Romans 8:17

In these words the apostle describes a fourth illustrious branch of the happiness of believers, namely, a title to the future glory. This is fitly annexed to our sonship; for as the adoption of sons entitles us to that glory, so the disposition of sons fits and prepares us for it. If children, then heirs, Rom 8:17. In earthly inheritances this rule does not hold, only the first-born are heirs; but the church is a church of first-born, for they are all heirs. Heaven is an inheritance that all the saints are heirs to. They do not come to it as purchasers by any merit or procurement of their own; but as heirs, purely by the act of God; for God makes heirs. The saints are heirs though in this world they are heirs under age; see Gal 4:1, Gal 4:2. Their present state is a state of education and preparation for the inheritance. How comfortable should this be to all the children of God, how little soever they have in possession, that, being heirs, they have enough in reversion! But the honour and happiness of an heir lie in the value and worth of that which he is heir to: we read of those that inherit the wind; and therefore we have here an abstract of the premises. 1. Heirs of God. The Lord himself is the portion of the saints' inheritance (Psa 16:5), a goodly heritage, Psa 16:6. The saints are spiritual priests, that have the Lord for their inheritance, Num 18:20. The vision of God and the fruition of God make up the inheritance the saints are heirs to. God himself will be with them, and will be their God, Rev 21:3. 2. Joint-heirs with Christ. Christ, as Mediator, is said to be the heir of all things (Heb 1:2), and true believers, by virtue of their union with him, shall inherit all things, Rev 21:7. Those that now partake of the Spirit of Christ, as his brethren, shall, as his brethren, partake of his glory (Joh 17:24), shall sit down with him upon his throne, Rev 3:21. Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst thus magnify him! Now this future glory is further spoken of as the reward of present sufferings and as the accomplishment of present hopes.

I. As the reward of the saints' present sufferings; and it is a rich reward: If so be that we suffer with him (Rom 8:17), or forasmuch as we suffer with him. The state of the church in this world always is, but was then especially, an afflicted state; to be a Christian was certainly to be a sufferer. Now, to comfort them in reference to those sufferings, he tells them that they suffered with Christ - for his sake, for his honour, and for the testimony of a good conscience, and should be glorified with him. Those that suffered with David in his persecuted state were advanced by him and with him when he came to the crown; see Ti2 2:12. See the gains of suffering for Christ; though we may be losers for him, we shall not, we cannot, be losers by him in the end. This the gospel is filled with the assurances of. Now, that suffering saints may have strong supports and consolations from their hopes of heaven, he holds the balance (Rom 8:18), in a comparison between the two, which is observable. 1. In one scale he puts the sufferings of this present time. The sufferings of the saints are but sufferings of this present time, strike no deeper than the things of time, last no longer than the present time (Co2 4:17), light affliction, and but for a moment. So that on the sufferings he writes tekel, weighed in the balance and found light. 2. In the other scale he puts the glory, and finds that a weight, an exceeding and eternal weight: Glory that shall be revealed. In our present state we come short, not only in the enjoyment, but in the knowledge of that glory (Co1 2:9; Jo1 3:2): it shall be revealed. It surpasses all that we have yet seen and known: present vouchsafements are sweet and precious, very precious, very sweet; but there is something to come, something behind the curtain, that will outshine all. Shall be revealed in us; not only revealed to us, to be seen, but revealed in us, to be enjoyed. The kingdom of God is within you, and will be so to eternity. 3. He concludes the sufferings not worthy to be compared with the glory - ouk axia pros tēn doxan. They cannot merit that glory; and, if suffering for Christ will not merit, much less will doing. They should not at all deter and frighten us from the diligent and earnest pursuit of that glory. The sufferings are small and short, and concern the body only; but the glory is rich and great, and concerns the soul, and is eternal. This he reckons. I reckon - logizomai. It is not a rash and sudden determination, but the product of a very serious and deliberate consideration. he had reasoned the case within himself, weighed the arguments on both sides, and thus at last resolves the point. O how vastly different is the sentence of the word from the sentiment of the world concerning the sufferings of this present time! I reckon, as an arithmetician that is balancing an account. He first sums up what is disbursed for Christ in the sufferings of this present time, and finds they come to very little; he then sums up what is secured to us by Christ in the glory that shall be revealed, and this he finds to be an infinite sum, transcending all conception, the disbursement abundantly made up and the losses infinitely countervailed. And who would be afraid then to suffer for Christ, who as he is before-hand with us in suffering, so he will not be behind-hand with us in recompence? Now Paul was as competent a judge of this point as ever any mere man was. He could reckon not by art only, but by experience; for he knew both. He knew what the sufferings of this present time were; see Co2 11:23-28. He knew what the glory of heaven is; see Co2 12:3, Co2 12:4. And, upon the view of both, he gives this judgment here. There is nothing like a believing view of the glory which shall be revealed to support and bear up the spirit under all the sufferings of this present time. The reproach of Christ appears riches to those who have respect to the recompence of reward, Heb 11:26.

II. As the accomplishment of the saints' present hopes and expectations, Rom 8:19, etc. As the saints are suffering for it, so they are waiting for it. Heaven is therefore sure; for God by his Spirit would not raise and encourage those hopes only to defeat and disappoint them. He will establish that word unto his servants on which he has caused them to hope (Psa 119:49), and heaven is therefore sweet; for, if hope deferred makes the heart sick, surely when the desire comes it will be a tree of life, Pro 13:12. Now he observes an expectation of this glory,

1. In the creatures Rom 8:19-22. That must needs be a great, a transcendent glory, which all the creatures are so earnestly expecting and longing for. This observation in these verses has some difficulty in it, which puzzles interpreters a little; and the more because it is a remark not made in any other scripture, with which it might be compared. By the creature here we understand, not as some do the Gentile world, and their expectation of Christ and the gospel, which is an exposition very foreign and forced, but the whole frame of nature, especially that of this lower world - the whole creation, the compages of inanimate and sensible creatures, which, because of their harmony and mutual dependence, and because they all constitute and make up one world, are spoken of in the singular number as the creature. The sense of the apostle in these four verses we may take in the following observations: - (1.) That there is a present vanity to which the creature, by reason of the sin of man, is made subject, Rom 8:20. When man sinned, the ground was cursed for man's sake, and with it all the creatures (especially of this lower world, where our acquaintance lies) became subject to that curse, became mutable and mortal. Under the bondage of corruption, Rom 8:21. There is an impurity, deformity, and infirmity, which the creature has contracted by the fall of man: the creation is sullied and stained, much of the beauty of the world gone. There is an enmity of one creature to another; they are all subject to continual alteration and decay of the individuals, liable to the strokes of God's judgments upon man. When the world was drowned, and almost all the creatures in it, surely then it was subject to vanity indeed. The whole species of creatures is designed for, and is hastening to, a total dissolution by fire. And it is not the least part of their vanity and bondage that they are used, or abused rather, by men as instruments of sin. The creatures are often abused to the dishonour of their Creator, the hurt of his children, or the service of his enemies. When the creatures are made the food and fuel of our lusts, they are subject to vanity, they are captivated by the law of sin. And this not willingly, not of their own choice. All the creatures desire their own perfection and consummation; when they are made instruments of sin it is not willingly. Or, They are thus captivated, not for any sin of their own, which they had committed, but for man's sin: By reason of him who hath subjected the same. Adam did it meritoriously; the creatures being delivered to him, when he by sin delivered himself he delivered them likewise into the bondage of corruption. God did it judicially; he passed a sentence upon the creatures for the sin of man, by which they became subject. And this yoke (poor creatures) they bear in hope that it will not be so always. Ep' elpidi hoti kai, etc. - in hope that the creature itself; so many Greek copies join the words. We have reason to pity the poor creatures that for our sin have become subject to vanity. (2.) That the creatures groan and travail in pain together under this vanity and corruption, Rom 8:22. It is a figurative expression. Sin is a burden to the whole creation; the sin of the Jews, in crucifying Christ, set the earth a quaking under them. The idols were a burden to the weary beast, Isa 46:1. There is a general outcry of the whole creation against the sin of man: the stone crieth out of the wall (Hab 2:11), the land cries, Job 31:38. (3.) That the creature, that is now thus burdened, shall, at the time of the restitution of all things, be delivered from this bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom 8:21) - they shall no more be subject to vanity and corruption, and the other fruits of the curse; but, on the contrary, this lower world shall be renewed: when there will be new heavens there will be a new earth (Pe2 3:13; Rev 21:1); and there shall be a glory conferred upon all the creatures, which shall be (in the proportion of their natures) as suitable and as great an advancement as the glory of the children of God shall be to them. The fire at the last day shall be a refining, not a destroying annihilating fire. What becomes of the souls of brutes, that go downwards, none can tell. But it should seem by the scripture that there will be some kind of restoration of them. And if it be objected, What use will they be of to glorified saints? we may suppose them of as much use as they were to Adam in innocency; and if it be only to illustrate the wisdom, power, and goodness of their Creator, that is enough. Compare with this Psa 96:10-13; Psa 98:7-9. Let the heavens rejoice before the Lord, for he cometh. (4.) That the creature doth therefore earnestly expect and wait for the manifestation of the children of God, Rom 8:19. Observe, At the second coming of Christ there will be a manifestation of the children of God. Now the saints are God's hidden ones, the wheat seems lost in a heap of chaff; but then they shall be manifested. It does not yet appear what we shall be (Jo1 3:2), but then the glory shall be revealed. The children of God shall appear in their own colours. And this redemption of the creature is reserved till then; for, as it was with man and for man that they fell under the curse, so with man and for man they shall be delivered. All the curse and filth that now adhere to the creature shall be done away then when those that have suffered with Christ upon earth shall reign with him upon the earth. This the whole creation looks and longs for; and it may serve as a reason why now a good man should be merciful to his beast.

2. In the saints, who are new creatures, Rom 8:23-25. Observe, (1.) The grounds of this expectation in the saints. It is our having received the first-fruits of the Spirit, which both quickens our desires and encourages our hopes, and both ways raises our expectations. The first-fruits did both sanctify and ensure the lump. Grace is the first-fruits of glory, it is glory begun. We, having received such clusters in this wilderness, cannot but long for the full vintage in the heavenly Canaan. Not only they - not only the creatures which are not capable of such a happiness as the first-fruits of the Spirit, but even we, who have such present rich receivings, cannot but long for something more and greater. In having the first-fruits of the Spirit we have that which is very precious, but we have not all we would have. We groan within ourselves, which denotes the strength and secrecy of these desires; not making a loud noise, as the hypocrites howling upon the bed for corn and wine, but with silent groans, which pierce heaven soonest of all. Or, We groan among ourselves. It is the unanimous vote, the joint desire, of the whole church, all agree in this: Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. The groaning denotes a very earnest and importunate desire, the soul pained with the delay. Present receivings and comforts are consistent with a great many groans; not as the pangs of one dying, but as the throes of a woman in travail - groans that are symptoms of life, not of death. (2.) The object of this expectation. What is it we are thus desiring and waiting for? What would we have? The adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Though the soul be the principal part of the man, yet the Lord has declared himself for the body also, and has provided a great deal of honour and happiness for the body. The resurrection is here called the redemption of the body. It shall then be rescued from the power of death and the grave, and the bondage of corruption; and, though a vile body, yet it shall be refined and beautified, and made like that glorious body of Christ, Phi 3:21; Co1 15:42. This is called the adoption. [1.] It is the adoption manifested before all the world, angels and men. Now are we the sons of God, but it does not yet appear, the honour is now clouded; but then God will publicly own all his children. The deed of adoption, which is now written, signed, and sealed, will then be recognized, proclaimed, and published. As Christ was, so the saints will be, declared to be the sons of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead, Rom 1:4. It will then be put past dispute. [2.] It is the adoption perfected and completed. The children of God have bodies as well as souls; and, till those bodies are brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God, the adoption is not perfect. But then it will be complete, when the Captain of our salvation shall bring the many sons to glory, Heb 2:10. This is that which we expect, in hope of which our flesh rests, Psa 16:9, Psa 16:10. All the days of our appointed time we are waiting, till this change shall come, when he shall call, and we shall answer, and he will have a desire to the work of his hands, Job 14:14, Job 14:15. (3.) The agreeableness of this to our present state, Rom 8:24, Rom 8:25. Our happiness is not in present possession: We are saved by hope. In this, as in other things, God hath made our present state a state of trial and probation - that our reward is out of sight. Those that will deal with God must deal upon trust. It is acknowledged that one of the principal graces of a Christian is hope (Co1 13:13), which necessarily implies a good thing to come, which is the object of that hope. Faith respects the promise, hope the thing promised. Faith is the evidence, hope the expectation, of things not seen. Faith is the mother of hope. We do with patience wait. In hoping for this glory we have need of patience, to bear the sufferings we meet with in the way to it and the delays of it. Our way is rough and long; but he that shall come will come, and will not tarry; and therefore, though he seem to tarry, it becomes us to wait for him.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rom_8:17

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

Sonship: certainty and uncertainty about

It is not easy to imagine a more cautious, lawyer-like record than that of Lord Eldons, I was born, I believe, on the 4th of June, 1751. We may suppose that this hesitating statement refers to the date, and not to the fact of his birth. Many, however, are just as uncertain about their spiritual birth. It is a grand thing to be able to say, We have passed from death unto life, even though we may not be able to post a date to it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Sons and heirs

God Himself is His greatest gift. The loftiest blessing which we can receive is that we should be heirs, possessors of God. The text tells us--

I. No inheritance without sonship,

1. The lower creatures are shut out from the gifts which belong to the higher forms of life, because these cannot find entrance into their nature. Man has higher gifts because he has higher capacities. In man there are more windows and doors knocked out. He can think, and feel, and desire, and will, and resolve; and so he stands on a higher level.

2. And so Spiritual blessings require a spiritual capacity for the reception of them; you cannot have the inheritance unless you are sons. Salvation is not chiefly a deliverance from outward consequences, but a renewal of the nature that makes these consequences certain.

3. But the inheritance is also future, and the same principle applies there. There is no heaven without sonship; because all its blessings are spiritual. It is not the golden harps, etc. that makes the heaven of heaven; but the possession of God. To dwell in His love, and to be filled with His light, and to walk for ever in the glory of His sunlit face, to do His will, and to bear His character stamped upon our foreheads--that is the glory and the perfectness to which we are aspiring. Do not then rest in the symbols that show us, darkly and far-off, what that future glory is.

4. Well then, if all that be true, what a flood of light does it cast upon the text! For who can possess God but they who love Him? who can love but they who know His love? How can there be fellowship betwixt Him and any one except the man who is a son because he hath received of the Divine nature, and in whom that Divine nature is growing up into a Divine likeness?

II. No sonship without a spiritual birth.

1. The Apostle John, in that most wonderful preface to his Gospel, teaches that sonship is not a relation into which we are born by natural birth, that we become sons after we are men, and that we become sons by a Divine act, the communication of a spiritual life, whereby we are born of God. The same apostle, in his Epistles, contrasts the sons of God who are known for such because they do righteousness, and the world which knew not Christ, and says, In this the children of God are manifested and the children of the devil--echoing thus Christs words, If God were your Father, ye would love Me: ye are of your father, the devil.

2. Nothing in all this contradicts the belief that all men are the children of God inasmuch as they are shaped by His Divine hand, and He has breathed into their nostrils the breath of life, But, notwithstanding, it still remains true that there are men created by God, loved and cared for by Him, for whom Christ died, who might be, but are not, sons of God.

3. Fatherhood! what does that word itself teach us? It involves that the Father and the child shall have kindred life, and that between the Fathers heart and the childs heart there shall pass answering love, flashing backwards and forwards, like the lightning that touches the earth and rises from it again. A simple appeal to your own consciousness will decide if that be the condition of all men. No sonship except by spiritual birth; and if not such sonship, then the spirit of bondage. You are sons because born again, or slaves and enemies by wicked works.

III. No spiritual birth without Christ. If for sonship there must be a birth, the very symbol shows that such a process does not lie within our own power. The centre point of the gospel is this regeneration. If we understand that the gospel simply comes to make men live better, to work out a moral reformation--why, there is no need for a gospel at all. If the change were a simple change of habit and action on the part of men, we could do without a Christ. But if redemption be the giving of life from God, and the change of position in reference to Gods love and Gods law, neither of these two changes can a man effect for himself. No new birth without Christ; no escape from the old standing-place, enemies to God by wicked works, by anything that we can do. But Christ has effected an actual change in the aspect of the Divine government to us; and He has carried in the golden urn of His humanity a new spirit and a new life which He has set down in the midst of the race; and the urn was broken on the Cross of Calvary, and the water flowed out, and whithersoever that water comes there is life, and whithersoever it comes not there is death!

