6a: How could Sin Arise in a Perfect Angel World?

The Fundamental Question and the Plan of Salvation

Based on the model we've been exploring, here are some thoughts on how Sin arose the first time in a “perfect” angelic world and why, after playing out the consequences to the end on this Earth, it will never rise again anywhere. I see two factors that inevitably cause sin to arise among free-willed, thinking beings. One is an insufficient understanding of “good” and “evil”, so that they will always choose only “good”. The other is a need to prove that they are indeed making such decisions on their own free will.

First: One fundamental aspect of free will, is that Sin could and eventually would enter the perfect angelic world by ignorance. This is because some apparently altruistic choices will lead to sin in the long-term. At their roots, these choices would also involve trusting something other than the Creator. However, it would not be obvious that there was any connection to such a problem when the decision is being made. I see this as the situation a child is in when they just don’t have the experience to understand how a simple choice might come back to haunt them. They must trust their more experienced parents to advise them as to what choice to make until they are experienced enough themselves. So, how are the angelic beings to get the necessary experience? If they go ahead and make decisions without trusting God (their parent) then sooner or later they’ll make some bad ones and sin will enter their world. If they realize that they are always trusting God without question, then sooner or later they are going to wonder if they actually have any free will. This introduces the second fundamental point.

Second: If indeed God is the Thinker and we are His thoughts, then a fundamental question immediately arises. How do we know that we are morally free will beings? Is the answer that we can only know this because God has said that we are? Since He is the Thinker and we are merely His thoughts, He could have it either way; and how would we know? God would say, that He has the option of intervening or just setting up the situation around us and allowing us to do our own thing; but we need to believe Him when He says that He will not intervene, when it voids our free will. We could, therefore, elect to trust that He will not intervene in what we do even though He could. However, somewhere in time, thinking beings must satisfy themselves that they are free to make their own choices. Until someone experiments with this, it will only be a matter of trusting God and not a matter of observation.

Thinking beings are never morally free until they understand “good” and “evil”. However, if they elect to understand evil by doing evil, that causes “sin” and the wages of sin is death. While they are deteriorating towards inevitable death, the kingdom of heaven is not perfect as God intended. The Bible calls this situation, “war in heaven”.

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Think back to the perfect angelic universe, which clearly existed way before God created our 3D universe. How did those angels know they were choosing good things rather than self-destructive things until they actually experienced the longer term consequences for those choices? How could they even know they had free will? Sure they could still trust God (Michael) and like robots, only choose things that He authorized in advance. How long would this work, before these angelic children started to question their free will? Eventually, some angels are going to want some proof that they even have any free will. There is nothing wrong with asking for proof. Their universe is still perfect. The problem is that getting this particular proof will cause them to self-destruct eventually (not immediately, but they will surely self-destruct eventually). My suggestion is that if they continue to try to get this proof, the angel world around them will degrade and heaven will no longer be perfect, as God intended. It continues to exist in this imperfect state until it eventually self-destructs. Then God needs to start all over. There is no one left to tell the tale, so history repeats itself.

God has an inherent dilemma. He wants a perfect world with free-willed beings, but they always self-destruct. Who cares how long it takes? God is eternal. The problem is that He is unable to have a perfect world during the process. He needs a better plan to save His created, free-willed beings from this seemingly inevitable fate. This is why God had to create our universe, a little lower than the angel universe, after sin had arisen in that angelic universe. If they can watch the consequences of sin play out with us in all its many ramifications, then they will thoroughly understand “evil” without doing evil. They will know they are morally free will beings yet they will not be contaminated by sin. By observing our sin drama over all those generations of human scenarios, they will really understand evil and how to avoid even those subtle choices that will ultimately lead to sin. Then, as long as they remember the Sin Drama that played out on this Earth, sin will never arise again anywhere. If they “remember”, then they will never make any choices that will lead to sin, so sin will never arise again. All created, thinking beings will finally be able to realize God’s original intention of living “happily ever after in the kingdom of heaven”. God’s eternal gospel message is just this point. God has always intended for His created thinking beings to live happily ever after in His kingdom of heaven and He has a plan that will ensure that this eventually happens.

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Here’s a Suggested Scenario on how events might have played out in that perfect angelic universe.

Perhaps, now we should propose a scenario that will illustrate how all this might have come to pass in that pre-existing angelic universe we call the “kingdom of heaven”. This is conjecture based on extrapolating what little we read in the Bible.

Here's how it might have happened? God wants companionship, so He thinks up an entire perfect, 4D angel universe and then He thinks of Himself as an angel in there with them. This angel, “Who is like God”, is the archangel the Bible calls, Michael. He is totally angel, but also He is God. If you see Him, then you've seen God. In this universe, the angelic beings are ignorant of the nature of evil. They enjoy their situation, but because they have free will, they (like any innocent children) are making all kinds of choices routinely. Think about the choices children playing with each other make every day. Some of their choices lead to problems, where the parent needs to intervene to resolve them. The heaven is no longer perfect, because at some very low levels, “sin” has arisen. I’m calling this sin the consequence of decisions to do evil things, whether or not the angel understands the consequences in advance. Ignorance could still cause sin to arise.

