“If children, heirs also, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified in Him”
Romans 8:17 NASB
Whether or not we find ourselves as inheritors of familial assets, we are certainly inheritors of a cosmic gift via our union with Christ. As Christ’s body, we are also children of God and therefore “heirs” and “co-heirs” with the Father’s Son. Yet, what is this inheritance that the Son receives, which in turn makes it ours? Jesus inherits “all things” — all of creation (Heb 1:2 NASB). He received the title “firstborn of all creation” and is the primary inheritor of this world. We, as children of God, get to partake and participate in this inheritance as well.
Inheritance is also connected to glorification; as co-heirs we will also be “glorified in Him.” What does this mean and how is it pertinent? The typical associations of glory have to do with an exposure to some divine light, an inexplicable feeling of heaven, or a mansion in the afterlife. Although such associations have some merit, the fuller and intended meaning of ‘glory’ (greek: doxa) is ‘rule’ or ‘power.’[1] N.T. Wright states, “That is why glory is regularly a royal term symbolized in crowns sometimes with rays of bright light streaming in all directions. The light tells you about the glory, the weighty dignity and power … So when scripture promises that God’s glory will flood the whole creation, that doesn’t mean that the whole world will become luminous … It means that God’s creative power and wisdom will, as we say, shine out visibly all around.”[2] The awaited glorification of God’s children is in a similar vein as the Son’s. Jesus, who is the resurrected Messiah, ascended to the throne as King of the universe — His glorification is His rule, power, and authority over the world.
So, our inheritance, all of creation, is directly tied to our glorification — our co-rule with Christ the King. This is a paradigm shift from the popular understanding of our destiny as God’s children. ‘Going to heaven’ is the default belief about our final destiny — messages about Gospel proclamation are inundated with such notions. Instead, our real and anticipated glorification is co-reigning and co-stewarding all of God’s creation with King Jesus. In Romans 5:17, Paul claims that, through Adam, death ebasileusen (reigned), but now those in Christ are basileusousin (are reigning) in life. The Greek word for ‘reign’ is a cognate of the word basileia (kingdom) and basileus (king).[3] This means that ‘reigning in life’ is not an internal feeling of self-fulfillment, but a spiritual and physical reality of being co-regents/co-rulers of God’s kingdom. All in all, our inheritance and our glorification are present and future realities we already possess, and they involve our stewardship and proper governing of all creation — all of which will be redeemed and subsumed under God’s kingdom.
Our inheritance and our glorification are present and future realities we already possess, and they involve our stewardship and proper governing of all creation
Extending this Pauline thought to the larger New Testament corpus, the parable of the lost Son in Luke provides insight on how an inheritance can be treated. Although this parable arguably has a particular meaning in the context of Luke’s thematic structures of focusing on God’s compassion towards the outcasts and critiquing the religious elite[4], we see that the inheritance the Son asks for and receives implies two elements: 1) inheritance connects us to a family; and 2) an inheritance can be stewarded or exploited. First, familial lineages are the context in which inheritance is bequeathed and received. Therefore, inheritance is inherently tied to familial relationships, and the church’s eternal inheritance is inextricably and irrevocably linked to our adoption as children of God. We exist, by divine design, not as isolated, individualized, self-enclosed entities. Rather, we exist to be in a unified family sanctified by Christ. Secondly, and more pertinently, what we receive now as our birthright can either be utilized for our own selfish benefit or governed with care and love. Christ’s own sacrificial self-giving provides the blueprint to how God intends His children to rule and reign creation. This imitation foreshadows a Pauline vision of the eschaton where God’s consummation of the world involves freedom from “slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21 NASB). As Irenaues of Lyon eloquently expressed, “For God is rich in all things, and all things are His. It is fitting, therefore, that the creation itself, being restored to its primeval condition, should without restraint be under the dominion of the righteous; and the apostle has made this plain in the Epistle to the Romans …”[5] We are part of a renewed family sanctified by Jesus and our inheritance and glorification — our vocational destiny — as His co-regents require our faithful, charitable, and sacrificial stewardship — a complete reversal of how our tainted and sinful world governs people, creatures, and resources. This is our ultimate future. But we also get to participate in it now!
[1] Liddel, Scott, Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford University Press, 1996.
[2] N.T. Wright. Into the Heart of Romans. Zondervan Academic, 2023. p.120
[3] Liddel, Lexicon.
[4] A few examples of literatuure that purport such interpretation: see Bock, Darrell. Luke. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1996; Fitzmyer, Joseph. The Gospel According to Luke X–XXIV. Anchor Yale Bible Commentary. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021; Green, Joel. The Gospel of Luke. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989.
[5] Irenaus of Lyon, Against Adversaries (5.32.1) Translated by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1 Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.