IV. No Christ without faith. Unless we are wedded to Jesus Christ by the simple act of trust in His mercy and His power, Christ is nothing to us. We may talk about Christ for ever. He may be to us much that is very precious; but the question of questions, on which everything else depends, is, Am I trusting to Him as my Divine Redeemer? am I resting in Him as the Son of God? Ceremonies, notions, beliefs, formal participation in worship is nothing. Christ is everything to him that trusts Him. Christ is nothing but a judge and a condemnation to him that trusts Him not. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)

Heirs of God

We begin in order with the privilege itself, which belongs to Gods children by virtue of their adoption: And if children, then heirs. That all Gods children are heirs. Whosoever do partake of the relation, they do partake of the inheritance. This is suitable and agreeable to some other places of Scripture (Gal_3:28-29; Gal_4:7; Tit_3:7). Now there is a various account which may be given hereof unto us, which we may take in these following particulars. First, their Fathers affection and special love which He bears unto them. Affection has a very great influence oftentimes upon an inheritance. There is affection and there is the constancy and immutability of it. Secondly, as there is their Fathers affection, so there is likewise their Fathers promise; as we know how Bathsheba urged it to David in the case of Solomon, against Adonijah (1Ki_1:17). Thirdly, their very relation and condition wherein they are it gives them right and title hereto. Fourthly, the largeness and vastness of the estate, that is another advancement hereunto. All Gods children are heirs, because there is means enough for them all. But here it may be seasonably demanded, What is it that Gods children do inherit, and are heirs unto? First, for the things of this life. They are heirs of them, and have a special right and title to them. All things are yours, says the apostle, and amongst the rest he reckons the world (1Co_3:21-22). It is true that these things are not their portion. But yet they are oftentimes their possession. Gods children they have an interest and a propriety even in temporal blessings; and such as none other else have besides themselves, for they have a sanctified right in them. No good thing will God withhold from them that walk uprightly. Secondly, they are heirs more especially of the things of a better; and they are reducible to two heads, as the Scripture itself reduces them. Grace and glory (Psa_84:11)--the one considered as the means, and the other considered as the end. Gods children they are heirs of them both. First, for grace and holiness. This is not a small kind of portion which Gods children have an interest in. Heirs of the grace of life (1Pe_3:7). All the graces of the Spirit, they belong to the children of God, and they are heirs, as it were, of them. Secondly, which is here principally to be understood: they are heirs of glory, and so frequently denominated. Heirs of salvation (Heb_1:14); heirs of the kingdom (Jam_2:5); heirs of eternal life (Tit_3:7; Col_1:12). This we have assured unto us by the firstfruits of the Spirit within us. We may see what we are likely to have hereafter by what already we partake of here, in the beginnings of heaven to us. In what proportion this inheritance of the saints is dispensed and distributed unto them. Because it is said here that they all have a share in this business. That though all Gods children are heirs of eternal happiness and glory, yet they are not all of them in the same degree partakers of it. As a father may give portions to all his children, but one may have a greater portion than the rest. It is said of Elkanah, in his carriage to Hannah, that he gave her a worthy portion, or, as some read it, a double portion. And Benjamins lot from Joseph it was five times as much as of the rest of his brethren. Thus is it likewise in Gods dispensations. He gives a portion to all His children, but He gives not the same portion to them all. Though the same for kind and specification, yet not the same for degrees and intention. All the saints shall come to heaven, but some may go further in than the rest. Therefore this should stir us all up to an endeavour after the greatest measure that may be. And now for the life and application of the whole doctrine itself to our selves. We may draw it forth in a threefold improvement especially. First: Here is that which may satisfy Gods children which are in a mean and low condition here in the world, as it is possible for them to be, and as sometimes they are. Though they may be destitute of many things here, yet they are heirs of heaven. Secondly, it further teaches Gods children to live answerably to this noble condition, and the inheritance which they are appointed unto. First, in a holy magnanimity and nobleness of spirit. Secondly, in making good their titles, and clearing their evidences for heaven. Those who are great heirs they are careful to make good their inheritances, and to prove their right and interest in them, Thirdly, in more cheerful service and obedience to Gods commands. We should henceforth serve Him not as bare hirelings, but as those who are sons and heirs. Fourthly, take heed of losing it and parting with it upon any terms whatsoever. Take heed of Esau, that parted with his birthright. Lastly, seeing Gods children are heirs, and are heirs of glory, we see then from hence the vanity of those persons who would make salvation to be a matter of merit. The second is the explication or amplification of this privilege to them, and that consists of two branches. The first is taken from the person that they are heirs of: heirs of God. And the second is taken from the person that they are heirs with: joint heirs with Christ. We begin with the first of these branches, viz., the person that they are: Heirs of God. This is added here by the Apostle Paul both by way of explication and of enlargement. When we hear that Gods children are heirs we might be ready, it may be, presently to dream of some earthly inheritance. They are heirs of God, as the giver of the inheritance; and they are heirs of God, as the inheritance itself which is given unto them. First, they are so relative. Heirs of God, as related to Him for such a purpose as this is. It is He that does entitle them to all the things. They are heirs of God, they have a worthy and an honourable inheritance. There is some credit in being heir unto Him. Secondly, in point of profit, heirs of God. Heirs of God; therefore not only honourable, but rich. They must needs be great heirs, because He is great Himself and has great revenues (1Co_10:26). Thirdly, in point of conveniency and accommodation. There is a great matter in point of inheritance. The manner of ordering and disposing of it to the best advantage of him that shall heir it, and as to the circumstances wherewith he does enjoy it. Secondly, heirs of God. They are such as do inherit God Himself. He that is their Father is also their portion. And He which gives them the inheritance is the inheritance itself which He gives them. Sometimes the Lord is pleased to account His people to be His inheritance. The Lords portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance (Deu_32:9). And sometimes again He is pleased to declare Himself to be theirs (Psa_73:25-26; Lam_3:24; Psa_16:5; Gen_16:1-16; Gen_17:1). Now for the opening of this point unto us, that we may know what this business is of inheriting God Himself. The meaning of it is this--to have full interest in all His attributes. His wisdom is theirs, to direct them. His power is theirs, to preserve them. His goodness is theirs, to relieve them. His justice is theirs, to avenge them. His faithfulness is theirs, to support them. Every good is so much the more excellent, and the rather to be prized by us, as it is anything more large and comprehensive, and is containing of other things in it. Why thus it is now to be an heir of God. We have in Him everything else. All the beams of comfort in the creature they are derived from this Sun. And so again, in the want of other things, he may very much comfort himself in this. Alas, what are the stars to the sun? And what are the streams to the fountain? The second is taken from the person whom they are heirs with--Joint heirs with Christ. Believers, they do partake of the same inheritance with the Son of God Himself. First, here is this implied, that Christ Himself is an heir, and an heir of God. Thus Heb_1:2 He is called the heir of all things. Again, besides, as He is an heir by nature, so He is also an heir by donation. Therefore He is said in the place before alleged to be appointed heir. The Father hath given all things to Christ (Mat_11:27). Thus is Christ an heir by gift. Therefore we see what great cause we have to please Him, and to endeavour to be in favour with Him. We see how it is amongst men. How careful they are to give contentment to an heir if it be but of some ordinary inheritance. The second is that which is expressed, that as Christ Himself is an heir, so Gods children are heirs also with Him (Gal_4:7; Mat_19:28). This must needs be so. First, in regard of that union which is knit betwixt Christ and His Church. Gods children, they are members of Christ, therefore they must be heirs with Him (1Co_12:12; 1Co_12:22). Secondly, this is grounded in His promise which He hath made to us. Thirdly, His prayer for us (Joh_17:20-24). Fourthly, His office towards us as He is the Mediator of the Church. Therefore all things which come to us they must come to us through His hands. Now the life of all to ourselves comes to this. First, we see here how nearly it concerns us to find ourselves to be ingrafted into Christ and to become members of Him. Secondly, we may from hence see the certainty and infallibility of a Christians salvation. We are joint-heirs with Christ. Therefore He being glorified, we shall be glorified also. Thirdly, we should hence learn to love Christ, and to give Him the glory of all. Considering that all we have it is from Him, and by Him. If we are elected, we are elected in Christ. If we are justified, we are justified for Christ. If we are sanctified we are sanctified through Christ. If we are glorified we are glorified with Christ. Christ is all in all unto us. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)

Heirs of God

I. The privileges of Gods children.

1. Heirs of God.

2. Joint heirs with Christ.

3. Glorified together.

II. The connection between the privilege and the relation.

1. None but children.

2. All children participate.

III. The condition of final glory.

1. If so be we suffer.

2. With Christ.

3. For Him.

4. Like Him. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

Heirs of God

I. The ground of heirship.

1. It does not follow from ordinary creation. It is not if creatures, then heirs.

2. Neither is it found in natural descent. It is not if children of Abraham then heirs (Rom_9:7-13).

3. Nor can it come by meritorious service. It is not if servants, then heirs (Gal_4:30).

4. Nor by ceremonial observances. It is not if circumcised or baptized, then heirs (Rom_4:9-12).

5. Our being born again of God by His Spirit is the one ground of heirship. Let us inquire--

(1) Have we been born again (Joh_3:3)?

(2) Have we the spirit of adoption (Gal_4:6)?

(3) Are we fashioned in the likeness of God (Col_3:10)?

(4) Have we believed on Jesus (Joh_1:12)?

II. The universality of the heirship. Children, then heirs.

1. The principle of priority as to time cannot enter into this question. The elder and the younger in the Divine family are equally heirs.

2. The love of God is the same to them all.

3. They are all blessed under the same promise (Heb_6:17).

4. They are all equally related to that great First-born Son through whom their heirship comes to them. He is the first-born among many brethren.

5. The inheritance is large enough for them all. They are not all prophets, preachers, apostles, or even well-instructed and eminent saints; they are not all rich and influential; they are not all strong and useful; but they are all heirs. Let us, then, all live as such, and rejoice in our portion.

III. The inheritance which is the subject of heirship. Heirs of God.

1. Our inheritance is Divinely great. We are--Heirs of--

(1) All things (Rev_21:7; 1Co_3:21).

(2) Salvation (Heb_1:14).

(3) Eternal life (Tit_3:7).

(4) Promise (Heb_6:17).

(5) The grace of life (1Pe_3:7).

(6) Righteousness (Heb_11:7).

(7) The kingdom (Jam_2:5).

2. Whereas we are said to be heirs of God, it must mean that we are heirs of--

(1) All that God possesses.

(2) All that God is. Of His love; for God is love. Hence heirs of all possible good; for God is good.

(3) God Himself. What an infinite portion!

(4) All that Jesus has and is, as God and man.

IV. The partnership of the claimants to heirship. And joint heirs with Christ.

1. This is the test of our heirship. We are not heirs except with Christ, through Christ, and in Christ.

2. This sweetens it all. Fellowship with Jesus is our best portion.

3. This shows the greatness of the inheritance. Worthy of Jesus. Such an inheritance as the Father gives to the well-beloved.

4. This ensures it to us; for Jesus will not lose it, and His title-deed and ours are one and indivisible.

5. This reveals and endears His love. That He should become a partner with us in all things is love unbounded.

(1) His taking us into union with Himself secures our inheritance.

(2) His prayer for us attains it.

(3) His going into heaven before us prepares it.

(4) His coming again will bring us the full enjoyment of it.

6. This joint heirship binds us faster to Jesus, since we are nothing, and have nothing apart from Him.

Conclusion--

1. Let us joyfully accept the present suffering with Christ, for it is part of the heritage.

2. Let us believe in the ultimate glorification and anticipate it with joy. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Heirs of God

I. Then the Christian is going to a rich home and a glorious future. Therefore, he ought not to be too much elated or depressed by the pleasures or privations of the journey. An eye to the rest and glory at the end should keep him from getting weary of the way.

II. Then the Christian should not debase himself by an undue attachment to the things of time. How unreasonable to see an heir of God so swallowed up in the world that he has neither taste nor time to pray, or make suitable efforts to get ready for His Heavenly inheritance.

III. Then no man should speak of having made sacrifices in becoming a Christian.

IV. Then an heir of God should be made meet for his inheritance. Without a meetness for it, the inheritance would be a burden rather than a blessing.

V. Then, in securing this meetness, the Christian may confidently expect Divine aid. (T. Kelly)

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Heirs of God

I. The privilege of Gods children.

1. As the law of nature and the institutions of society authorise children to expect the possession of property which once belonged to their parents, so God has pledged Himself that He will act the part of a Father.

2. Looked at with the eye of sense, the inheritance of Gods children on this world is not much to be envied; but, in reality, whatever be their outward lot, they are all the while richer than the richest, and greater than the greatest.

3. They may be said to be heirs of God even at present, inasmuch as they are entitled, by virtue of His covenant, to as much of what God is, and has, as shall be requisite for their welfare.

4. Of the future inheritance we have various accounts. It is--

(1) An inheritance among them that are sanctified. Heaven will confer on those who are admitted into it, a much higher degree of holiness than they before attained.

(2) An inheritance of the saints in light. In heaven we shall receive a great addition to our knowledge.

(3) An inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. The circumstances of earthly parents may be suddenly reversed, and their children therefore deprived of the inheritance. But the children of God have nothing to apprehend from reverses. All those ideas are epitomised in the text. God shall be, in heaven, fully and perfectly His peoples portion. More than this God cannot promise or give.

5. Further particulars are included in the phrase, joint-heirs with Christ, and glorified together, viz:--

(1) That we are altogether indebted to Gods mercy in Christ, for our title to the inheritance. Heaven is a purchased possession; not by penitence or faith, holiness or usefulness, suffering or dying, but by the precious blood of Christ.

(2) That the title of true believers is in the highest degree valid and satisfactory. Christs title is unquestionable; what He hath amply merited He hath a right to bestow; and He wills to bestow it upon all believers. There are, indeed, differences between Christs title and ours. His is original, earned by Himself; ours is borrowed. His is one actually recognised. He is in possession of the inheritance; whereas we are but on our way to it. But He has gone as our forerunner to take possession for us.

(3) That there shall be a blessed similarity in point of nature--though, of course, not in degree--between the enjoyment of Christ in heaven and the enjoyment of His glorified people there. The glory which Thou givest Me I have given them.

II. The connection between this privilege and our relation to God as His children. If children, then heirs. This, of course, implies--

1. That none but children will be recognised as heirs, or be allowed to inherit.

2. That all children are heirs. In the arrangements of human society, and it often happens that the estates descend exclusively to the male children, or to the eldest. But this is not the rule which God will adept. If children--it matters not whether sons or daughters--then heirs. Nor will this inheritance lose any value from being distributed among so many. Every man in heaven will feel himself much the happier, because he will know there are so many millions of ransomed spirits who share the same bliss.

III. The way in which we are to walk so as to secure the actual bestowment of this privilege. First of all, to become children, we must apply to God in the way of penitence and faith that our sentence of alienation may be reversed. But if children, we are not to conclude that there is no further need of watchfulness or prayer. We are to remember the other clause:--If so be, etc. Not that the sufferings of the saints are--like those of Christ--meritorious. Yet they may be fitly termed suffering with Christ--

1. Because a large portion of the suffering of good people comes upon them in consequence of their devotedness to the truth, and cause, and service of Christ. If we would forsake Christ we should then escape much of--

(1) The worlds reproach.

(2) Temptation from Satan.

(3) Self-denial.

(4) Providential sufferings. Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.

2. If it be endured in the temper and spirit of Christ, who said, Not My will, but Thine be done. The servant is not above his lord. Ought the private soldier to complain of privations or perils to which his general submits? It is not hard or unreasonable that we suffer with Christ before we are glorified, because the subsequent glory will far more than compensate the previous suffering (verse 18). Conclusion: We learn from this subject the extreme desirableness and importance of being found among the regenerated people of God. Many of you have realised these privileges. Then--

1. Be thankful.

2. Be submissive to your worldly lot.

3. Be consistent, be heavenly minded.

4. Remember what God requires of you in order to your being glorified--that you should suffer with Him. (J. Bunting, D.D.)

The heirs of God

I. The supposition. If children, then heirs.

1. Unquestionably, in a general sense, God is the Father of all mankind. But the New Testament continually speaks of a higher form of paternity and childhood. This men may or may not sustain. If all men, without exception, were the children of God there would be no if about it, just as any hypothetical expression is unknown in heaven; or if all men were so placed that it was impossible for them ever to sustain any relation to God, but the general one of creatures, then, also, there would be no room for question, just as there is none in respect to the brutes that perish, or to the devils and the damned in hell. The possibility of using conditional language, in relation to men, involves the idea that while they may be, in the language of Scripture, children of the wicked one, they may also be sons of God in the highest and most emphatic acceptation. In relation to this subject, we may employ the language, Howbeit, that is not first that is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual. In neither case, however, does it necessarily follow that the spiritual must succeed the natural. Men may live and never be changed in the spirit of their minds; and they may die, and not rise after the likeness of the Lords glorious body. But if any man is a child of God, then the Scripture teaches that this is his second state, not his first; that he has undergone, or been the subject of, a process by which he has passed from the one to the other.

2. This process is described as being born of the Spirit, created anew, quickened, raised from the dead, etc., and we cannot suppose that this is accomplished by the mechanical agency of any outward rite. It is represented as connected with repentance and faith in Christ.

3. In addition to an actual spiritual birth, we have the frequent use of the word adoption, to illustrate the process by which man passes from his first to his second condition. This word is used in allusion to the reception into a family of a slave or a stranger. In like manner men, who, contemplated as sinners, are strangers, foreigners, and in bondage to the devil, are taken out of this state of distance and degradation, and, by an act of Gods grace adopted into His family and constituted His sons.

4. And however humbling it may be to think of the necessity in which we stand of adoption and renewal, yet that nature is not to be disparaged, respecting which such things are possible. A brute animal could not be adopted and made a child by man; nor if it were could it be made the subject of human sympathies and affections. And so, unless man, in spite of all his corruption, had within him a nature distinguished by moral and religious capacity, it would be impossible for him to be either adopted by or born of God; and that nature of which this can be said, however ruined now, must have been originally great and God-like.

