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I'm truly baffled sometimes by the number of Christians online who sincerely believe their personalities will be improved by the acquisition of a new body. And it's a bit humorous too because their belief justifies a Twinkie defense. In other words; while the lost are saying the Devil made them do it; some of the Lord's people are saying their body made them do it. (chuckle)
So I have to ask: What about the interim? What's to prevent deceased Christians from being jerks in the afterlife while they're waiting for a new body?
Incidentally, the Twinkie defense implies that people in hell are now 100% sinless since they parted company with their human body when they crossed over to the other side.
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I think Scripture is perfectly clear about this: when we're in heaven, we'll be conformed to Christ. It's not just the matter of a new body, it's a new being. No trace of the old will exist, otherwise we couldn't possibly be before God, who won't tolerate anything of the old nature in His presence. We are sons before God as Christ is
the Son, perfected in Him. To suggest that our old, flawed human personalities won't be entirely done away with is to suggest that God would accept something that's sub-standard and not conformed to His ideal.
I agree that the 'Twinkie' defence, as you describe it, doesn't make any sense either. Those who haven't accepted Christ as their Saviour won't be renewed, and their sins (which will be related at the Judgement Seat) will remain attached to them for all eternity, because they're under judgement for those sins.
LMAO! i was thinking the same exact thing, your personality wont change and you will still be you but in heaven you wont have that bad personality because most of that would be coming from the Devils influence and in heaven you will only be influenced by good and not evil which will most likely improve your personality a lot, not just "Automatically wipe the bad personality away", just most of it that was stemmed from a bad mood all the time [Which you wont have in heaven cause Gods presence will keep everyone happy 24/7] and Satan and his demons...... :D
I'm afraid that couldn't be further from the truth... when we're in heaven, we'll be completely unrecognisable. Nothing of the flesh will remain. Christ died in order that
everything of the old race of Adam might be done away with. We walk here in newness of life, with the Holy Spirit working in us to moderate our actions and keep us from sin, but that's not God's
ideal. We're not perfect, so some change must take place. That change is that we're to be conformed to God's ideal, which is Christ, the perfect Man. Nothing less than a Christ-like state will be acceptable in heaven. We shall be like Christ, and in heaven we'll be praising God constantly, as Christ leads the praise to Him. It's a realm of holy bliss, into which no imperfection could possibly enter.
Our new bodies won't just be free from sin, they'll be free from everything that characterises us naturally. We'll all be identical. The idea that such thing as personality could possibly exist is definitely an error. God will know each of us individually, but there'll be no diversity among us. We will exist purely as worshippers of God, and that will be our activity for evermore. That may not sound entirely appealing to some Christians who haven't grasped the full import of heavenly bliss, but it is the most appealing way to spend eternity that there possibly could be. We will exist in a state of peaceful activity, blissful worship.
Anyway. My point is that in heaven, there won't be anything left of the 'present' us, everything about us will be God's workmanship.