What the Believers Inherit

From A Brief Word of Exhortation, Volume 1:

Heb. 1:2

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that God has appointed the Son “heir of all things” (1:2). The Greek word for “heir” is kleronomos, which means “one who receives by the casting of a lot,” which is interesting because God did not cast a lot to see who would get his inheritance but appointed Jesus to re­ceive it.

In practice, inheritance was not passed on by cast­ing a lot. In the Hebrew culture, the father’s pos­ses­sions were passed on to his surviving sons. The in­heri­­tance would not be passed on to the daughters unless there were no surviving sons. The firstborn son would re­ceive twice what the other sons received. His portion was known as “the double portion” (Deut. 21:15-17). If a father had three sons, his pos­ses­sions would be di­vid­ed into four parts. Two parts would be given to the first­born and one part would be given to each of the re­maining sons. Of course, if the firstborn was also the only son, he would get it all.

When Elisha asked Elijah to give him “a double por­tion” of his spirit (2 Kings 2:9), he was not asking that he be given twice the amount of the spirit that Elijah had. He was asking to inherit Elijah’s spirit. He was ask­ing that he would be the firstborn, so that if others received part of Elijah’s spirit, he would get double that.

In the Greek culture of the first century, the father’s pos­ses­sions would be divided equally among the sur­viv­ing sons. Daughters would receive an inheritance only if there were no surviving sons and they were un­married. Again, if the firstborn was also the only son, he would get it all.

In both cultures, it was possible to give the in­her­i­tance to the sons before the father died, as we learn from the parable of the prodigal son. Jesus, therefore, does not have to wait for God the Father to die to re­ceive his inheritance, because, of course, the Father will never die. And since Jesus is God’s only Son, he re­ceives all that God possesses.

I say that Jesus is God’s only Son because he is the only Son who has the divine nature, so he is the only Son by nature. The rest of us do not have that di­vine nature and be­come God’s sons only through adop­­tion.

Even so, because of God’s love and mercy toward us, he has decided that we, too, get to inherit all that he has. Paul tells us that since we are the children of God, through adoption, we too are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:14-17). The word for “joint heirs” is sygkleronomos, which means “an heir together” or “an heir with.” It is used in Eph. 3:6 to say that the Gentiles are fellow heirs with the Jews. It is also used in 1 Pet. 3:7, where Peter reminds the hus­bands that their wives are also heirs of the grace of life with them. So, unlike the Hebrew and Greek cultures, be­lieving women also receive God’s inheritance be­cause they, too, are the children of God.

What, then, does Jesus inherit? And what do we inherit with him?

All things (Heb. 1:2), that is, everything that has been created and therefore everything that God possesses. We, too, will receive all things. God the Father declares in Rev. 21:7, “He who over­comes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.”

The kingdom of God. “Listen, my beloved breth­ren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?” (James 2:5). Jesus said to the dis­ci­ples, “And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father be­stowed one on Me” (Luke 22:29). The king­dom did not originally belong to him. It belonged to the Father, who gave it to Jesus. And Jesus in turn will give us that same kingdom.

The promises of Abraham. Abraham was, of course, promised the land which we now call the Promised Land. It occupies a certain section of the earth. But sev­er­al passages in the Old Tes­ta­ment suggest that Abra­ham was actually prom­ised more than that. In Gen. 22, God commanded Abraham to go to a certain moun­tain and sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham goes to the moun­tain but the Angel of the Lord stops him from ac­tu­ally killing his son. Then the Angel of the Lord makes a promise to him in vv. 15-18. The promise is that ALL of the nations will be blessed in his seed.

David says in Ps. 37:22, “For those blessed by Him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by Him shall be cut off.” Back in verse 11, David says, “But the meek shall inherit the earth,” and Jesus, of course, repeats this in Matt. 5:5. In Is. 54:3, God, speaking to the nation of Israel, says that Israel’s descendants will inherit the nations. The promised inheritance, therefore, includes the entire earth, not just the Promised Land.

The Hebrew word for “descendants” in Is. 54:3 also means “seed” and is singular. This is also the same word used in Gen. 22:15-17 and there it is also sing­u­lar. This fact is important to Paul in Gal. 3:15-29. The promise was made to Abraham’s Seed, who is Jesus Christ, the one who inherits the promise of Abraham. And be­cause by faith we have become one with Christ, we, too, are Abraham’s seed and inherit Abra­ham’s promise.

Paul makes the same point in other pas­sages: Rom. 4:13-16; Eph. 3:6. From the be­gin­ning of time, God intended for the promises of Abraham to pass on, not to his physical de­scend­ants, but only to Christ and to Abraham’s spiritual descendants, whether they were Jew or Gentile. I will talk more about this in Lesson 15.

God himself. In Num. 18:20, the Lord says to Aaron, who was the first High Priest, “You shall have no in­her­i­tance in their land, nor shall you have any portion among them; I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Is­ra­el.” Moses states that this was true of the entire tribe of Levi: “The priests, the Levites—all the tribe of Levi—shall have no part nor in­her­i­tance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and His portion. There­fore they shall have no inheritance among their breth­ren; the LORD is their in­her­itance, as He said to them” (Deut. 18:1-2). Since we are now the royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9), this applies to us. The Lord is our inheritance. Even better, Jer­e­­mi­ah twice calls the Lord, “The Portion of Jacob” (Jer. 10:16; 51:19). Though the Israelites were given land as their inheritance, in reality the Lord himself was their true inheritance, which means that the Lord is also our true in­her­i­tance.

The writer of Hebrews declares, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). If we diligently seek Him, then when we find Him, He becomes our reward.

Interestingly, the Old Testament also reverses this. Not only is God Israel’s inheritance, but Is­ra­el is also God’s inheritance. Moses said to Israel, “But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day” (Deut. 4:20). He also said, “For the LORD’s por­tion is His people; Jacob is the place of His in­her­i­tance” (Deut. 32:9). Since we believers are now His people, we are his inheritance. And since we inherit what he possesses and he pos­sesses us, our in­her­i­tance includes each other.

Usually, only items of value are inherited. And if we know in advance that we will inherit a mansion or an expensive car, we will take real good care of it. What if we started looking at each other as valuable? And what if we started taking care of each other because we are val­u­able?

Jesus, therefore, is the Son who has been ap­pointed heir of all things, all that God possesses. And be­cause we are joint heirs with Christ, we, too, will in­her­it all things. Those things include the kingdom of God, the promises of Abraham, God himself, and each other. Let us take good care of one another because each of us is truly valuable.