II. The distinguished privilege.

1. An heir is one who, by legal or natural right, possesses a title to an inheritance. A stranger may be constituted such, in virtue of the will and deed of another; a child may be such from natural relationship. Both these ideas are employed in Scripture to illustrate the subject. Men, considered as guilty, need pardon or justification, which is a legal as well as merciful act on the part of God, by which the relation of men to law is altered. It is in connection with this act that adoption is more especially to be regarded, and the heirship of the adopted as flowing from that act. Thus Paul speaks in the Epistle to Titus--being justified, we are made heirs, according to the hope of eternal life. As possessing a corrupt nature men need to be regenerated, in virtue of which they become Gods children, not merely by a legal or declaratory act, but by the positive sanctification of their nature, and then heirship results by way of natural consequence. Thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir.

2. Heirs of God. It would seem to be impossible to have too high ideas of what may be anticipated by those who are the children and heirs of a Divine Parent; of Him who created and who possesses all things; whose paternal affection is measureless, and who even speaks of Himself as the portion of His people.

3. Joint heirs with Christ. There is something in this expression more than the idea of filial relationship to God. That to which the Christian is heir is not merely the inheritance of a son, but of such a son as Christ is represented to be: the only begotten and well-beloved of the Father, in whom He is ever well pleased. The Church is His body, and whatever glory invests the head, the members participate.

Conclusion: From all this we learn--

1. The love and power of God.

2. The ultimate security of the Church.

3. Obligations and motives to obedience.

4. Encouragement to all anxious and earnest men, who are seriously inquiring for and seeking after God. (T. Binney)

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The believers heirship

This little word if intimates to us that all men are not children of God. No doubt there is a sense in which His intelligent creatures generally may be regarded as His offspring. But the title sons of God is confined exclusively to those who have been re-created in His image.

I. How, then, may we know whether we be the children of God or not?

1. By the consciousness we have that we have complied with those conditions of repentance and faith, on the fulfilment of which the privilege is suspended.

2. By believing the testimony of the Word, which declares that all those who thus repent and believe are acknowledged to be the children of God.

3. By considering the fruits of grace in our lives, and then comparing these with the characteristics of sonship which are delineated in the Word of God.

4. By the fact that we have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

5. By the direct witnessing of the Spirit itself, with and to our spirits, that we are the children of God.

II. if children, then heirs. The children of the wealthy and noble are the heirs of nobility and wealth. Now, it is not strange that Gods children should also be heirs; for who is so rich and noble as their Heavenly Father?

1. They come into possession of their inheritance, not on the death of their Father (for He can never die), but when they reach their majority. This occurs at different periods of spiritual life, and under varying circumstances of purification and trial; for some are no sooner born of God than they are ready for translation, while others have, like the Captain of their salvation, to be made perfect through suffering.

2. That inheritance is--

(1) A reality. It may not, indeed, consist of tangible tenements, land, silver and gold; but it does consist of all that can gratify the cravings of an immortal spirit. Whether you call heaven a place or a state, it is a possession and an enjoyment--

(2) Vast and grand, surpassing all that earthly potentates have ever coveted or earthly conquerors won.

(3) Pure and undefiled, neither acquired by injustice nor retained by wrong.

(4) Ensured. Every child of the new birth is born to it; nor is there any man who can rob him of it.

(4) Enduring. It fadeth not away.

(5) There is this difference, that whereas on earth the portion of each diminishes as the number of heirs is increased, in heaven it is quite the reverse. Have we not, then, a direct interest in seeking to take others with us to glory?

III. joint heirs with Christ.

1. Our heavenly happiness is to be of the same nature as His. If His consists of transcendent holiness, and dignity, authority, and power, then ours will comprehend the same elements of felicity.

2. Our happiness will be realised in the same state, or place, or sphere as His. Where He is, we shall be also.

3. Our inheritance has been purchased, or procured by the same means as His. By His sufferings, for after these came the glory; and all those sufferings were endured for us. Jesus has conquered for us our inheritance by the conquest of His own.

In conclusion:

1. Be humble. The heirs of earthly kingdoms are apt to be elated with pride in proportion to the magnitude of their prospective possessions. But with the sons of God, the clearer their views of future glory, the more astounded are they with the greatness of the gift of God; and this proportionally makes them feel their own unworthiness.

2. Be hearty. How much owest thou to thy Lord? How, then, shouldst thou love, praise, own, obey, and serve Him!

3. Be holy. Thou art an heir of glory. How, then, shouldest thou prepare for it? (T. G. Horton.)

The Christians heirship

I was in a provincial town some time ago, when I was told of a nobleman who for many years worked as a porter in the railway station, because he did not know his true position in the world, till one day a gentleman entered the station, and after saluting him said, Sir, may I ask your name? John--, was the answer. I have come to tell you that you are the Earl of--, and entitled to a large estate, replied the visitor. Do you think that man stood about the station touching his cap for tips any longer? Not he. He took possession of his inheritance at once. That is just what we Christians should do.

The joint heirs and their Divine portion

Let us--

I. Consider the terms of the will.

1. Our right to the Divine heritage stands or falls with Christs right to the same.

(1) If He be not truly an heir, neither are we.

(a) If there be any flaw in the will, then it is no more valid for Christ than it is for us.

(b) Perhaps there may be a suit in law made against the will. But then it is Christs interest that is at stake as well as mine. If Satan bring an accusation against us, that accusation is made against Christ, for we are one with Him. You must enter your suit against the Head if you would attack the members.

(c) Yet suppose, after the will has been proved, it shall be found that nothing is left to distribute, or a debt against the estate? Why, if we get nothing, Christ gets nothing; if there should be no heaven for us, there is no heaven for Christ.

(d) And then suppose that, though there be something left, yet it be a mere trifle; that heaven should be but inferior joy, such as might be found even in this world. Then saints with little glory means Christ with little.

(2) 1 have been dwelling upon the black side in order to bring the bright one out by contrast. Let us revel in that contrast.

(a) There is no flaw in Gods will with regard to Christ, and He has said, I will that they whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am.

(b) No suit in law can stand against Christ. He has satisfied Gods law. Who shall accuse the Redeemer? Nor can any creature accuse His saints, nor infringe upon our title so long as His title stands.

(c) And there is no fear that the Son of God, the infinitely rich, will have a trifling portion. And all things are yours, for ye are Christs, and Christ is Gods.

2. If we are joint heirs with Christ, we legally have no inheritance apart from Him. The signature of the one will not avail to alienate the estate, nor can he sell it by his own right, nor have it all at his own separate disposal. You have no right to heaven in yourself; your right lieth in Christ. The promises are yea and amen, but only in Christ Jesus, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance.

3. Christ, as co-heir, has so identified Himself with us, that His rights are not to be viewed apart from ours. Before we leave this point, note what an honour is conferred upon us. To have anything to do with a great man is thought to be a distinguished privilege; but what honour is conferred on the believer to be joint heir with the King of kings I Lift up thine head; think no mans princeship worth thy coveting; thou art greater than the greatest, for thou art joint heir with Christ.

II. View the estates.

1. The inheritance of suffering.

(1) Just on the edge of your Fathers great inheritance lies the swamp of affliction. Now this is yours. If this be not yours, neither are the rest, for they are bequeathed to you in the same will. The same legacy that left peace also left tribulation. No cross, no crown. But, remember, Christ is co-heir with you in this. In all their afflictions He was afflicted.

(2) You must also be the heir of persecution. Christ had to be persecuted, and so must you.

(3) Another black portion is temptation. In this, too, Christ is your co-heir. He was tempted in all points like as we are.

2. Now let us march joyfully to the other part of the inheritance. As in matters of wills everything should be proven and sworn to, let us have the evidence of God, that cannot lie.

(1) As co-heirs with Christ, we are heirs of God (Psa_16:5; Psa_63:26).

(2) In Rom_4:13 the promise made to the Seed was that He should be heir of the world. Ask of Me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, etc. The world is ours, because it is Christs by right of inheritance. There is nothing here below which does not belong to a believer. If he hath wealth, let him use it in his Masters service, for it is his. If he hath poverty, poverty is his to help him to be sanctified, and to long for heaven. Whatever happens to him--sickness or health--everything is his here below. The meek shall inherit the earth.

(3) In Heb_1:2, we are told that God has appointed Christ heir of all things. Then we are heirs of all things conceivable and inconceivable, finite and infinite, human and Divine. Christs property extends to all, and we are co-heirs.

(4) Then in Jam_2:5, we are spoken of as being heirs of the kingdom. Doth Christ call Himself a King? He hath made us kings. Does He sit upon a throne? We shall overcome and sit down with Him upon His throne. Will He judge the nations? The saints shall judge the world. Will He be received with triumph by His Father? So shall we when His Father shall say, Well done, good and faithful servant. Hath He joy? We shall have His joy. Is He everlasting? So shall we be, for because He lives, we shall live also.

III. Administer the effects.

1. There is one part of the property which we may enjoy at once. Take your cross up and bear it with joy. Resignation takes the weight out of the cross, but a proud spirit that will not bow to Gods will changes a wooden cross into an iron one. Say, I count it to be my joy to be permitted to be a partaker of the sufferings of Christ. All the sheep of the Great Shepherd are marked with the cross, and this not only in the fleece, but in the flesh. If ye be without chastisement whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons.

2. Why cannot we administer also to the blessed part of the testament?

(1) If you have faith enough, you may this morning be raised up to sit together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus,

(2) God has given Christ the heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost ends of the earth for His possession, and we are co-heirs with Him. Let us advance to take the property. Some of you can do so by preaching in the streets. Others, by teaching your children in the class. You can say, God has given these souls to Christ; I am going to take them in Christs name. Others, who can do little themselves, can assist by sending forth men to preach the gospel. All that the Church wants to-day is courage and devotion. Let her, then, as Christs queen, claim the earth as hers, and send her heralds forth from sea to sea to bid all men bow before Him, and confess Him to be their King. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The glory of the good

They are in a distinguishing sense--

I. The children of God. They have--

1. A special resemblance to Him.

2. A special affection for Him.

3. A special attention from Him.

II. The inheritors of all good. (D. Thomas, D.D.)

If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.

Suffering with Christ

Believers suffer with Christ--

I. In the same cause--that of truth and righteousness.

II. For the same end--the glory of God and the good of His Church.

III. From the same hand--Satan, their common enemy, and the world.

IV. In the same manner, and with the same spirit of patience and resignation. (T. Robinson, D.D.)

Suffering with Christ, a condition of glory with Christ

I. Sonship with Christ necessarily involves suffering with Him.

1. We misapprehend the force of this passage if we suppose it to refer merely to outward calamities, and see in it only that the sorrows of daily life may have in them a sign of our being children of God, and some power to prepare us for the glory that is to come. The text does not merely contain a law for a certain part of life, but for the whole of life. The foundation of it is not that Christ shares in our sufferings; but that we, as Christians, participate in Christs.

2. Do not suppose that I am forgetting the awful sense in which Christs suffering stands as a thing by itself, incapable of, and needing no, repetition. But do not let us forget that the very writers that emphasise this, say to us, Be planted together in the likeness of His death: you are crucified to the world by the Cross of Christ; you are to fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ. He Himself speaks of our drinking of the cup that He drank of, etc. The fact is, that the life of Christ remains to be lived by every Christian, who in like manner has to fight with the world, to stand, by Gods help, pure in the midst of a world that is full of evil.

(1) The sufferings of the Lord were not only those that were wrought upon Calvary. Conceive of that perfect life in the midst of a system full of sin, and ask yourselves whether part of His sufferings did not spring from the contact with it. Oh that I had wings like a dove, etc., must often be the language of those who are like Him in spirit and in consequent sufferings.

(2) Another branch of the sufferings of Christ is to be found in that deep and mysterious fact that Christ wrought out His perfect obedience as a man, through temptation and by suffering. There was no sin within Him. The Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me. But yet, when that dark Power stood by His side, and said, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down, it was a real temptation, and not a sham one. And though the doing of His Fathers will was His delight; yet obedience, sustained in the face of temptation and the contradiction of sinners, may well be called suffering.

(3) But not only is the life of Christ as a life of suffering a model for us, but His death, besides being an atonement, is a type of the Christians life, which is to be one long and daily dying to sin, to self, to the world. There is the old man, the flesh, the old Adam, your own godless, independent, selfish, proud being. And crucifying, plucking out the right eye, maiming self of the right hand, mortifying the deeds of the body, teach us that there is no growth without sore sorrow. And not until you can say, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, have you accomplished that to which you are consecrated and vowed by your sonship--being conformed unto the likeness of His death, and knowing the fellowship of His sufferings. On this high level, and not upon the lower one--viz., that Christ will help us to bear afflictions--do we find the true meaning of all that Scripture teaching; which says to us, If you want the power for holy living, have fellowship in that atoning death; and if you want the pattern of holy living, look at that Cross and feel, I am crucified to the world by it, and the life that I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.

3. Such considerations, however, do not necessarily exclude the comforting thought, In all our affliction He is afflicted. In some trackless lands, when one friend passes through the pathless forests, he breaks a twig ever and anon as he goes, that those who come after may see the traces of his having been there, and know that they are not out of the road. So when we are journeying through the murky night, and the dark woods of affliction, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed; and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrances and hidden strengths in the remembrance of Him as in all points tempted like as we are, bearing grief for us, with us, like us.

4. Do not keep these sacred thoughts of Christs companionship in sorrow for the larger trials of life. If the mote in the eye be large enough to annoy you, it is large enough to bring out His sympathy; and if the grief be too small for Him to compassionate and share, it is too small for you to be troubled by it. If you are ashamed to apply that Divine thought, Christ bears this grief with me, to those petty molehills that you magnify into mountains sometimes, think it a shame to stumble over them. But never fear to be too familiar in the thought that Christ is willing to bear, and help me to bear, the most insignificant of daily annoyances. Whether it be a poison from one serpent sting, or from a million of tiny mosquitoes, if there be a smart, go to Him, and He will bear it with you; for if so be that we suffer with Him, He suffers with us.

II. This community of suffering is a necessary preparation for the community of glory.

1. I name this principally for the sake of putting in a caution. The apostle does not mean that if a son of God have no occasion, by brevity of life or other causes, for passing through the discipline of sorrow, his inheritance would be forfeited. We must always take such passages as this in conjunction with the truth which completes them, that when a man has the love of God in His heart, there and then he is fit for the inheritance. Christian people make vast mistakes sometimes in talking about being made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, about being ripe for glory, and the like. It is not the discipline that fits, it only develops the fitness. God hath made us meet. That is a past act. The preparedness for heaven comes at the moment--if it be a momentary act--when a man turns to Christ. The one may be dispensed with, the other cannot. A Christian at any period of his Christian experience, if it please God to take him, is fit for the kingdom; yet in His mercy He is leaving you here, training you, disciplining you; and that all the glowing furnaces of fiery trial, and all the cold waters of affliction, are but the preparation through which the rough iron is to be passed before it becomes tempered steel, a shaft in the Masters hand. And so learn to look upon all trial as being at once the seal of your sonship, and the means by which God puts it within your power to win a loftier throne, a nobler crown, a closer fellowship with Him who hath suffered, being tempted, and who will receive into His own blessedness and rest them that are tempted.

III. That inheritance is the necessary result of the suffering that has gone before. The ground of mere compensation is a low one on which to rest the certainty of future bliss. But the inheritance is sure, because the one cause--union with the Lord--produces both the present result of fellowship in His sorrows, and the future result of joy in His joy, of possession in His possessions. The inheritance is sure, because earths sorrows not merely require to be repaid by its peace, but because they fit us for it, and it would be destructive to all faith in Gods wisdom not to believe that what He has wrought for us will be given to us. Trials have no meaning, unless they are means to an end. The end is the inheritance; and sorrows here, as well as the Spirits work here, are the earnest of the inheritance. Measure the greatness of the glory by what has preceded it. If a fair measure of the greatness of any result be the length of time taken for getting it ready, we can dimly conceive what that joy must be for which seventy years of strife and sorrow are but a momentary preparation; and what must be the weight of that glory which is the counterpoise and consequence to the afflictions of this lower world. The further the pendulum swings on the one side, the further it goes up on the other. The deeper God plunges the comet into the darkness, the closer does it come to the sun at its nearest distance, and the longer does it stand glowing in the full blaze of the glory from the central orb. So in our revolution, the measure of the distance from the farthest point of our darkest earthly sorrow to the throne may help us to the measure of the closeness of the glory above when we are on the throne: for if so be that we are sons, we must suffer with Him; if so be that we suffer, we must be glorified together! (A. Maclaren, D.D.)

Sharing with Christ

I. What becomes of good men in the future? They are glorified with Christ. We have here--

1. A positive conception of the blessedness of heaven. Elsewhere we are told what heaven is not, rather than what it is. We seem more frequently to have promised to us relief from sufferings--no more sickness, night, curse, nor death--all of which we shrink from as if their absence was enough to make our bliss. But here heaven is presented as glorification with Christ.

2. A striking contrast to those carnal views which unspiritual men hold upon this subject.

3. A heaven already realised--in the person of our Lord. He is already glorified. In the glorifying of Christ, our glorifying is involved.

