Introduction
Time and again, Yahweh sent His prophets to rail against His people’s iniquities and worship of false gods. They said He would send them into captivity and bring destruction on Jerusalem and the Temple. Then Yahweh would promise the return of the people to the land, especially after they turned their hearts to Him. Finally, the prophets would predict the return of the whole Earth to the conditions of Eden. The Creator again had an expectation of sinlessness among those who trusted and obeyed Him.
Individual Renewal of Hearts and Minds
Today, THE big question among Christians, especially Western evangelicals, is whether a person is saved and going to Heaven. Is the person moral enough, sanctified enough, to be received at the Pearly Gates?
Just this morning, I listened to Dr. Michael Heiser discuss the meaning of Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones (Naked Bible 151: Ezekiel 37). He said a popular explanation is that it provides information on a theology of individual bodily resurrection. Mike said, No, the vision is about the restoration of all of Israel.
My own gathering of passages of Writings gives Yahweh’s promises to restore the hearts of believers to loyalty to Him and to bring everyone to a state of sinlessness.
Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice , holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Yahweh promised to work in people’s hearts and bring them to sinlessness.
Jeremiah 24:7 I will give them the desire to know that I am the Lord. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God, because they will return to me with all their heart.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
Ezekiel 36:25-27 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
In the end, Holy Spirit will remove the felt need for violence, for the Law of Tooth and Claw. Wild animals – let alone violent people – will be tamed, harmless.
Isaiah 11:6-9 / / The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
No Need for Morality
I submit the idea that there will be no need for standards of morality. Everyone will live from the renewed hearts and minds worked into him or her by Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:6). Yahweh will get a sinless people He can live close to because they are neither rebellious nor unclean (Revelation 21:22, 27).