The angelic beings are maturing all the time and questioning the situation they find themselves in. Why are these problems arising and what can they do to prevent them? One group realizes that if they only do what their parent allows, then they will have not more problems. The other group recognizes that this existence would be akin to being robots. Is it possible for them to exercise their independent free will and still not cause problems. At this point the problems do not clearly lead to self-destruction, but still there is “war in heaven”. Heaven is no longer perfect and the angelic beings are seeking ways to rectify this.

Eventually some "rocket scientist-type" angel, Lucifer, must decide to generate some proof as to whether or not he is a free will being. He says to the image of God, Who he sees in his 4D world (ie Michael, the Archangel); “I need to prove to myself that I am really acting on my own, because it looks like You could be pulling my strings and I'd never know it.” Michael would answer that God only created angels because He loves them and wants to share their experiences with them. As free will beings, they can have far more experiences to share than His lesser creations. If God wanted robots, He would have made more grass! So it makes sense that all the angels have free will.

"Perhaps, but the only way I can prove that I am a free will being is if I am doing things that You do not want me to do," says Lucifer, "Then I'll know I'm doing them myself!"

Michael's answer is that God wants only good things for His created beings – things which will lead to a quality life and not to self-destruction. Anything that He would not want for them would inherently be self-destructive. The only thing in this world that God doesn't want His created beings to do, is to try to separate themselves from Him. Because He is their Thinker, they will surely cease to exist if He grants that free-will request and stops thinking about them. (This is what we call sinning against the Holy Spirit of God, ie His thoughts.) This creates a dilemma for God Who, like any good parent, doesn't want His children to self-destruct, yet He doesn't want to violate their free will either.

When they try to push themselves out of His sight/mind, they must look for alternatives to put their trust in, besides God (eg themselves). This will create an ever-degrading situation that is more and more unhealthy for them. (Note how Adam and Eve attempted to physically hide themselves from God after the fall.) Ultimately their situation will not work and everything around them will be trashed. Along the way they will separate themselves from Him enough that they won't know God any longer. They would try to kill the image of God (ie Son of God) if He appears in their world (which is exactly what some did).

The final result will be their everlasting death.

So, this is the scenario that I see Michael laying out for Lucifer. "There's only one thing you can do that I don't want you to do, Lucifer. Please don't try to get Me to stop thinking about you, ie don't try to hide from Me so you feel free of Me. As long as I'm thinking of you I'll know everything about you. But, if I stop thinking of you, you'll go away. I love you or I would not have thought of you in the first place. Trying to hide from Me will create a dilemma for Me. I would be violating your free will if I kept thinking of you when you really want me to stop. Yet, if (like a loving parent) I continue to think of you for a while, then you'll have a chance to change your mind. However, if you don't change your mind and I keep thinking of you, then you will continue to corrupt yourself, create around you a world that doesn't work, and eventually die."

Now God wants his created beings to live their lives to the fullest. As with any loving parent, He wants them to do their own thing, but to share their experiences with Him. I say again, in order for Lucifer to do something that Michael doesn't want him to do, he must do something that is inherently self-destructive. It's not so obvious, so he or someone else must eventually try it. Now Lucifer can have thoughts against God. Having a choice between good or evil is not a problem. It’s the result from a decision to do evil that is sin, and sin is the problem. This is a representative suggestion as to how sin entered a perfect angel universe. Pride was not the original cause of sin for the angels. They were created perfect, without this sinful pride. Pride arose later, as a result of this initial attempting to hide from God. Think of it as a child telling his parent, “I’d rather do it myself. I don’t want your help. Leave me alone. I don’t need your involvement.” And, “Stay out of my life”. The root of all sin is trying to hide from God, which itself is not a sin. The “pride” that developed and grew with time, was a sin that resulted from trying first to hide from God.

Now, I'm suggesting that there is eventually a visible result of Lucifer's developing pride. He must start doing something that the other angels notice, because the Bible tells us that a third of them followed Lucifer. Violence is one possibility. He knows Michael does not want him to start fights, so he does. There is unrest/war in heaven. Many angels might feel that Lucifer is clearly more "free" than they are, since Michael is clearly not controlling him. They see that his fighting is causing problems, but perhaps they can help him get the kinks out and then they'll all be more free.

“Sin” is like a cancer and now, there is a cancer in heaven. The cancer itself is self-destructing, but as long as there is a host to feed off of, the cancer will survive and the host (the angel universe) will be in an unhappy, degrading state - like any body with a malignant cancer. This is not the happy universe God wanted.

I can see where this scenario may well have been played out to its bitter end many times, with each successive angel universe self-destructing over countless millennia. Finally, God has a new idea. ( I firmly believe God learns and since He has had an eternity to learn, He has an enormous data base. Yet, I say He continues to learn.) God/Michael says to the other angelic beings, “Let's create a surrogate universe and allow it to self-destruct in this fashion, so you angels won't have to. You angels must learn from this Sin Drama, that I am indeed keeping you alive by thinking of you, but not controlling you; and that it is unnecessary to try to hide from Me, because you are free, even though I know all about you. You'll also see that the eventual wages of sin is self-destruction. Then, too, once you have seen the full drama play out on Earth, you will understand the nature of “good” and “evil” so well that you will not choose evil even when the choice is very subtle and seemingly benign.