4. A most consolatory and satisfactory prospect therefore. It is the fellowship, not the place, that makes up our happiness. With Christ fully revealed to us we could be happy anywhere.

II. What precedes this blessedness? Suffering with Him. To suffer with is to sympathise (1Co_12:1-31.).

1. Christs sufferings were--

(1) Voluntary.

(2) Caused by sin.

(3) The result of the contrariety of His pure nature to the depravity of men amongst whom He came to live.

2. We partake of them--

(1) Beneficially. There is a sense in which this is the only way whereby we can be partakers of His suffering--in which, therefore, lie is alone in suffering (Isa_63:3).

(2) In consequence of our contact with the world. As He was, so are we in this world. They who are like Christ must expect to have His sorrows and His treatment repeated.

(3) Non-meritorious. Suffering for Christ as martyrs do is really suffering with Him, and finds its joy in the suffering itself. Only such minds could suffer with Him, and the having such a mind is itself the blessed thing. (P. Strutt.)

Suffering in relation to sonship

The apostle does not affirm the absolute necessity of much suffering in order to our reaching heaven; for there are souls whose course on earth is short and happy; still less that there is any merit in our suffering; for nothing is plainer than that such a doctrine would be flatly opposed to the whole argument of this Epistle.

I. Suffering is a common condition of sonship. Christ never promised His followers in this world anything else but tribulation, save only that in the midst of it all they should enjoy His peace and His Fathers protection; and all the apostles speak of suffering as the common lot of the saints (1Pe_4:12-13; 1Pe_4:16; 1Th_1:6; 1Th_2:14; 1Th_3:4; Heb_12:1-29.). In all these passages the same principle is involved which is contained in the text. The cause of our sufferings as Christians is found in the simple fact that we are Christians.

II. This affords a test of our sonship--

1. In the way of its infliction. If the world persecute us for Christs sake, if it deem us worthy of such distinction, it must be because it is convinced that we are Christians, and therefore we may be comforted by the very malice of our enemies. The villains censure is the good mans praise.

2. In the manner in which we endure it. It is only the true saint who can bear reproach with meekness, take joyfully the spoiling of his goods, refuse to avenge himself, love his enemies, and yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

III. The nature of the believers sufferings.

1. There are many which are not associated with Christ, and which do not result from sympathy with Him. The ungodly are not without their sufferings--the results of sinful folly and excess, or visitations of Divine indignation, and issue in the aggravated impiety of those who endure them. Beside which, how many of our trials and annoyances do we bring on ourselves by our pride and self-will, or by our compliance with evil temptation!

2. Sufferings with Christ are divisible into those which come from men and those which come from God. The former are persecutions; the latter, salutary chastisements.

(1) Christ was persecuted, even unto death, and He has warned His disciples to expect the same treatment (Mat_5:12). We in happy England are exempt from the fiery trial. But let us suppose the case to be otherwise. Could we, if called to it, bear imprisonment and torture, and final execution, for the Lords sake? If so, how is it that we are so soon offended when the least troubles arise in connection with our Christian profession? And yet there are some who are not persecuted for Christs sake. There are tradesmen who lose custom because they will be faithful to conscience. There are artisans who are injured and insulted unceasingly by their fellow-workmen for the same reason. There are wives whose piety brings on them rudest treatment from brutal husbands. But, after all, how light and little does this kind of trial appear in comparison with what our predecessors in the faith have endured. But, such as it is, it is a suffering with Christ, and should be met with calmness and borne with patience, fortitude, and hope.

(2) The other class are those which resemble the pangs of Jesus, when it pleased the Father to put Him to grief. It became Him, etc. But there are important points of difference. Both have relation to sin; but while ours are connected with our own sins, His were endured for the sins of others. His sufferings only exert an expiating efficacy. Yet Christ also learned obedience by the things which He suffered, in this respect our sufferings may resemble His. God may try us, as He tried Him, for the simple purpose of teaching us to renounce our own wish and will, and to say, with Christ, Father, not my will, but Thine be done.

IV. If we suffer with Christ, we shall also be glorified together. Our afflictions are not for naught. They are like the early processes of the garden, when the soil is broken up and weeded, in order that fair flowers may at length adorn it. They are the quarrying and the chiselling of the marble before the living statue can stand out in symmetrical proportions. They are the tuning of the instruments, without which no harmony can be secured in the ultimate concert. They are the medicine of our convalescence, the drudgery of our education, the spring-pruning of our vine trees, without which we can never be healthy or happy, fit for heaven, or qualified to bring forth fruit whereby our Father may be glorified. Wherefore murmur not and faint not. Thou canst tread no path of hardship which Jesus hath not hallowed by His footsteps. (T. G. Horton.)

Suffering attends Gods children

In the text itself there are two general parts considerable--the supposition and the inference. The supposition that is in these words, If so be we suffer with Christ. First, here is the condition of Gods children considered absolutely. And that is, that it is a state of suffering, If so be that we suffer. Many are the troubles of the righteous. Not to stand upon the proof of that by testimony, which experience does so frequently evidence, we may take some account of it in these particulars. First, there is somewhat for it in their nature, which they have in common with other men (Job_5:7). But, secondly, not only so, but more particularly which is founded in grace, and that holy profession which they bear upon them. First, I say, the malice and hatred of the world. Those whom men hate, they will afflict and disturb, if it lies in their power. Secondly, there is also the goodness of God, and His wise providence towards His servants, which has an influence hereupon likewise. God will have His people here in this world to suffer for divers reasons. As, first, for the trial and exercise of their graces. Secondly, God orders afflictions to His children, thereby to wear off that rust which is in them, and to take away their defilements from them, as it is in Isa_27:9. Thirdly, to wean them from the world and an inordinate love of these things here below, and to make them more willing to be gone when He calls for them. Lastly, in Fatherly discipline, to keep His children regular and in good order, and to prevent them from worse things to come (1Co_11:32). The consideration of this point may be thus far useful to us. First, as it serves to teach us patience under those trials which God at any time in His providence exercises us withal. Secondly, we learn hence also to expect it and to prepare for it. Thirdly, we learn from hence also to take heed of passing rash censure either upon ourselves or other men, occasionally from these conditions. Now the second is, as it is considerable relatively; and that is, that it is a suffering with Christ. If we suffer with Him. This they are called, first, from that mystical union which is betwixt Him and us. As by virtue of this union, that which is His, is ours; so, by virtue of the same union, that which is ours is also His. Secondly, by way of sympathy and compassion, we suffer with Him, and He suffers with us, in a suitableness and correspondency of affection. Thirdly, the sufferings of Gods children are called the sufferings of Christ, forasmuch as it is He that strengthens them and enables them for to suffer them, and as we suffer by Him. With Him; that is, with His assistance and through His enablement, and by power communicated from Him. The godly have a supply from Christ for the enduring of that which they endure. And their sufferings are in that respect His. Fourthly and lastly, and principally, they are the sufferings of Christ, forasmuch as they are in Christs cause, and for the particular things which He suffered; that is, indeed, for righteousness sake, and the doing of that which is good (thus Psa_38:20; 1Pe_3:17-18; Mat_5:11-12). This teaches also Christians not to rest themselves contented in this, that they suffer, but to observe both how and what they suffer for. What they suffer for as to the cause of their suffering; and how they suffer, as to the manner and carriage of their suffering--each of which have a necessary influence upon this business of suffering with Christ, and are most requisite ingredients to the making and constituting of it. The second is the inference in these words, That we may be also glorified together. First, to look upon this passage according to the exclusive emphasis; and so I say there is this in it: that there is no coming to glory but by suffering. Suffering it is the beaten path to glory, and that common road which all take that come to that end. Now there is a various account which may be given hereof unto us. First, that herein we may be conformable to Christ our Head. Secondly, suffering goes before glory, thereby to set a greater price upon glory itself, and to make it so much the more glorious. Thirdly, that so by this means He may in some manner fit us for glory, and prepare us and dispose us thereunto (Col_1:12). But against this may be haply objected that there are divers of the children of God, and such as we have cause to hope well of, who yet have a very quiet and comfortable life, wherein they meet with little sorrow or trouble at all. And how, then, is this so generally true whereof we now speak? To this I answer, that the providence of God is very mysterious in this particular in His different carriage to different of His servants here in this life. And that with some it fareth better than others in this respect. But yet there are none but in some kind or other, at some time or other, in some sense or other, have the experiment of this truth upon them. Sometimes the servants of God are more troubled with inward conflicts than with outward afflictions. Sometimes, again, God afflicts them in others, though not immediately in their own persons, which yet, notwithstanding, according as they improve it, proves an affliction unto them. As Esther mourning for her people and kindred while she was herself in great prosperity; and Nehemiah, for his brethrens captivity, when himself was in great favour. But then, further, this is that which all Gods children do in a manner prepare for, and so dispose themselves as to make account of it. And it is their wisdom so to do. As a man that takes a journey by sea, he may chance to sail, it may be, without storms, in regard of the event; but yet he expects them, and makes account of them, as incident unto him. And so must Christians in this sea of the world. Now the second is that emphasis which is inclusive. If we suffer with Him, we shall be also glorified together; that is, the one it shall certainly follow upon the other. Wherein, again, there are two things further considerable. The one is the conjunction of conditions, and the other is the conjunction of persons, in reference to those conditions. First, here is the conjunction of conditions: glory joined with suffering. Christians that suffer in this life, they shall be glorified in the life to come. So after that He hath called them to suffering, He does at last bring them to glory. This He does in His infinite wisdom and goodness, and as carrying a special comeliness and congruity with it (as 2Th_1:6-8). As there is a beauty in all the works and ways of God besides, so amongst the rest also in this. Look at those who have had the greatest pleasure and delight in sin, they shall hereafter have the greatest punishment and vexation. There are three considerations especially which are matters of great supportment and satisfaction to Gods children in suffering. First, the comfort which they have in it. As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. Gods children have never more embracings and cherishings from Him than at such time as they are under greatest afflictions. As the mother tends the sick child especially, and is most fond of that. Secondly, the benefit which they have by it or from it; that is another thing here considerable. Thirdly, another encouragement is the glory which comes after it (Mat_19:28; 2Ti_2:11-12; 2Co_1:7). Where still we must observe and remember this: that it is said, If we suffer with Him. It is not suffering considered indefinitely that does entitle to glory. First, not mere suffering in a way of common providence, which even a natural man may do. Secondly, not suffering in a way of public, justice, which an evil man may do. Thirdly, not suffering neither with murmuring and repining. There may want glory as to either of these things. The second is the conjunction of the persons in reference to these conditions. Believers are joined with Christ, and in particular joined with Him in glory. This phrase of together with Him does imply divers things in it. First, conformity. We shall be glorified with Him; that is, we shall be like to Him in glory (thus Joh_17:22). Secondly, concomitancy. We shall be glorified with Him; that is, we shall be joined to Him and present with Him in glory (Joh_17:24; 1Th_4:17). A concomitancy both of fate and of time, there and then. Thirdly, conveyance or derivation. We shall be glorified with Him; that is, we shall be glorified from. Him. His glory shall reflect upon us and be transmitted to us. We shall shine in His beams. Affliction, it is such a condition as is irksome to flesh and blood, and we all by nature are ready to shrink at it and at the thoughts of it; but grace is much satisfied about it. God will at last make all His children amends for any troubles which here He lays upon them. Heaven, it will swallow up all. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)

The reward of glory

Samuel Rutherford used to say, I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what the Lord is preparing for him. When we shall come home, and enter into the possession of our Brothers fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and suffering, then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory, and that our little inch of time-suffering is not worthy of our first nights welcome home to heaven.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 8:17-18. And if children, then heirs — Those that are really the children of God by adoption and grace, are not only under his peculiar direction, protection, and care, and shall be supplied with all things which God sees will be good for them; not only have they free liberty of access to God, and intercourse with God, as dutiful children have access to, and intercourse with, their father; but they are heirs of God — Heirs of the heavenly inheritance, and by the redemption of their bodies, being made immortal like God, they shall enjoy that inheritance. See note on 1Pe 1:3. And joint-heirs with Christ — Entering into his joy, Mat 25:21; sitting down on his throne, Rev 3:21; partaking of his glory, Joh 17:22; Php 3:21; Col 3:4; 1Co 15:49; and inheriting all things, Rev 21:7, jointly with him who is heir of all things, Heb 1:2. Only it must be observed, he is heir by nature, we by grace. If so be that we suffer with him — Willingly and cheerfully for righteousness’ sake: that is, we shall enjoy these glorious and heavenly blessings, provided we be willing, not only to deny ourselves all prohibited carnal gratifications, and to govern our lives by his precepts, but also to suffer with him whatever reproach, infamy, persecution, and other injuries we may be called to undergo, in conformity to him, for the honour of God, and the testimony of a good conscience; that we may be also glorified together — With him, which we cannot be in any other way than by suffering with him: he was glorified in this way, and so must we be. Here the apostle passes to a new proposition, on which he enlarges in the following verses; opening a source of consolation to the children of God in every age, by drinking at which they may not only refresh themselves under the severest sufferings, but derive new strength to bear them with fortitude. For I reckon, &c. — Here the apostle gives the reason why he now mentions sufferings and glory. When that glory shall be revealed in us, then the sons of God will be revealed also. That the sufferings of this present time — How long continued and great soever they may be; are not worthy to be compared — Or to be set in opposition to, or contrasted with, (as the original expression, αξια τα παθηματα προς την μελλουσαν δοζαν, evidently implies,) the glory which shall be revealed in us — Which we shall then partake of, and the nature and greatness of which we shall then, and not before, fully understand. For it far exceeds our present most elevated conceptions, and can never be fully known till we see each other wear it. These privileges are a fifth motive to holiness.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Romans

SONS AND HEIRS

Rom 8:17.

God Himself is His greatest gift. The loftiest blessing which we can receive is that we should be heirs, possessors of God. There is a sublime and wonderful mutual possession of which Scripture speaks much wherein the Lord is the inheritance of Israel, and Israel is the inheritance of the Lord. ‘The Lord hath taken you to be to Him a people of inheritance,’ says Moses; ‘Ye are a people for a possession,’ says Peter. And, on the other hand, ‘The Lord is the portion of my inheritance,’ says David; ‘Ye are heirs of God,’ echoes Paul. On earth and in heaven the heritage of the children of the Lord is God Himself, inasmuch as He is with them for their delight, in them to make them ‘partakers of the divine nature,’ and for them in all His attributes and actions.

This being clearly understood at the outset, we shall be prepared to follow the Apostle’s course of thought while he points out the conditions upon which the possession of that inheritance depends. It is children of God who are heirs of God. It is by union with Christ Jesus, the Son, to whom the inheritance belongs, that they who believe on His name receive power to become the sons of God, and with that power the possession of the inheritance. Thus, then, in this condensed utterance of the text there appear a series of thoughts which may perhaps be more fully unfolded in some such manner as the following, that there is no inheritance without sonship, that there is no sonship without a spiritual birth, that there is no spiritual birth without Christ, and that there is no Christ for us without faith.

I. First, then, the text tells us, no inheritance without sonship.

In general terms, spiritual blessings can only be given to those who are in a certain spiritual condition. Always and necessarily the capacity or organ of reception precedes and determines the bestowment of blessings. The light falls everywhere, but only the eye drinks it in. The lower orders of creatures are shut out from all participation in the gifts which belong to the higher forms of life, simply because they are so made and organised as that these cannot find entrance into their nature. They are, as it were, walled up all round; and the only door they have to communicate with the outer world is the door of sense. Man has higher gifts simply because he has higher capacities. All creatures are plunged in the same boundless ocean of divine beneficence and bestowment, and into each there flows just that, and no more, which each, by the make and constitution that God has given it, is capable of receiving. In the man there are more windows and doors opened out than in the animal He is capable of receiving intellectual impulses, spiritual emotions; he can think, and feel, and desire, and will, and resolve: and so he stands on a higher level than the beast below him.

Not otherwise is it in regard to God’s kingdom, ‘which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.’ The gift and blessing of salvation is primarily a spiritual gift, and only involves outward consequences secondarily and subordinately. It mainly consists in the heart being at peace with God, in the whole soul being filled with divine affections, in the weight and bondage of transgression being taken away, and substituted by the impulse and the life of the new love. Therefore, neither God can give, nor man can receive, that gift upon any other terms, than just this, that the heart and nature be fitted and adapted for it. Spiritual blessings require a spiritual capacity for the reception of them; or, as my text says, you cannot have the inheritance unless you are sons. If salvation consisted simply in a change of place; if it were merely that by some expedient or arrangement, an outward penalty, which was to fall or not to fall at the will of an arbitrary judge, were prevented from coming down, why then, it would be open to Him who held the power of letting the sword fall, to decide on what terms He might choose to suspend its infliction. But inasmuch as God’s deliverance is not a deliverance from a mere arbitrary and outward punishment: inasmuch as God’s salvation, though it be deliverance from the penalty as well as from the guilt of sin, is by no means chiefly a deliverance from outward consequences, but mainly a removal of the nature and disposition that makes these outward consequences certain,-therefore a man cannot be saved, God’s love cannot save him, God’s justice will not save him, God’s power stands back from saving him, upon any other condition than this that his soul shall be adapted and prepared for the reception and enjoyment of the blessing of a spiritual salvation.

