Son to establish His Kingdom in this eternal heaven and earth through the ages of the Age. In what I will say next, I am not making one iota for excusing sin. Rather, I am magnifying the grace and glory of God. When we look away from the face of Jesus, when we wonder off of the highway of holiness, sin, the outside croucher gains a foothold. Sin is outside of the city. It is not upon the mountain. When we drift away from faith working through love, alas, we sin. However, that event is not normal. It is isolated. And, praise be to God that it is isolated! It is very foreign to us who live inside the heavenly Jerusalem, God’s city of righteousness and peace. It is very foreign to us who dwell upon the untouchable heavenly Zion, God’s mountain of pure and undefiled worship. Hallelujah - because we have come to and abide upon the mountain where Jesus mediates all things, where His sprinkled blood of forgiveness and cleansing is!
There is a place, the Paradise of God, also called the third heaven, where there is no sin. Until then, ours is the privilege and the responsibility grounded in our bestowed inheritance not to sin. What the apostle John said very shortly before the coming of the Kingdom of God was truly effective then, and it is all the more so now. He said, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins.” And a little later in the same letter he said, “No one who has been born of God practices sin, because His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin continually, because he has been born of God.” Remember this other word of John. It grounds and informs everything covered regarding sins. “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope set on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
How can all of this be? Isn’t this contrary to what the church teaches about the second coming of Jesus. Yes, it is. The church has a lot to learn even as it continues to defer its inheritance. The Kingdom of God is a spiritual realm full of liberty. It cannot be seen with natural eyes. It is spiritual, and the spiritual ones discern it spiritually, as intended by God.
Sin is for outsiders. We are insiders, citizens of the city upon the mountain of God.