Therefore, I can see where the angelic beings must also learn all about evil by watching our sin dram play out over many generations, without actually doing evil themselves as Lucifier and one third of the angels had already done. That first group was contaminated by sin and will eventually self-destruct. The remaining two thirds must avoid learning as they did (by doing), so they will now learn by watching. By watching us, they will understand the nature of evil so well that they can avoid making evil choices thereafter. Then, sin will never arise in our heaven again, even though you are all still making free-willed choices. Then, without sin in the kingdom of heaven, all God’s created, thinking beings will finally be able to realize His original intention of living “happily ever after in the kingdom of heaven”.” God’s eternal gospel message is just this point. God has always intended for His created thinking beings to live happily ever after in His kingdom of heaven and He has a plan that will ensure that this eventually happens.

Now the angels are witnessing that these two principles are true in our 3D image of the angel world. They can see that the consequences of our decision to trust ourselves rather than God in the Garden of Eden, has truly led to a world that is falling apart. As it does, they can learn all about evil choices until they fully understand how to avoid them.

Now, if God were to intervene to save us before a total collapse, we would have a reason to believe that we might have corrected the situation ourselves if given more time. Hence, if sin is to never rise again He must allow the consequences of our decision to be played out completely. Otherwise, some will feel that we would have worked out the problems ourselves if only He had given us enough time. Once we self-destruct He can step in, allow this fallen 3-D world to pass away, and make all things new for us in the 4D world where Christ-glorified and the angels are now. [Note: God loves us enough to keep thinking of us through this and to give us (who are demonstrating His point) an escape clause, ie if we later choose to trust Him, then John 3:16 applies. See the next section on the "Escape Clause", which God instituted from the beginning of His plan for the salvation of all His created free-willed beings.]

Free will is having a choice. Evil is the choice to trust in anything in the place of God. Sin is the immediate consequence of choosing evil. The final result of sin is death.

Wouldn't it suffice to just trust God and know that He will not intervene when it violates our free-will? It will one day, after the scenario has been played out to the bitter end. Then and only then will the created beings have seen that God does not violate free-will, even when it produces situations that He abhors. Once the scenario has been played out to the end, there will no longer be a need for more observable evidence of this fact. All the hosts of heaven and those of us who will be changed into beings like the angels (see Rev 5) will have seen that we all inherently have a choice, "everlasting Life or everlasting Death". Also, since the observers will have developed a thorough understanding of the nature of evil, they will be able to recognize the subtle choices that would lead to sin and thus to avoid them. This brings up another question: What would happen if after God raises humans from death and transforms them into angelic beings, He immediately put them in heaven with His angelic beings? After all those beings just spent a very long time observing far more good/evil scenarios than we could have in one short lifetime. I say God needs to take those of us, who chose Life, aside for 1000 years to study with Him the archives of the entire human drama. We will live and reign with the glorified Christ in the New Jerusalem ( floating around in the angelic universe) for a 1000 years, until we to thoroughly understand the nature of evil and like the other angelic beings, we are finally able to avoid those subtle choices to do evil. This is why we do not go directly to heaven. The first bad choice one of us would make will cause sin to arise yet again in that otherwise perfect heaven and we’re all back to square one. Once we have spent this 1000year period with the glorified Christ, we are ready for Rev 21:1-5. The New Jerusalem “spaceship” can land on the New Earth that God re-created in the angelic universe, and it will become our permanent home.

For those who choose everlasting death, the Lake of Fire is our fate. This is symbolic of God putting us “out of His Mind”, ie He knows us, but He will never again think of us in any active scenario. It’s as if we are in a folder on His hard drive, but He will never again open that folder.

For those of us who chose to receive everlasting life, there will no longer be a chance for an ignorant choice that will bring sin back into that perfect heaven. All the angelic beings will understand the nature of evil as God understands it and we’ll all be safe in our choices. Also, we will know that we are exercising our free will without concern that God knows everything about us. In fact, we will have already convinced ourselves that we want to share all our experiences with God. We want to climb the mountains ourselves, but we want God there while we do it. There will be no need to attempt to isolate ourselves from Him. For both of these reasons, sin will never rise again, even though it could. In addition, The key causes of sin in this world will be gone: There will be no need for immediate gratification, since we are fully gratified. Those around us will not be telling us that bad choices are good for us; and the fallen angels will not be around to tempt us.

For more on this see:

Section 3g: Why Christ Had to Die and to be Raised from the Dead;

Section 6c: What is this Eternal Gospel Message?

Appendix 10: Why God is so serious about Remembering the Sabbath.

15 August 2001, Updated 5 December 2002, 1 March 2003

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For more on this and a response to any questions, please email any comments to nasamike@nasamike.com