But the inheritance which my text speaks about is also that which a Christian hopes to receive and enter upon in heaven. The same principle precisely applies there. There is no inheritance of heaven without sonship; because all the blessings of that future life are of a spiritual character. The joy and the rapture and the glory of that higher and better life have, of course, connected with them certain changes of bodily form, certain changes of local dwelling, certain changes which could perhaps be granted equally to a man, of whatever sort he was. But, friends, it is not the golden harps, not the pavement of ‘glass mingled with fire,’ not the cessation from work, not the still composure, and changeless indwelling, not the society even, that makes the heaven of heaven. All these are but the embodiments and rendering visible of the inward facts, a soul at peace with God in the depths of its being, an eye which gazes upon the Father, and a heart which wraps itself in His arms. Heaven is no heaven except in so far as it is the possession of God. That saying of the Psalmist is not an exaggeration, nor even a forgetting of the other elements of future blessedness, but it is a simple statement of the literal fact of the case, ‘I have none in heaven but Thee!’ God is the heritage of His people. To dwell in His love, and to be filled with His light, and to walk for ever in the glory of His sunlit face, to do His will, and to bear His character stamped upon our foreheads-that is the glory and the perfectness to which we are aspiring. Do not then rest in the symbols that show us, darkly and far off, what that future glory is. Do not forget that the picture is a shadow. Get beneath all these figurative expressions, and feel that whilst it may be true that for us in our present earthly state, there can be no higher, no purer, no more spiritual nor any truer representations of the blessedness which is to come, than those which couch it in the forms of earthly experience, and appeal to sense as the minister of delight-yet that all these things are representations, and not adequate presentations. The inheritance of the servants of the Lord is the Lord Himself, and they dwell in Him, and there is their joy.

Well then, if that be even partially true-admitting all that you may say about circumstances which go to make some portion of the blessedness of that future life-if it be true that God is the true blessing given by His Gospel upon earth, that He Himself is the greatest gift that can be bestowed, and that He is the true Heaven of heaven-what a flood of light does it cast upon that statement of my text, ‘If children, then heirs’; no inheritance without sonship! For who can possess God but they who love Him? who can love, but they who know His love? who can have Him working in their hearts a blessed and sanctifying change, except the souls that lie thankfully quiet beneath the forming touch of His invisible hand, and like flowers drink in the light of His face in their still joy? How can God dwell in any heart except a heart which has in it a love of purity? Where can He make His temple except in the ‘upright heart and pure’ ? How can there be fellowship betwixt Him and any one except the man who is a son because he hath received of the divine nature, and in whom that divine nature is growing up into a divine likeness? ‘What fellowship hath Christ with Belial?’ is not only applicable as a guide for our practical life, but points to the principle on which God’s inheritance belongs to God’s sons alone. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’; and those only who love, and are children, to them alone does the Father come and does the Father belong.

So much, then, for the first principle: No inheritance without sonship.

II. Secondly, the text leads us to the principle that there is no sonship without a spiritual birth.

The Apostle John in that most wonderful preface to his Gospel, where all deepest truths concerning the Eternal Being in itself and in the solemn march of His progressive revelations to the world are set forth in language simple like the words of a child and inexhaustible like the voice of a god, draws a broad distinction between the relation to the manifestations of God which every human soul by virtue of his humanity sustains, and that into which some, by virtue of their faith, enter. Every man is lighted by the true light because he is a man. They who believe in His name receive from Him the prerogative to become the sons of God. Whatever else may be taught in John’s words, surely they do teach us this, that the sonship of which he speaks does not belong to man as man, is not a relation into which we are born by natural birth, that we become sons after we are men, that those who become sons do not include all those who are lighted by the Light, but consist of so many of that greater number as receive Him, and that such become sons by a divine act, the communication of a spiritual life, whereby they are born of God.

The same Apostle, in his Epistles, where the widest love is conjoined with the most firmly drawn lines of moral demarcation between the great opposites-life, light, love-death, darkness, hate-contrasts in the most unmistakable antithesis the sons of God who are known for such because they do righteousness, and the world which knew not Christ, nor knows those who, dimly beholding, partially resemble Him. Nay, he goes further, and says in strange contradiction to the popular estimate of his character, but in true imitation of that Incarnate love which hated iniquity, ‘In this the children of God are manifested and the children of the devil’-echoing thus the words of Him whose pitying tenderness had sometimes to clothe itself in sharpest words, even as His hand of powerful love had once to grasp the scourge of small cords. ‘If God were your Father, ye would love Me: ye are of your father, the devil.’

These are but specimens of a whole cycle of Scripture statements which in every form of necessary implication, and of direct statement, set forth the principle that he who is born again of the Spirit, and he only, is a son of God.

Nothing in all this contradicts the belief that all men are the children of God, inasmuch as they are shaped by His divine hand and He has breathed into their nostrils the breath of life. They who hold that sonship is obtained on the condition which these passages seem to assert, do also rejoice to believe and to preach that the Father’s love broods over every human heart as the dovelike Spirit over the primeval chaos. They rejoice to proclaim that Christ has come that all, that each, may receive the adoption of sons. They do not feel that their message to, nor their hope for, the world is less blessed, less wide, because while they call on all to come and take the things that are freely given to them of God, they believe that those only who do come and take possess the blessing. Every man may become a son and heir of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

But notwithstanding all the mercies that belong to us all, notwithstanding the divine beneficence, which, like the air and the light, pervades all nature, and underlies all our lives, notwithstanding the universal adaptation and intention of Christ’s work, notwithstanding the wooing of His tender voice and the unceasing beckoning of His love, it still remains true that there are men in the world, created by God, loved and cared for by Him, for whom Christ died, who might be, but are not, sons of God.

Fatherhood! what does that word itself teach us? It speaks of the communication of a life, and the reciprocity of love. It rests upon a divine act, and it involves a human emotion. It involves that the father and the child shall have kindred life-the father bestowing and the child possessing a life which is derived; and because derived, kindred; and because kindred, unfolding itself in likeness to the father that gave it. And it requires that between the father’s heart and the child’s heart there shall pass, in blessed interchange and quick correspondence, answering love, flashing backwards and forwards, like the lightning that touches the earth and rises from it again. A simple appeal to your own consciousness will decide if that be the condition of all men. Are you, my brother, conscious of anything within you higher than the common life that belongs to you because you are an immortal soul? Can you say, ‘From God’s hand I have received the granting and implantation of a new and better life?’ Is your claim verified by this, that you are kindred with God in holy affections, in like purposes, loving what He loves, hating what He hates, doing what He wills, accepting what He sends, longing for Himself, and blessed in His presence? Is your sonship proved by the depth and sincerity, the simplicity and power, of your throbbing heart of love to your Father in heaven? Or are all these emotions empty words to you, things that are spoken in pulpits, but to which you have nothing in your life corresponding? Oh then, my friend, what am I to say to you? What but this? no sonship except by that spiritual birth; and if not such sonship, then the spirit of bondage. If not such sonship, why then, by all the tendencies of your nature, and by all the affinities of your moral being, if you are not holding of heaven, you are holding of hell; if you are not drawing your life, your character, your emotions, your affections, from the sacred well that lies up yonder, you are drawing them from the black one that lies down there. There are heaven, hell, and the earth that lies between, ever influenced either from above or from below. You are sons because born again, or slaves and ‘enemies by wicked works.’ It is a grim alternative, but it is a fact.

III. Thirdly, no spiritual birth without Christ.

We have seen that the sonship which gives power of possessing the inheritance and which comes by spiritual birth, rests upon the giving of life, spiritual life, from God; and unfolds itself in certain holy characters, and affections, and desires, the throbbing of the whole soul in full accord and harmony with the divine character and will. Well then, it looks very clear that a man cannot make that new life for himself, cannot do it because of the habit of sin, and cannot do it because of the guilt and punishment of sin. If for sonship there must be a birth again, why, surely, the very symbol might convince you that such a process does not lie within our own power. There must come down a divine leaven into the mass of human nature, before this new being can be evolved in any one. There must be a gift of God. A divine energy must be the source and fountain of all holy and of all Godlike life. Christ comes, comes to make you and me live again as we never lived before; live possessors of God’s love; live tenanted and ruled by a divine Spirit; live with affections in our hearts which we never could kindle there; live with purposes in our souls which we never could put there.

And I want to urge this thought, that the centre point of the Gospel is this regeneration; because if we understand, as we are too much disposed to do, that the Gospel simply comes to make men live better, to work out a moral reformation,-why, there is no need for a Gospel at all. If the change were a simple change of habit and action on the part of men, we could do without a Christ. If the change simply involved a bracing ourselves up to behave better for the future, we could manage somehow or other about as well as or better than we have managed in the past. But if redemption be the giving of life from God; and if redemption be the change of position in reference to God’s love and God’s law as well, neither of these two changes can a man effect for himself. You cannot gather up the spilt water; you cannot any more gather up and re-issue the past life. The sin remains, the guilt remains. The inevitable law of God will go on its crashing way in spite of all penitence, in spite of all reformation, in spite of all desires after newness of life. There is but one Being who can make a change in our position in regard to God, and there is but one Being who can make the change by which man shall become a ‘new creature.’ The Creative Spirit that shaped the earth must shape its new being in my soul; and the Father against whose law I have offended, whose love I have slighted, from whom I have turned away, must effect the alteration that I can never effect-the alteration in my position to His judgments and justice, and to the whole sweep of His government. No new birth without Christ; no escape from the old standing-place, of being ‘enemies to God by wicked works,’ by anything that we can do: no hope of the inheritance unless the Lord and the Man, the ‘second Adam from heaven,’ have come! He has come, and He has ‘dwelt with us,’ and He has worn this life of ours, and He has walked in the midst of this world, and He knows all about our human condition, and He has effected an actual change in the possible aspect of the divine justice and government to us; and He has carried in the golden urn of His humanity a new spirit and a new life which He has set down in the midst of the race; and the urn was broken on the cross of Calvary, and the water flowed out, and whithersoever that water comes there is life, and whithersoever it comes not there is death!

IV. Last of all, no Christ without faith.

It is not enough, brethren, that we should go through all these previous steps, if we then go utterly astray at the end, by forgetting that there is only one way by which we become partakers of any of the benefits and blessings that Christ has wrought out. It is much to say that for inheritance there must be sonship. It is much to say that for sonship there must be a divine regeneration. It is much to say that the power of this regeneration is all gathered together in Christ Jesus. But there are plenty of people that would agree to all that, who go off at that point, and content themselves with this kind of thinking-that in some vague mysterious way, they know not how, in a sort of half-magical manner, the benefit of Christ’s death and work comes to all in Christian lands, whether there be an act of faith or not! Now I am not going to talk theology at present, at this stage of my sermon; but what I want to leave upon all your hearts is this profound conviction,-Unless we are wedded to Jesus Christ by the simple act of trust in His mercy and His power, Christ is nothing to us. Do not let us, my friends, blink that deciding test of the whole matter. We may talk about Christ for ever; we may set forth aspects of His work, great and glorious. He may be to us much that is very precious; but the one question, the question of questions, on which everything else depends, is, Am I trusting to Him as my divine Redeemer? am I resting in Him as the Son of God? Some of us here now have a sort of nominal connection with Christ, who have a kind of imaginative connection with Him; traditional, ceremonial, by habit of thought, by attendance on public worship, and by I know not what other means. Ceremonies are nothing, notions are nothing, beliefs are nothing, formal participation in worship is nothing. Christ is everything to him that trusts Him. Christ is nothing but a judge and a condemnation to him who trusts Him not. And here is the turning-point, Am I resting upon that Lord for my salvation? If so, you can begin upon that step, the low one on which you can put your foot, the humble act of faith, and with the foot there, can climb up. If faith, then new birth; if new birth, then sonship; if sonship, then an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ.’ But if you have not got your foot upon the lowest round of the ladder, you will never come within sight of the blessed face of Him who stands at the top of it, and who looks down to you at this moment, saying to you, ‘My child, wilt thou not cry unto Me “Abba, Father?”‘

Romans

SUFFERING WITH CHRIST, A CONDITION OF GLORY WITH CHRIST

Rom 8:17.

In the former part of this verse the Apostle tells us that in order to be heirs of God, we must become sons through and joint-heirs with Christ. He seems at first sight to add in these words of our text another condition to those already specified, namely, that of suffering with Christ.

Now, of course, whatever may be the operation of suffering in fitting for the possession of the Christian inheritance, either here or in another world, the sonship and the sorrows do not stand on the same level in regard to that possession. The one is the indispensable condition of all; the other is but the means for the operation of the condition. The one-being sons, ‘joint-heirs with Christ,’-is the root of the whole matter; the other-the ‘suffering with Him,’-is but the various process by which from the root there come ‘the blade, and the ear, and the full corn in the ear.’ Given the sonship-if it is to be worked out into power and beauty, there must be suffering with Christ. But unless there be sonship, there is no possibility of inheriting God; discipline and suffering will be of no use at all.

The chief lesson which I wish to gather from this text now is that all God’s sons must suffer with Christ; and in addition to this principle, we may complete our considerations by adding briefly, that the inheritance must be won by suffering, and that if we suffer with Him, we certainly shall receive the inheritance.

I. First, then, sonship with Christ necessarily involves suffering with Him.

I think that we entirely misapprehend the force of this passage before us, if we suppose it to refer principally or merely to the outward calamities, what you call trials and afflictions, which befall people, and see in it only the teaching, that the sorrows of daily life may have in them a sign of our being children of God, and some power to prepare us for the glory that is to come. There is a great deal more in the thought than that, brethren. This is not merely a text for people who are in affliction, but for all of us. It does not merely contain a law for a certain part of life, but it contains a law for the whole of life. It is not merely a promise that in all our afflictions Christ will be afflicted, but it is a solemn injunction that we seek to know ‘the fellowship of His sufferings, and be made conformable to the likeness of His death,’ if we expect to be ‘found in the likeness of His Resurrection,’ and to have any share in the community of His glory. In other words, the foundation of it is not that Christ shares in our sufferings; but that we, as Christians, in a deep and real sense do necessarily share and participate in Christ’s. We ‘suffer with Him’; not He suffers with us.

Now, do not let us misunderstand each other, or the Apostle’s teaching. Do not suppose that I am forgetting, or wishing you to account as of small importance, the awful sense in which Christ’s suffering stands as a thing by itself and unapproachable, a solitary pillar rising up, above the waste of time, to which all men everywhere are to turn with the one thought, ‘I can do nothing like that; I need to do nothing like it; it has been done once, and once for all; and what I have to do is, simply to lie down before Him, and let the power and the blessings of that death and those sufferings flow into my heart.’ The Divine Redeemer makes eternal redemption. The sufferings of Christ-the sufferings of His life, and the sufferings of His death-both because of the nature which bore them, and of the aspect which they wore in regard to us, are in their source, in their intensity, in their character, and consequences, unapproachable, incapable of repetition, and needing no repetition whilst the world shall stand. But then, do not let us forget that the very books and writers in the New Testament that preach most broadly Christ’s sole, all-sufficient, eternal redemption for the world by His sufferings and death, turn round and say to us too, ‘“Be planted together in the likeness of His death”; you are “crucified to the world” by the Cross of Christ; you are to “fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ.”‘ He Himself speaks of our drinking of the cup that He drank of, and being baptized with the baptism that He was baptized with, if we desire to sit yonder on His throne, and share with Him in His glory.

Now what do the Apostles, and what does Christ Himself, in that passage that I have quoted, mean, by such solemn words as these? Some people shrink from them, and say that it is trenching upon the central doctrine of the Gospel, when we speak about drinking of the cup which Christ drank of. They ask, Can it be? Yes, it can be, if you will think thus:-If a Christian has the Spirit and life of Christ in him, his career will be moulded, imperfectly but really, by the same Spirit that dwelt in his Lord; and similar causes will produce corresponding effects. The life of Christ which-divine, pure, incapable of copy and repetition-in one aspect has ended for ever for men, remains to be lived, in another view of it, by every Christian, who in like manner has to fight with the world; who in like manner has to resist temptation; who in like manner has to stand, by God’s help, pure and sinless, in so far as the new nature of him is concerned, in the midst of a world that is full of evil. For were the sufferings of the Lord only the sufferings that were wrought upon Calvary? Were the sufferings of the Lord only the sufferings which came from the contradiction of sinners against Himself? Were the sufferings of the Lord only the sufferings which were connected with His bodily afflictions and pain, precious and priceless as they were, and operative causes of our redemption as they were? Oh no. Conceive of that perfect, sinless, really human life, in the midst of a system of things that is all full of corruption and of sin; coming ever and anon against misery, and wrong-doing, and rebellion; and ask yourselves whether part of His sufferings did not spring from the contact of the sinless Son of man with a sinful world, and the apparently vain attempt to influence and leaven that sinful world with care for itself and love for the Father. If there had been nothing more than that, yet Christ’s sufferings as the Son of God in the midst of sinful men would have been deep and real. ‘O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?’ was wrung from Him by the painful sense of want of sympathy between His aims and theirs. ‘Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then I would fly away and be at rest,’ must often be the language of those who are like Him in spirit, and in consequent sufferings.

