REVISITING THE BELIEVER'S POSITIONAL RICHES IN CHRIST

Part XXVII: Applying The Truth That Believers Have The Inheritance Of The Saints

I. Introduction

A. Believers in Christ at times experience material shortages or loss, what can produce real hardships in life.

B. In God's grace, one of the 33 positional truths the believer comes to possess the instant he trusts in Christ is an eternal inheritance in heaven that he will realize when he arrives in heaven. (Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. III, "Soteriology," p. 261-262) Focusing on this truth keeps the believer encouraged in view of what painful experiences he may face regarding his possessions in this life (as follows):

II. Applying The Truth That Believers Have The Inheritance Of The Saints.

A. The instant one trusts in Christ for salvation, he gains an inheritance in heaven, 1 Peter 1:3-4a.

B. Scripture provides brief glimpses of some of the items included in this heavenly inheritance (as follows):

1. We who believe in Christ will inherit a home in heaven that Christ is preparing for us, John 14:2. We do not know what it will be like, but we know from the description in Revelation 21 of the heavenly city in which this home is located that it must be a spectacularly wealthy and beautiful abode!

2. In heaven, we who trust in Christ will rule in God's throne room as kings and priests (as follows):

a. Revelation 1:5-6 reports that Christ has made us Christians kings and priests unto God the Father.

b. We will thus sit on thrones in God's throne room dressed in white robes as priests and we will be honored as overcomers with wreaths on our heads:

i. The 24 elders in Revelation 4:4 are priests as the number 24 elsewhere in Scripture refers solely to the 24 courses of the priesthood that served in the temple, Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 943.

ii. These priests are crowned with wreaths (stephanos) won by overcomers in athletic games in John's era, so we Christians will have been judged and rewarded at the judgment seat of Christ, Ibid.

c. This inheritance includes owning all that God creates in the new universe, Revelation 21:7a; ch. 22.

d. This inheritance includes a tearless, deathless, griefless, painless and eternal existence, Revelation 21:4.

e. This inheritance includes an eternal occupation of serving the Lord, Revelation 22:3b.

f. This inheritance also includes the activities of judging good angels and demons (1 Corinthians 6:3) and also judging the world (1 Corinthians 6:2) presumably during Christ's Messianic Kingdom!

3. Expanding on this last point, as the 24 elders of Revelation 4 represent the glorified Church in heaven, Revelation 5:8-10 reveals that we Christians will also rule on the earth in Christ's Kingdom, Rev. 20:4-6.

C. Examining Scripture provides us a glimpse of the quality of this our heavenly inheritance (as follows):

1. Our inheritance will never cease to be our possession: it will always belong to us, Hebrews 9:15.

2. Our inheritance is imperishable: it cannot be destroyed from within or without, 1 Peter 1:4b ESV.

3. Our inheritance is undefiled: it is not composed so as to make it morally improper, 1 Peter 1:4c ESV.

4. Our inheritance is unfading: its beauty or value will never slacken, 1 Peter 1:4d ESV.

5. Our inheritance is irrevocably, forever reserved for us when we trust in Christ: the Greek word translated "reserved" in 1 Peter 1:4e is teteremenen, a perfect passive participle of tereo, "keep, reserve" (U. B. S. Grk, N. T., 1966, p. 791; The An. Grk. Lex., 1972, p. 402; Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 822-823), so when one is justified, God permanently, unconditionally reserves his inheritance for him, meaning God must then get him to heaven so he can obtain it in unconditional salvation security.

6. Our inheritance includes the full expression of the Holy Spirit, a part of which we now know as based on the Holy Spirit's function as the Earnest of our fuller, future experience of the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1:14. [Note: this does not mean that we currently possess only part of the Holy Spirit, for being sealed by the Person of the Holy Spirit, we have all of the Spirit we will ever have. Yet, the expressions and ministries of the Holy Spirit we now experience are just a token of what we will then experience.]

Lesson: Since we who trust in Christ have such a wonderful and unalterable inheritance reserved in heaven for us, and since this life's possessions are transitory in every way due to the presence of sin on the earth, we can handle what decline of temporal possessions we experience by focusing on our future inheritance with the Lord.

Application: (1) May we shift our love for this life's material goods to loving God and longing for our heavenly inheritance that God has reserved for us, moving from sadness to joy, 1 John 2:15-17. (2) May we invest what little, fleeting and transitory material goods we now possess for eternal rewards. (1 Timothy 6:17-19)