Christ has come as the great Jubilee, the Divine Redeemer. He has proclaimed an amnesty to those who will turn to Him and believe in the atonement He has wrought for them.

However, the terms of this amnesty do not make provision for our continuing in sin. The amnesty is for the truly repentant.

For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. (Hebrews 10:26,27)

Christian scholars who do not understand the conditional nature or the purpose of the amnesty conceive of the Christian redemption as a forgiveness that God hands out to us so we can enter Heaven when we die regardless of how live on the earth. This is a misconception of both the goal and the process of the Divine redemption.

The purpose of redemption is not to bring sinners into Paradise. The purpose of redemption is to make it possible for sinners to repent, to turn to God, to be delivered from the power of Satan, and to inherit eternal life.

Redemption does not bring the old personality into Paradise; rather, it creates a new personality that belongs in Paradise by nature.

Christ did not come to earth in order to bring back to Paradise the sinful and rebellious. Christ came to the earth in order to turn sinners from the power of Satan to the power of God. Christ was revealed for the purpose of undoing the works of Satan (I John 3:8).

To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:18)

There are "Christians" today who do not show mercy, who are spiteful, who force their will on others, who do not practice the virtues that the Lord Jesus set forth in the Sermon on the Mount. Such people would turn any paradise into hell.

The believers have been taught, in some instances, that the proclamations of Jesus concerning righteous and holy behavior do not apply to them because they are saved by "grace." They are trusting that in the moment of their death they will be able to hold God to the current formula of "salvation," and God will be required to declare them guiltless. God then will place a crown on their head, a rod of iron in their hand, and they will govern the nations of the earth as one of God's royal priests.

They seek to manipulate God to their own advantage as they have sought to manipulate people all through their life.

They, perhaps without realizing it, are attempting to mock God.

Salvation does not work this way.

Those who, having made a profession of Christ, continue to walk in the ways of the flesh, especially those who are harsh with their fellow servants, will receive in the Day of Christ precisely what they have given. As they have done so will it be done to them. They have denied others their rights and their rights will be denied to them. As they have sown so shall they reap.

This is why it is so important to distinguish between the scriptural "entering the Kingdom of Heaven" and the traditional "going to Heaven when we die." (from Entering the Kingdom of Heaven)