And then again, another branch of the ‘sufferings of Christ’ is to be found in that deep and mysterious fact on which I durst not venture to speak beyond what the actual words of Scripture put into my lips-the fact that Christ wrought out His perfect obedience as a man, through temptation and by suffering. There was no sin within Him, no tendency to sin, no yielding to the evil that assailed. ‘The Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me.’ But yet, when that dark Power stood by His side, and said, ‘If thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down,’ it was a real temptation and not a sham one. There was no wish to do it, no faltering for a moment, no hesitation. There was no rising up in that calm will of even a moment’s impulse to do the thing that was presented;-but yet it was presented, and, when Christ triumphed, and the tempter departed for a season, there had been a temptation and there had been a conflict. And though obedience be a joy, and the doing of His Father’s will was His delight, as it must needs be in pure and in purified hearts; yet obedience which is sustained in the face of temptation, and which never fails, though its path lead to bodily pains and the ‘contradiction of sinners,’ may well be called suffering. We cannot speak of our Lord’s obedience as the surrender of His own will to the Father’s, with the implication that these two wills ever did or could move except in harmony. There was no place in Christ’s obedience for that casting out of sinful self which makes our submission a surrender joined with suffering, but He knew temptation. Flesh, and sense, and the world, and the prince of this world, presented it to Him; and therefore His obedience too was suffering, even though to do the will of His Father was His meat and His drink, His sustenance and His refreshment.

But then, let me remind you still further, that not only does the life of Christ, as sinless in the midst of sinful men, and the life of Christ, as sinless whilst yet there was temptation presented to it-assume the aspect of being a life of suffering, and become, in that respect, the model for us; but that also the Death of Christ, besides its aspect as an atonement and sacrifice for sin, the power by which transgression is put away and God’s love flows out upon our souls, has another power given to it in the teaching of the New Testament. The Death of Christ is a type of the Christian’s life, which is to be one long, protracted, and daily dying to sin, to self, to the world. The crucifixion of the old manhood is to be the life’s work of every Christian, through the power of faith in that Cross by which ‘the world is crucified unto Me, and I unto the world.’ That thought comes over and over again in all forms of earnest presentation in the Apostle’s teaching. Do not slur it over as if it were a mere fanciful metaphor. It carries in its type a most solemn reality. The truth is, that, if a Christian, you have a double life. There is Christ, with His power, with His Spirit, giving you a nature which is pure and sinless, incapable of transgression, like His own. The new man, that which is born of God, sinneth not, cannot sin. But side by side with it, working through it, working in it, leavening it, indistinguishable from it to your consciousness, by anything but this that the one works righteousness and the other works transgression, there is the ‘old man,’ ‘the flesh,’ ‘the old Adam,’ your own godless, independent, selfish, proud being. And the one is to slay the other! Ah, let me tell you, these words-crucifying, casting out the old man, plucking out the right eye, maiming self of the right hand, mortifying the deeds of the body-they are something very much deeper and more awful than poetical symbols and metaphors. They teach us this, that there is no growth without sore sorrow. Conflict, not progress, is the word that defines man’s path from darkness into light. No holiness is won by any other means than this, that wickedness should be slain day by day, and hour by hour. In long lingering agony often, with the blood of the heart pouring out at every quivering vein, you are to cut right through the life and being of that sinful self; to do what the Word does, pierce to the dividing asunder of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and get rid by crucifying and slaying-a long process, a painful process-of your own sinful self. And not until you can stand up and say, ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,’ have you accomplished that to which you are consecrated and vowed by your sonship-’being conformed unto the likeness of His death,’ and ‘knowing the fellowship of His sufferings.’

It is this process, the inward strife and conflict in getting rid of evil, which the Apostle designates here with the name of ‘suffering with Christ, that we may be also glorified together.’ On this high level, and not upon the lower one of the consideration that Christ will help us to bear outward infirmities and afflictions, do we find the true meaning of all that Scripture teaching which says indeed, ‘Yes, our sufferings are His’; but lays the foundation of it in this, ‘His sufferings are ours.’ It begins by telling us that Christ has done a work and borne a sorrow that no second can ever do. Then it tells us that Christ’s life of obedience-which, because it was a life of obedience, was a life of suffering, and brought Him into a condition of hostility to the men around Him-is to be repeated in us. It sets before us the Cross of Calvary, and the sorrows and pains that were felt there;-and it says to us, Christian men and women, if you want the power for holy living, have fellowship in that atoning death; and if you want the pattern of holy living, look at that Cross and feel, ‘I am crucified to the world by it; and the life that I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.’

Such considerations as these, however, do not necessarily exclude the other one {which we may just mention and dwell on for a moment}, namely, that where there is this spiritual participation in the sufferings of Christ, and where His death is reproduced and perpetuated, as it were, in our daily mortifying ourselves in the present evil world-there Christ is with us in our afflictions. God forbid that I should try to strike away any word of consolation that has come, as these words of my text have come, to so many sorrowing hearts in all generations, like music in the night and like cold waters to a thirsty soul. We need not hold that there is no reference here to that comforting thought, ‘In all our affliction He is afflicted.’ Brethren, you and I have, each of us-one in one way, and one in another, all in some way, all in the right way, none in too severe a way, none in too slight a way-to tread the path of sorrow; and is it not a blessed thing, as we go along through that dark valley of the shadow of death down into which the sunniest paths go sometimes, to come, amidst the twilight and the gathering clouds, upon tokens that Jesus has been on the road before us? They tell us that in some trackless lands, when one friend passes through the pathless forests, he breaks a twig ever and anon as he goes, that those who come after may see the traces of his having been there, and may know that they are not out of the road. Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night, and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed, and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrances and hidden strengths in the remembrance of Him as ‘in all points tempted like as we are,’ bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us.

Oh, do not, do not, my brethren, keep these sacred thoughts of Christ’s companionship in sorrow, for the larger trials of life. If the mote in the eye be large enough to annoy you, it is large enough to bring out His sympathy; and if the grief be too small for Him to compassionate and share, it is too small for you to be troubled by it. If you are ashamed to apply that divine thought, ‘Christ bears this grief with me,’ to those petty molehills that you sometimes magnify into mountains, think to yourselves that then it is a shame for you to be stumbling over them. But on the other hand, never fear to be irreverent or too familiar in the thought that Christ is willing to bear, and help you to bear, the pettiest, the minutest, and most insignificant of the daily annoyances that may come to ruffle you. Whether it be a poison from one serpent sting, or whether it be poison from a million of buzzing tiny mosquitoes, if there be a smart, go to Him, and He will help you to endure it. He will do more, He will bear it with you, for if so be that we suffer with Him, He suffers with us, and our oneness with Christ brings about a community of possessions whereby it becomes true of each trusting soul in its relations to Him, that ‘all mine {joys and sorrows alike} are thine, and all thine are mine.’

II. There remain some other considerations which may be briefly stated, in order to complete the lessons of this text. In the second place, this community of suffering is a necessary preparation for the community of glory.

I name this principally for the sake of putting in a caution. The Apostle does not mean to tell us, of course, that if there were such a case as that of a man becoming a son of God, and having no occasion or opportunity afterwards, by brevity of life or other causes, for passing through the discipline of sorrow, his inheritance would be forfeited. We must always take such passages as this-which seem to make the discipline of the world an essential part of the preparing of us for glory-in conjunction with the other undeniable truth which completes them, that when a man has the love of God in his heart, however feebly, however newly, there and then he is fit for the inheritance. I think that Christian people make vast mistakes sometimes in talking about ‘being made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light,’ about being ‘ripe for glory,’ and the like. One thing at any rate is very certain, it is not the discipline that fits. That which fits goes before the discipline, and the discipline only develops the fitness. ‘God hath made us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light,’ says the Apostle. That is a past act. The preparedness for heaven comes at the moment-if it be a momentary act-when a man turns to Christ. You may take the lowest and most abandoned form of human character, and in one moment {it is possible, and it is often the case} the entrance into that soul of the feeble germ of that new affection shall at once change the whole moral habitude of that man. Though it be true, then, that heaven is only open to those who are capable-by holy aspirations and divine desires-of entering into it, it is equally true that such aspirations and desires may be the work of an instant, and may be superinduced in a moment in a heart the most debased and the most degraded. ‘This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,’-fit for the inheritance!

And, therefore, let us not misunderstand such words as this text, and fancy that the necessary discipline, which we have to go through before we are ready for heaven, is necessary in anything like the same sense in which it is necessary that a man should have faith in Christ in order to be saved. The one may be dispensed with, the other cannot. A Christian at any period of his Christian experience, if it please God to take him, is fit for the kingdom. The life is life, whether it be the budding beauty and feebleness of childhood, or the strength of manhood, or the maturity and calm peace of old age. But ‘add to your faith,’ that ‘an entrance may be ministered unto you abundantly.’ Remember that though the root of the matter, the seed of the kingdom, may be in you; and that though, therefore, you have a right to feel that, at any period of your Christian experience, if it please God to take you out of this world, you are fit for heaven-yet in His mercy He is leaving you here, training you, disciplining you, cleansing you, making you to be polished shafts in His quiver; and that all the glowing furnaces of fiery trial and all the cold waters of affliction are but the preparation through which the rough iron is to be passed before it becomes tempered steel, a shaft in the Master’s hand.

And so learn to look upon all trial as being at once the seal of your sonship, and the means by which God puts it within your power to win a higher place, a loftier throne, a nobler crown, a closer fellowship with Him ‘who hath suffered, being tempted,’ and who will receive into His own blessedness and rest them that are tempted. ‘The child, though he be an heir, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors.’ God puts us in the school of sorrow under that stern tutor and governor here, and gives us the opportunity of ‘suffering with Christ,’ that by the daily crucifixion of our old nature, by the lessons and blessings of outward calamities and change, there may grow up in us a still nobler and purer, and perfecter divine life; and that we may so be made capable-more capable, and capable of more-of that inheritance for which the only necessary thing is the death of Christ, and the only fitness is faith in His name.

III. Finally, that inheritance is the necessary result of the suffering that has gone before.

The suffering results from our union with Christ. That union must needs culminate in glory. It is not only because the joy hereafter seems required in order to vindicate God’s love to His children, who here reap sorrow from their sonship, that the discipline of life cannot but end in blessedness. That ground of mere compensation is a low one on which to rest the certainty of future bliss. But the inheritance is sure to all who here suffer with Christ, because the one cause-union with the Lord-produces both the present result of fellowship in His sorrows, and the future result of joy in His joy, of possession of His possessions. The inheritance is sure because Christ possesses it now. The inheritance is sure because earth’s sorrows not merely require to be repaid by its peace, but because they have an evident design to fit us for it, and it would be destructive to all faith in God’s wisdom, and God’s knowledge of His own purposes, not to believe that what He has wrought us for will be given to us. Trials have no meaning, unless they are means to an end. The end is the inheritance, and sorrows here, as well as the Spirit’s work here, are the earnest of the inheritance. Measure the greatness of the glory by what has preceded it. God takes all these years of life, and all the sore trials and afflictions that belong inevitably to an earthly career, and works them in, into the blessedness that shall come. If a fair measure of the greatness of any result of productive power be the length of time that was taken for getting it ready, we can dimly conceive what that joy must be for which seventy years of strife and pain and sorrow are but a momentary preparation; and what must be the weight of that glory which is the counterpoise and consequence to the afflictions of this lower world. The further the pendulum swings on the one side, the further it goes up on the other. The deeper God plunges the comet into the darkness out yonder, the closer does it come to the sun at its nearest distance, and the longer does it stand basking and glowing in the full blaze of the glory from the central orb. So in our revolution, the measure of the distance from the farthest point of our darkest earthly sorrow, to the throne, may help us to the measure of the closeness of the bright, perfect, perpetual glory above, when we are on the throne: for if so be that we are sons, we must suffer with Him; if so be that we suffer, we must be glorified together!

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8:17 Jesus is heir to all of God’s promises (Mark 12:1-12; Gal 3:18-19; Heb 1:2), and as those who belong to Jesus, we share with him in that glorious inheritance. However, just as it was for Jesus, our path to glory is also marked by suffering. We experience the difficulties that come from striving to live righteously in a world dominated by sin (2 Cor 1:5; Phil 1:29; 3:10).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rom 8:17. Συγκληρονόμοι, joint-heirs) that we may know, that it is a very great inheritance, which God gives to us: for He has assuredly given a great inheritance to His Son.—εἴπερ, if indeed) This short clause is a new proposition, which has respect to those things, which follow.—συμπάσχομεν, we suffer with) To this word refer sufferings in the following verse, and in like manner, we may be glorified together in this verse refers to the glory in the following verse.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_8:17. From the truth of the filial relation to God, Paul now passes over by the continuative δέ to the sure blissful consequence of it,and that indeed in organic reference to the ζήσεσθε promised in Rom_8:13.

From our childship follows necessarily our heirship. Comp. Gal_4:7. Both are to be left perfectly general, without supplying Θεοῦ, since it is only what follows that furnishes the concrete, more precise definition, in which here the general relation is realized.

κληρονόμοι Θεοῦ] The inheritance, which God once on a time transfers to His children as their property, is the salvation and glory of the Messianic kingdom. Comp. Rom_4:14. God is, of course, in this case conceived not as a dying testator, but as the living bestower of His goods on His children (Luk_15:12). However, the conclusion (Rom_8:17) forbids us to disregard the idea of inheritance, and to find only that of the receiving possession represented (in opposition to van Hengel).

σύγκληρ. δὲ Χριστοῦ] Not something greater than κληρον. Θεοῦ, on the contrary in substance the same, but specifically characterized from the standpoint of our fellowship with Christ, whose coheirs we must be as κληρον. Θεοῦ, since, having entered into sonship through the υἱοθεσία, we have become Christs brethren (Rom_8:29). Moreover, that Paul has here in view, not the analogy of the Hebrew law of inheritance that conferred a mans intestate heritage only on sons of his body, if there were such, but that of the Roman law (Fritzsche, Tholuck, van Hengel; see more particularly on Gal_4:7), is the historically necessary supposition, which can least of all seem foreign or inappropriate in an epistle to the Romans.

συμπάσχ.] Whosoever, for the sake of the gospel, submits to suffering (Mat_10:38; Mat_16:24), suffers with Christ; i.e. he has actual share in the suffering endured by Christ (1Pe_4:13), drinks the same cup that He drank (Mat_20:22 f.). Comp. on 2Co_1:5; Php_3:10; Col_1:24. This fellowship of suffering Paul regards as that which must be presupposed in order to the attainment of glory, of participation in the δόξα of Christ (εἴπερ, as in Rom_8:9); not indeed as meritum, or pretium vitae aeternae, but as obedientia propter ordinem a Deo sancitum, Melancthon. Comp. 2Ti_2:11 f. This conviction developed itself, especially under the external influence of the circumstances of an age fruitful in persecution, just as necessarily and truly out of the inward assurance that in the case of Jesus Himself His suffering, willed by God, and undertaken and borne in obedience to the Father, was the condition of His glory (Luk_24:26; Php_2:6 ff., al.), as it in its turn became a rich spring of the enthusiasm for martyrdom. Olshausen (comp. also Philippi) mixes up an element which is here foreign: participation in the conflict with sin in themselves and in the world. Even without introducing this element foreign to the word itself, the συμπάσχειν, as the presupposition involved in the joint-heirship, has its universal applicability, based not merely on the general participation of all in the suffering of this time, but especially also on the relation of the children of God to the ungodly world (comp. Joh_7:7; Joh_15:18 f., Joh_17:14).

ἵνα καὶ συνδοξ.] in order to be also glorified with Him; dependent not on συγκληρ. (Tholuck), but on συμπάσχ., the divine final aim of which, known to the sufferer, it subjoins.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 8:17 . Yet this last is involved, for “if children, also heirs”. Cf. Gal 4:7 where κληρονόμος is relative to υἱὸς ; and all the passages in which the Spirit is regarded as “the earnest” of an inheritance: 2Co 1:22 ; 2Co 5:5 , Eph 1:14 . It is from God the inheritance comes, and we share in it with Christ (Mar 12:7 ). For what it is, see 1Co 2:9 f. The inheritance attached to Divine sonship is attained only on the condition expressed in the clause εἴπερ συμπάσχομεν ἵνα καὶ συνδοξασθῶμεν . On εἴπερ , see Rom 8:9 . “Rom 8:17 gains in pathos, when we see that the share of the disciples in the Master’s sufferings was felt to be a fact of which there was no question.” Simcox, Language of N.T ., p. 171. Paul was sure of it in his own case, and took it for granted in that of others. Those who share Christ’s sufferings now will share His glory hereafter; and in order to share His glory hereafter it is necessary to begin by sharing His sufferings here.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_8:17

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, etc. This is the inference from our adoption, in favor of the great theme of the chapter, the safety of believes. If the children of God, they shall become partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. The words to inherit, heirs, and inheritance, are all of them used in a general sense in the Scriptures, in reference to the secure possession of any good, without regard to the mode in which that possession is obtained. They are favorite terms with the sacred writers, because possession by inheritance was much more secure than that obtained by purchase, or by any other method. There are three ideas included in these words, accessory to that which constitutes their prominent meaning the right, the certainty, and the unalienable character of the possession. Hence, when the apostle says, believers are the heirs of God, he means to recognize their title, in and through the Redeemer, to the promised good, as well as the certainty and security of the possession. And if ye be Christs, then are ye Abrahams seed, and heirs according to the promise, Gal_3:29. In Gal_4:7, we have the same argument as in the passage before us, Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ; see Col_3:24; Heb_9:15; Eph_1:14, etc. Joint heirs with Christ. These words are intended to designate the inheritance with believers are to revive. It is not any possession in this world, but it is that good of which Christ himself is the recipient; we are to be partakers of his inheritance. This idea is frequently presented in the Scriptures. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord, Mat_25:21; That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, Luk_22:30; To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, etc., Rev_3:21, and in many other places.

