Could you discuss the physical and spiritual consequences of sin in our lives, and the difference between them? Will the physical consequences all be restored back to us when we get new bodies?
You've asked a very, very important question! I was talking there, as you rightly say, about the physical consequences. The illustration I give, falling off a balcony while drunk and losing your leg, is a physical thing that will be put right: we shall have new bodies. And likewise believers who are mangled under torture will get new bodies. But what about the spiritual thing? Let me talk within this context and with baited breath. I think there are spiritual consequences that are eternal.
Peter says (see 2 Peter 1) that God's divine power has given us all that is necessary for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us. But alongside that, we are to use all diligence to add certain qualities to our faith, and:
if you practise these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom. (2 Peter 1:10–11)
I take it the emphasis is on the adverb richly. Entrance into the eternal kingdom, mere entrance, if I may put it that way, is based for all believers alike, on the blood of Christ.
Blessed are those who wash their robes [that is, in the blood of Christ], so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. (Revelation 22:14)
The dying thief, who hadn't the chance to add anything, was granted to be with Christ in paradise that night.
Peter is making the point about the difference between sheer entrance and an entrance richly. To have an abundant, a rich entry, Peter makes dependent on not merely belief, but on adding these things so that we shall be fully grown up, to use another term. The believer that is neglectful to add these things and doesn't make progress when he or she could, will be saved of course—they will enter. But what if somebody says, 'Oh you must be talking nonsense because the Bible says that when we see him we shall be like him.' When we see him as he is: yes, every believer will be like Christ. But then let me add, to clarify what I really think in my own heart, we shall all be like Christ—what there is of us. You can be a believer and be careless to add all these qualities to your character, and never attempt to serve the Lord—you're saved and you'll never perish, so why bother? Well, if you're genuinely saved, yes you'll be in heaven. But compare that to the dear man or woman who for the last fifty-six years has served Christ, has attempted to add by the grace of the Holy Spirit these qualities, and develop a Christian character, and even in this life is seen to be a great saint of God. To suppose there will be no difference between that person and the Christian who has just wasted his life and not troubled to add anything, I find difficult to accept. I think there will be spiritual consequences.
We should all be like Christ. In a family you might see four children, one is seventeen, the other is thirteen, the other is eleven, the other is six. If you look at them carefully you can see a family likeness, but one has grown up a bit more than the others and is able to do more things. The youngster is still playing with toys on the carpet. The older chap is helping to run the family business. They're all like their parents, but some have grown and are more capable of more things. That there will be difference in reward for work done is explicitly stated. That there will be differences in maturity of character, and growth of character, I think is stated just as explicitly in 2 Peter 1.
Does that seem to be seriously false doctrine? It's a very important question to be faced. You might like to go away and think about it, and if you think that I have erred from the truth, you could, in the spirit of meekness, come and help me get out of the fault!