If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also gloried together. Those suffer with Christ who suffer as he did, and for his sake. They are thus partakers of the sufferings of Christ. We suffer as Christ suffered, not only when we are subject to the contradiction of sinners, but in the ordinary sorrows of life in which he, the man of sorrows, so largely shared. We are said to suffer with Christ, ἵνα, in order that we may be glorified together. That is, the design of God in the affliction of his people, is not to satisfy the demands of justice, but to prepare them to participate in his glory. To creatures in a state of sin, suffering is the necessary condition of exaltation. It is the refining process through which they must pass, 1Pe_1:6, 1Pe_1:7. The union of believers with Christ, in suffering as well as in glory, is what he and his apostles taught them to expect. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me, Mat_16:24; If we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him, 2Ti_2:11, 2Ti_2:12. The blessedness of the future state is always represented as exalted; it is a glory, something that will elevate us in the rank of beings; enlarging, purifying, and ennobling all our faculties. To this state we are to attain through much tribulation, i.e. attain it as Christ did. And this is what the apostle here intends to say, and not that the participation of Christs glory is a reward for our having suffered with him.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Partakers of our father’s goods, and that freely, because we are children by adoption.

A proof of the consequent of the confirmation: because that he which is the Son of God, doth enjoy God with Christ.

Now Paul teacheth by what way the sons of God do come to that felicity, to wit, by the cross, as Christ himself did: and therewithall openeth unto them fountains of comfort: as first, that we have Christ a companion and fellow of our afflictions: secondly, that we shall be also his followers in that everlasting glory.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

And if children, then heirs--"heirs also."

heirs of God--of our Father's kingdom.

and joint-heirs with Christ--as the "First-born among many brethren" (Rom 8:29), and as "Heir of all things" (Heb 1:2).

if so be that we suffer--"provided we be suffering with Him."

that we may be also glorified together--with Him. This necessity of conformity to Christ in suffering in order to participate in His glory, is taught alike by Christ Himself and by His apostles (Joh 12:24-26; Mat 16:24-25; Ti2 2:12).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 17. And if children, then heirs] For the legitimate children can alone inherit the estate. This is not an estate to which they succeed in consequence of the death of a former possessor; it is like the promised land, given by God himself, and divided among the children of the family.

Heirs of God] It is neither an earthly portion nor a heavenly portion; but GOD himself, who is to be their portion. It is not heaven they are to inherit; it is GOD, who is infinitely greater and more glorious than heaven itself. With such powers has God created the soul of man, that nothing less than himself can be a sufficient and satisfactory portion for the mind of this most astonishing creature.

Joint heirs with Christ] Partaking of the same eternal glory with the glorified human nature of Christ.

If so be that we suffer with him] Observe, says Dr. Taylor, how prudently the apostle advances to the harsh affair of suffering. He does not mention it till he had raised up their thoughts to the highest object of joy and pleasure-the happiness and glory of a joint inheritance with the ever-blessed Son of God.

We are heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him. This, with the additional consideration that we suffer with Christ, or, as he himself suffered, would greatly qualify the transitory afflictions of this world, and dispose them to attend to the other arguments he had to offer.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

17. And if children, etc. By an argument, taken from what is annexed or what follows, he proves that our salvation consists in having God as our Father. It is for children that inheritance is appointed: since God then has adopted us as his children, he has at the same time ordained an inheritance for us. He then intimates what sort of inheritance it is — that it is heavenly, and therefore incorruptible and eternal, such as Christ possesses; and his possession of it takes away all uncertainty: and it is a commendation of the exellency of this inheritance, that we shall partake of it in common with the only-begotten Son of God. It is however the design of Paul, as it will presently appear more fully, highly to extol this inheritance promised to us, that we may be contented with it, and manfully despise the allurements of the world, and patiently bear whatever troubles may press on us in this life.

If so be that we suffer together, etc. Various are the interpretations of this passage, but I approve of the following in preference to any other, “We are co-heirs with Christ, provided, in entering on our inheritance, we follow him in the same way in which he has gone before.” And he thus made mention of Christ, because he designed to pass over by these steps to an encouraging strain, — “God’s inheritance is ours, because we have by his grace been adopted as his children; and that it may not be doubtful, its possession as been already conferred on Christ, whose partners we are become: but Christ came to it by the cross; then we must come to it in the same manner.” Nor is that to be dreaded which some fear, that Paul thus ascribes the cause of our eternal glory to our labours; for this mode of speaking is not unusual in Scripture. He denotes the order, which the Lord follows in dispensing salvation to us, rather than the cause; for he has already sufficiently defended the gratuitous mercy of God against the merits of works. When now exhorting us to patience, he does not show whence salvation proceeds, but how God governs his people.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(17) One characteristic of the son is that he is his father’s heir. So it is with the Christian. He, too, has an inheritance—an inheritance of glory which he will share with Christ. But he must not be surprised if, before sharing the glory, he also shares the sufferings.

Suffer with him.—All who suffer for the sake of the gospel are regarded as suffering with Christ. They “drink of the cup” that He drank of (Mat_20:22-23). (Comp. 2Co_1:5; Php_3:10; Col_1:24.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17. and if children, &c.] Here St Paul reasons onward from the primary fact, witnessed to by the Spirit, of the Christian’s sonship. He has in view now, more than ever yet in the Epistle, the hope of eternal Glory, when in the fullest sense the saints shall possess the Kingdom of God. This possession he views as an Inheritance by virtue of Birth into the Family of God.—For the figure, cp. Mat_25:34; Act_20:32; 1Co_15:50; Gal_4:7; Eph_1:14; Jas_2:5; 1Pe_1:4; &c., &c.

joint-heirs with Christ] The Divine and Human Eldest Brother (Rom_8:29.)

if so be] Same word as Rom_8:9. St Paul reminds his readers of the great fact and principle that the path of obedience and self-denial is the one path to Heaven. And he chooses phraseology (see note on “if so be,” Rom_8:9,) which suggests to the reader’s soul the self-enquiry whether the will is really brought into “the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ.” (Php_3:10)—To “suffer with the Lord” is not only generally to follow Him in patience and meekness; but specially to bear, in loving fidelity, the pains of that conflict (outward, or inward, or both,) against sin, to which we are inevitably called by the fact of our union to Him as His brethren. Such “sufferings,” in one form or another, are never out of date.

that we may be, &c.] “Suffering with Christ” is the necessary antecedent to “glorification with Him;” by way, not of merit, but of preparation. The eternal bliss is a gift in the most absolute sense; (Rom_6:23, &c., &c.,) but the capacity to enjoy it is, certainly in a great measure, imparted only in the school of trial. See, for an illustration of this passage, 1Pe_1:5-7.

together] i.e. “together with Him;” in His eternal presence, and as sharers in the joy and dignity of His eternal kingdom. Before the throne of the Lamb, His servants “shall reign for ever and ever.” (Rev_22:5.) See too Col_3:4; 1Pe_4:13; 1Jn_3:1-2; Rev_3:21.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And if children, then heirs,.... Children, whether natural or adopted, are heirs to their parents, and according to the Roman laws, which some think the apostle here respects, whether male or female; but according to the Jewish laws (c), females did not inherit only in case of want of male issue; for though Job's daughters inherited with his sons, this was a peculiar case; and the Jewish writers say (d), it was , "on account of their worth and beauty"; yet adopted children among them, whether male or female, were equal to natural children in possessing the inheritance; however, the apostle includes both here, who are all one in Christ Jesus, and are all the children of God by faith in him, and so

heirs of God: either efficiently, he makes them heirs; they are not so by nature, nor do they become such by the works of the law; but God his rich grace adopts them into his family, begets them again, and freely bestows the inheritance on them: or subjectively, they are heirs of himself; he not only makes them his heirs, but he himself is their inheritance and portion; they are heirs of all things which are his; they share in his love, grace, and mercy; and his wisdom, power, truth, and faithfulness, and indeed, every perfection of his are engaged on their side, and in their favour; all things are theirs who have God to be their God and Father; the Gospel and the ministers of it are theirs; the world and the things of it, life and death, things present and things to come; heaven and happiness, which go by the names of glory, riches of glory, kingdom, eternal life and salvation, are all represented as things to be inherited by the saints. The Jews speak of God's inheriting of man, as the highest pitch of greatness man can arrive unto; thus explaining and paraphrasing on the names of the places from which the Israelites journeyed, Num 21:18, say (e),

"when a man makes himself as a wilderness, which is common to all, the law is given to him by gift, as it is said, "and from the wilderness to Mattanah": and when it is given to him by gift, , "God inherits him", as it is said, "and from Mattanah to Nahaliel"; the gloss upon it is, the law becomes to him , "as an inheritance"; and when , "God inherits him", he ascends to his greatness, i.e. to the highest pitch of it, as it is said, from "Nahaliel to Bamot";''

for when a man is worthy of this, as one of their commentators (f) on this place observes, he is called, "the inheritance of God", according to Deu 32:9; but our apostle speaks not of the saints as God's inheritance, which to be sure they are, but of God as theirs; and not of their inheriting the law, but God himself, which is certainly the highest pitch of honour and greatness that men can possibly enjoy. It is added,

and joint heirs with Christ: it is through him they are heirs of God and of glory; and with him will they partake of and enjoy the inheritance, which is secured to them by their being co-heirs with him: nor does this at all derogate from the honour of Christ, as heir of all things, since he is the firstborn among many brethren, and in this, as in all things, he has the pre-eminence. But before the saints enjoy the inheritance with Christ they must expect to suffer with him and for him; though in the issue they may be assured of this, that they shall be glorified together; their sufferings lie in the way to glory, and glory is and will be the end of their sufferings:

if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together: Christ and his people being one, he the head, and they the members, suffer together; when he suffered, they suffered with him and in him, as their head and representative; and they partake of the virtue and efficacy of his sufferings; and they also suffer afflictions, many of them at least of the same kind with Christ, only with these differences; his were penal evils, theirs not; his were attended with a vast sense of wrath and terror, theirs oftentimes with, joy and comfort; his were meritorious, not so theirs. Moreover, many of their sufferings are for the sake of Christ and his Gospel; on the other hand, by reason of that union which is between Christ and believers, he suffers with them, he reckons their afflictions his, and sympathizes with them; and the consideration of this greatly animates and encourages them in their sufferings, and especially when they observe that they shall be "glorified together"; not with his essential glory, nor with his mediatorial glory, but with that glory which his Father has given him for them. There is a glorification of the saints in Christ, and a glorification of them by Christ, and a glorification of them with Christ, which will consist in likeness to him, and in the everlasting vision and enjoyment of him.

(c) Misn. Bava Bathra, c. 8. sect. 2. T. Hieros. Bava Bathra, fol. 16. 1. (d) Jarchi in Job xlii. 15. (e) T, Bab. Nedarim, fol. 55. 1. (f) En Yaacob, fol. 22. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Ver. 17. And if sons, then heirs] All God’s sons are heirs; not so the sons of earthly princes. Jehoshaphat gave his younger sons great gifts of silver, of gold, and of precious things, with fenced cities in Judah; but the kingdom gave he to Jehoram, because he was the firstborn, 2Ch 21:3. God’s children are all higher than the kings of the earth, Psa 89:27.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And if children - If adopted into his family.

Then heirs - That is, he will treat us as sons. An heir is one who succeeds to an estate. The meaning here is, that if we sustain the relation of sons to God, that we shall be treated as such, and admitted to share his favors. An adopted son comes in for a part of the inheritance, Num. 27.

Heirs of God - This expression means that we shall be partakers of that inheritance which God confers on his people. That inheritance is his favor here, and eternal life hereafter. This is an honor infinitely higher than to be heir to the most princely earthly inheritance; or than to be the adopted son of the most magnificent earthly monarch.

And joint heirs with Christ - Christ is by eminence the “Son of God.” As such, he is heir to the full honors and glory of heaven. Christians are united to him; they are his friends; and they are thus represented as destined to partake with him of his glory. They are the sons of God in a different sense from what he is; he by his nature and high relation, they by adoption; but still the idea of sonship exists in both; and hence, both will partake in the glories of the eternal inheritance; compare Phi 2:8-9; Heb 2:9-10. The connection between Christ and Christians is often referred to in the New Testament. The fact that they are united here is often alleged as a reason why they will be in glory, Joh 14:19, “Because I live, ye shall live also,” 2Ti 2:11-12; “For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with him, Rev 3:21; “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne,” etc., Joh 17:22-24.

If so be - If this condition exist; We shall not be treated as co-heirs with him, unless we here give evidence that we are united to him.

That we suffer with him - Greek, “If we suffer together, that we may also be glorified together.” If we suffer in his cause; bear afflictions as he did; are persecuted and tried for the same thing; and thus show that we are united to him. It does not mean that we suffer to the same extent that he did, but we may imitate him in the kind of our sufferings, and in the spirit with which they are borne; and thus show that we are united to him.

That we may be also glorified together - If united in the same kind of sufferings, there is propriety in being united in destiny beyond the scenes of all suffering, the kingdom of blessedness and love.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And if children, then heirs; there is a parallel text in Gal 4:7. It is not so with the children of earthly princes: see 2Ch 21:3.

Joint-heirs with Christ; or co-heirs with Christ; he is our elder Brother, and is not ashamed to call us brethren: the inheritance is his by nature, ours by grace.

If so be that we suffer with him; the cross of Christ is the condition of our heavenly inheritance. The pronoun him is not in the original, but fitly supplied in our translation. Suffering with him, is much the same with suffering for him: suffering believers do but pledge Christ in the cup that he began to them.

That we may be also glorified together; or, glorified with him, not with equal glory, but according to our proportion; he was glorified in this way, Luk 24:26, and so must we. Three things are implied in our being

glorified together:

1. Conformiry; we shall in some measure be like him in glory: see Joh 17:22; Phi 3:21.

2. Concomitancy; we shall be present with him in glory, Joh 17:24; 1Th 4:17.

3. Conveyance; our glory will be from him; his glory will reflect on us, and we shall shine in his beams.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

17. Heirs—Entitled by graciously divine right to an eternal inheritance.

Joint heirs with Christ—Who is our elder brother, (Rom_8:29.) And as Christ is sure of his inheritance, then, so long as we are joint with him, there can be no failure for us. But in our case there is a condition yet to be completely fulfilled, namely, the following IF. And this if, implying a contingency lasting as long as our probation, must be presupposed in the whole of this passage, (18-39.) The law of inheritance cannot fail; the scheme of advancement (29, 30) cannot be broken, but we may fall out of it by the way. All these progressive stages belong to us not as physical persons, but as characters, and are forfeited by our persons if the character ceases.

If so be—On this if hangs our eternity.

That—To the divinely established result that.

Glorified together—That glorification with Christ arrived at in Rom_8:30; the ultimate to which our heirship looks.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joint heirs - That we may know it is a great inheritance which God will give us for he hath given a great one to his Son. If we suffer with him - Willingly and cheerfully, for righteousness' sake. This is a new proposition, referring to what follows.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Our apostle having asserted and insured the believer’s adoption in the foregoing verse, doth in this verse infer the certainty of his inheritance: If children, then heirs.

Learn hence, That all God’s children, by special grace and adoption, are undoubted heirs of a blessed and glorious inheritance.

He next declares whom they are heirs of, and whom they are heirs with; they are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

1. They are heirs of God, they do inherit God himself, their Father is their portion; man leaves his heirs what he has, God gives his heirs what he is; he which gives them the inheritance, is the inheritance itself which he gives them, by being not only heirs to him, but heirs of him; they have an interest in all his attributes; his wisdom is theirs to guide and direct them, his power is theirs to sustain and preserve them, his mercy and pity is theirs to relieve and succour them.

Oh happy and blessed privilege of God’s adopted ones! they are not only heirs of heaven, but heirs of God himself; they have him for their portion, and exceeding great reward.

2. They are heirs with Christ: as Christ is God’s heir, so are they heirs with Christ; Christ is God’s heir by nature, as he is the Son of God by nature; whatever is God’s is his, and they are heirs with Christ; they are members of him, and shall be heirs with him, 1Co 3:21-23. All his yours, and ye are Christ’s, Eph 1:11. In him we have obtained the inheritance; we are heirs in his right.

Oh blessed Jesus! how endearing are our obligations to thee! All that we have is from thee, by thee, and in thee: We are chosen in thee, justified by thee, sanctified through thee, and shall be glorified with thee; For if children, then heirs: heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. It follows,

Here we see what accompanieth our adoption, namely, present affliction; we are now to suffer, but not alone, we suffer with Christ; If so be that we suffer with him. This if is not a word of ambiguity and doubting, but a word of certainty and assurance and signifies as much as seeing that we suffer with him.

Learn hence, 1. That a state of suffering and affliction on earth is one condition of obtaining our glorious inheritance in heaven; we must suffer that God may be glorified, our graces improved, our love to the world mortified, our longings for heaven increased.

Learn, 2. That the sufferings of believers are the sufferings of Christ; they suffer with him, and he with them; they suffer with him in a way of conformity, he with them in a way of tender sympathy; they are sensible of any indignity offered to him, and he is sensible of any injury offered to them: the suffering saint pledges Christ in his own cup.

Farther, they suffer with him when they suffer for him, when they suffer in his cause, and for his sake; that is, for doing their duty.

Finally, they suffer with him when they suffer by an assistance derived from him, when by his enablement, and by a power communicated from him, they suffer hard things for his name and truth.

Learn, 3. That as sufferings go before, so glory shall certainly follow sufferings; If we suffer with him, we shall be also glorified together. Suffering is the beaten path to glroy, and that which makes it so much the more glorious; suffering fits us for glory, and disposes us for the reception and fruition of it; by the cross we are fitted for the crown.

Learn, 4. That suffering members shall not only be glorified, but be comformable to their glorified Head in glory; as they have here suffered with him, they shall hereafter be glorified together, not with equal glory, but with the same kind of glory.

Three things are implied in our being glorified together with Christ:

1. Conformity; we shall be like him in glory.

2. Concomitancy: we shall accompany him, and be present with him in glory.

3. Conveyance or derivation; we shall be glorified with him; that is, our glory shall be derived from him; his glory shall be reflected upon us, and we shall shine in his beams.

Oh happy condition of God’s adopted and afflicted children! The supports which you have under suffering, the benefits which you have by suffering, and the glory which will follow after suffering, render it not only tolerable but desirable; well may they glory in tribulation, which expect such a glory after it.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

GLORIFICATION

17. “But if children, indeed heirs, truly heirs of God, and fellow heirs of Christ; if we suffer along with him in order that we may also be glorified along with him.” None but disciples go to heaven. The disciple is a follower. Therefore we must follow Christ in all the grand, salient points of His Messiahship. We must follow Him to the manger, and be born in utter obscurity; to the Jordan, and receive the Holy Ghost; through Gethsemane, and die to our own will, sinking eternally into the will of God; to Pilate’s bar, and have the whole world sign our death warrant; and, finally, up rugged Calvary, there, nailed to the cross, our sinful humanity must be crucified, after the similitude of His sinless humanity. These grand, salient, experimental foci include providential intervening periods, replete with worldly contempt, hardships, privation and persecution, which we must gladly endure for Christ’s sake. After all of His suffering, walking out of the tomb, and glorified on Mount Olivet, He ascended up to heaven to reign forever. We have the blessed assurance that if we follow Him in His humiliation, we shall also follow Him in His glorification. This Epistle is transcendently climacteric, devoting Chapter 1 to Chapter 3:18 to the Sinai gospel on conviction; Chapter 3:19 to Chapter 5 to justification; Chapter 6 to sanctification; Chapter 7, the battle with inbred sin, culminating in the entire sanctification of Paul in Arabia (Rom 8:25); Chapter 8:1-16, Paul’s triumphant shout ringing on after he got sanctified (Chapter 7:25). Now the wonderful climax continues, the next pile in the heavenly monument being glorification. The silly idea prevails that sanctification is the end of the new creation. Justification is primary salvation; sanctification, full salvation; and glorification, final salvation. Of this grand and stupendous work the popular pulpit has nothing but the first, thus keeping the people back in rudimentary Christianity, homogeneous with Judaism. This glorification is to reach the body, mind, and spirit, thus qualifying humanity in its triple departments to go up and live with God forever. Many ignorantly oppose sanctification on the ground of its unattainability till death, thus making a fatal mistake, and identifying it with glorification, which must follow sanctification. This is a trick of Satan to keep people from sanctification, which is indispensable to prepare them for glorification. Thus they vainly congratulate themselves that sanctification will come at death without an effort on their part, which is a dangerous delusion, and will turn them over to the devil world without end. It is true that glorification comes in death irrespective of our volition, wrought by the Holy Ghost on the human spirit and mind simultaneously with the evacuation of the body. You have frequently seen an unearthly radiance lingering in the face of the dead in the coffin. This is the splendor of the glorified soul reflected back on the vacated tenement as it retreated away; as the setting sun ever and anon throws back the thousand variegated tints and hues bespangling the firmament far over to the eastern horizon simultaneously with his retreat through the gates of Hesperus. We have a most wonderful Savior. He is going to clear up everything, making a full and final restitution, not only restoring the body to heavenly glory, but even this earth is to be sanctified by fire (2Pe 3:10), made new again and restored to heaven, where it belonged before the devil broke it loose in view of adding it to hell. Thus earth and firmament made new (Revelation 21), inhabited by glorified saints and angels like all other heavenly worlds, will shine and shout forever. When you die, your soul and mind will be glorified by the Holy Ghost simultaneously with the evacuation of the body, so that you actually go to heaven in the glorified state. All the saints living on the earth when the Lord returns will be glorified, soul and body simultaneously, and caught up to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4). God has two methods of glorifying the body, i. e., translation, for which I, along with the apostles and their contemporaries, am on the daily outlook. The other method is the resurrection. We must all be transfigured into the similitude of our Savior’s glorified body, soul and spirit. This may come any moment by translation.

If our Lord tarrieth till we die, then we will waive the glorious transfigured body until the resurrection, our soul and mind being glorified when we die. The apostles and saints lived and died looking for the Lord to come and translate them (2 Corinthians 5). We are eighteen hundred years nearer His coming than they were. Hence we should certainly be on the constant outlook. The most glorious privilege of the ages is to be living on the earth sanctified and ready for the Lord to come and translate us. In that case we will never see death, and never evacuate the body, but be transfigured and glorified, soul, mind and body simultaneously, when our Lord calls us to fly up and meet Him in the air (1Th 4:16). Entire sanctification does the only qualification we need. The Holy Ghost will attend to all the balance, miraculously glorifying us, soul, mind and body. This is the grandest conceivable inspiration to a holy experience and life. Oh, that the preachers would all hold it up before the people. It would stir heaven, earth and hell.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him . [In interpreting this passage we should remember that Paul is speaking to those already converted. Hence, in these and in the preceding verses, he is not telling them how to become children of God, but how to continue such. Now, it is true that the Spirit lays down the terms by which we may become Christians, and if we obey these terms, then both the Holy Spirit and our own spirits testify that we are sons of God. But since Paul is not addressing converts, such an interpretation would be wide of his thought, which is this: If the Holy Spirit indeed leads us in a conflict with sin and a steady effort towards righteousness, and if we submit to be thus led, then the Holy Spirit unites with our spirit to testify that we are God's children. The testimony is, of course, self-directed. i. e., the testimony is for the purpose of assuring and confirming our own faith. If we are led, we know it, and so our own spirit testifies to us. If we are led, in the godly, spiritual path, it can be none other than the Holy Spirit who leads; and so, in the very act of leading, the Spirit testifies to us. And, lastly, if we are led, and if we follow, this union of our spirit and God's Spirit in joint action proves us children of God; for our co-operation with God in this paternal government of his shows us accepted of him as his children. But we can not be children in this one respect of government without being children also in the other respect of heirship. We are, therefore, God's heirs, joint-heirs with his only begotten Son, provided that we are truly led of the Spirit as he was, which we may readily test, for the Spirit led him through suffering to glory, and should lead us by the same pathway, if we are to enjoy somewhat of the same glory.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

17. If children, then heirs. Observe the chain of argument: (1) We are the sons of God. (2) This is shown by our having received the Spirit of adoption. (3) Both God's Spirit and our own spirit witness together that we are children of God. (4) But children are heirs; hence we are “heirs of God; joint heirs with Christ.” Under the Jewish law the older brother had a double portion, but Christ admits all to a joint share of the great inheritance. If so be that we suffer with him. In the figure, we suffer with him when we are “baptized into his death” (6:3). We are crucified (6:6); become dead (6:2); “are buried with him” (6:4); “are planted in the likeness of his death” (6:5). Hence, in these respects we have the “fellowship of his sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). But we must be ready, for his sake, to bear the cross through life. If we do all these things, we shall be “glorified with him also.” We shall share with him in all things.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

17. Continues the thought of 15 and so the explanation of ζήσεσθε: if children we share the life.

κληρονόμοι. The son has a part in the possessions of the father; cf. Gal 4:1 f.

κληρονόμοι θεοῦ. Only here (n. Gal 4:7 διὰ θεοῦ): the idea of hereditary succession is not applicable: the O.T. usage of κληρονομία for ‘sanctioned and settled possession’ (cf. Hort, 1 Peter, p. 35) suggests that the meaning here is ‘possessors,’ possessors of GOD = possessors of the divine life (of. 2Pe 1:4); and this agrees with the use of τέκνα. Then

συνκλ. δὲ Χριστοῦ marks the condition of our possession; we are so possessors only as sharing with Christ, by His life in us.

εἴπερ κ.τ.λ. S. H. suggest that there is a reference to a current Christian saying; cf. 2Ti 2:11. See above, Rom 6:9.

συνπάσχομεν … συνδοξασθῶμεν. These are the two essential characters of the divine life as revealed in Christ and, by union with Him, in man; suffering under the present conditions, ‘glory,’ or unhampered revealing of the life, when present conditions are done away in the future state. This truth is most fully worked out in 2Co 3:7-10; 2Co 3:18; 2Co 4:7 to 2Co 5:10. In that Ep. the sufferings themselves are declared to be the natural expression now of the life of Christ in us, as they were in the case of Jesus, and in them the ‘glory’ is even now present and seen; so that the present life of suffering presents a gradual growth in ‘glory’ (ib[160] Rom 3:18). The full and free manifestation is reserved for the future state, but it is the object of the present state, and already discernible in it; cf. also 1Pe 4:13. The συν. in each case marks the result of sharing the life of Christ. συνδοξ. the aorist, and the next verse, show that the reference is to the future revelation. N. that the fundamental idea of δόξα is manifestation in act or character, esp. of GOD manifested in Christ and in the lives and character of Christians; cf. Php 3:21; 2Co 8:23.

[160] ib. ibidem

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17.] Consequences of our being children of God. But (announcing a result, as in a mathematical proposition: ‘but, if &c.’) if children, also heirs (which is the universal rule of mankind: but κληρ. here must not be carried to the extent of the idea of heir in all directions: it is merely the one side of inheriting by promise, which is here brought out: the word referring back probably to ch. 4:13, 14, the promise to Abraham); heirs of God (as our Father, giving the inheritance to us), and joint-heirs with Christ (whom God has made κληρονόμον πάντων, Heb 1:2.

Tholuck remarks: “It is by virtue of their substantial unity with the father, that the children come into participation of his possession. The Roman law regarded them as continuators of his personality. The dignity of the inheritance is shewn (1) by its being God’s possession, (2) by its being the possession of the Firstborn of God. By the Roman law, the share of the firstborn was no greater than that of the other children,—and the N. T. sets forth this view, making the redeemed equal to Christ (ver. 29), and Christ’s possessions, theirs; 1Co 3:21-23; Joh 17:22. In the joint-heirship we must not bring out this point, that Christ is the rightful Heir, who shares His inheritance with the other children of God: it is as adoptive children that they get the inheritance, and Christ is so far only the means of it, as He gives them power to become sons of God, Joh 1:12”); if at least (see above on ver. 9) we are suffering with Him, that we may also be glorified with Him: i.e. ‘if (provided that) we are found in that course of participation in Christ’s sufferings, whose aim and end, as that of His sufferings, is to be glorified as He was, and with Him.’ But the εἴπερ does not regard the subjective aim, q. d. ‘If at least our aim in suffering is, to be glorified,’—but the fact of our being partakers of that course of sufferings with Him, whose aim is, wherever it is found, to be glorified with Him.

Thol. takes the ἵνα as dependent on συγκληρ. (= ὥστε), and εἴπερ συνπ. as quasiparenthetical; but the above seems to me more satisfactory.

The connexion of suffering with Christ, and being glorified with Him is elsewhere insisted on, see 2Ti 2:11; 1Pe 4:13; 1Pe 5:1.

This last clause serves as a transition to vv. 18-30, in which the Apostle treats of the complete and glorious triumph of God’s elect, through sufferings and by hope, and the blessed renovation of all things in and by their glorification.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17. κληρονόμοι. The idea of a κληρονομία is taken up and developed in N. T. from O. T. and Apocr. (Ecclus, Ps. Sol., 4 Ezr.). It is also prominent in Philo, who devotes a whole treatise to the question Quis rerum divinarum heres sit? (Mang. i. 473 ff.). Meaning originally (i) the simple possession of the Holy Land, it came to mean (ii) its permanent and assured possession (Psa_25[24]:13; 36[37]:9, 11 &c.); hence (iii) specially the secure possession won by the Messiah (Isa 60:21; Isa 61:7; and so it became (iv) a symbol of all Messianic blessings (Mat 5:5; Mat 19:29; Mat 25:34, &c.). Philo, after his manner, makes the word denote the bliss of the soul when freed from the body.

It is an instance of the unaccountable inequalities of usage that whereas κληρονομεῖν, κληρονομία occur almost innumerable times in LXX, κληρονόμος occurs only five times (once in Symmachus); in N. T. there is much greater equality (κληρονομεῖν eighteen, κληρονομία fourteen, κληρονόμος fifteen).

συγκληρονόμοι. Our Lord had described Himself as ‘the Heir’ in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Mat 21:38). This would show that the idea of κληρονομία received its full Christian adaptation directly from Him (cf. also Mat 25:34).

εἴπερ συμπάσχομεν. St. Paul seems here to be reminding his hearers of a current Christian saying: cf. 2Ti 2:11 πιστὸς ὁ λόγος, Εἰ γὰρ συναπεθάνομεν καὶ συζήσομεν· εἰ ὑπομένομεν καὶ συμβασιλεύσομεν. This is another instance of the Biblical conception of Christ as the Way (His Life not merely an example for ours, but in its main lines presenting a fixed type or law to which the lives of Christians must conform); cf. p. 196 above, and Dr. Hort’s The Way, the Truth, and the Life there referred to. For εἴπερ see on 3:30.

SUFFERING THE PATH TO GLORY

8:18-25. What though the path to that glory lies through suffering? The suffering and the glory alike are parts of a great cosmical movement, in which the irrational creation joins with man. As it shared the results of his fall, so also will it share in his redemption. Its pangs are pangs of a new birth (vv. 18-22).

Like the mute creation, we Christians too wait painfully for our deliverance. Our attitude is one of hope and not of possession (vv. 23-25).

18 What of that? For the sufferings which we have to undergo in this phase of our career I count not worth a thought in view of that dazzling splendour which will one day break through the clouds and dawn upon us. 19 For the sons of God will stand forth revealed in the glories of their bright inheritance. And for that consummation not they alone but the whole irrational creation both animate and inanimate, waits with eager longing; like spectators straining forward over the ropes to catch the first glimpse of some triumphal pageant.

20 The future and not the present must satisfy its aspirations. For ages ago Creation was condemned to have its energies marred and frustrated. And that by no act of its own: it was God who fixed this doom upon it, but with the hope 21 that as it had been enthralled to death and decay by the Fall of Man so too the Creation shall share in the free and glorious existence of God’s emancipated children. 22 It is like the pangs of a woman in child-birth. This universal frame feels up to this moment the throes of travail—feels them in every part and cries out in its pain. But where there is travail, there must needs also be a birth.

23 Our own experience points to the same conclusion. True that in those workings of the Spirit, the charismata with which we are endowed, we Christians already possess a foretaste of good things to come. But that very foretaste makes us long—anxiously and painfully long—for the final recognition of our Sonship. We desire to see these bodies of ours delivered from the evils that beset them and transfigured into glory.

24 Hope is the Christian’s proper attitude. We were saved indeed, the groundwork of our salvation was laid, when we became Christians. But was that salvation in possession or in prospect? Certainly in prospect. Otherwise there would be no room for hope. For what a man sees already in his hand he does not hope for as if it were future. 25 But in our case we do not see, and we do hope; therefore we also wait for our object with steadfast fortitude.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joint - heirs. Roman law made all children, including adopted ones, equal heritors. Jewish law gave a double portion to the eldest son. The Roman law was naturally in Paul 's mind, and suits the context, where adoption is the basis of inheritance.

If so be that [ειπερ] . The conditional particle with the indicative mood assumes the fact. If so be, as is really the case.

Suffer with Him. Mere suffering does not fulfill the condition. It is suffering with Christ. Compare with Him - all things, ver. 32.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vv. 17. The apostle has proved the fact of our being sons or children, first by the filial fecling produced in us by the Spirit, and then by the direct witness of the Spirit Himself. He can now conclude his argument; for even in expressing the most exalted sentiments, his exposition always assumes a logical form. He had said, Rom 8:13-14 : “Ye shall live, for ye are sons;” then he demonstrated the reality of this title son; and he now infers from it the condition of heirship. Thus the reasoning is concluded; for to be an heir of God is identical with being a possessor of life.

No doubt God does not die, like those who leave an inheritance; it is from the heart of His glory that He enriches his sons by communicating it to them, that is, by imparting Himself to them. For, rightly taken, His heritage is Himself. The best He can give His children is to dwell in them. St. Paul expresses it when he describes the perfect state in the words (1Co 15:28): God all in all.

But he here adds an expression particularly fitted to impress us with the sublimity of such a state: coheirs with Christ. The loftiness of the title heir of God might easily be lost in vagueness, unless the apostle, with the view of making this abstract idea palpable, added a concrete fact. To be an heir with Christ is not to inherit in the second instance, to inherit from Him; it is to be put in the same rank as Himself; it is to share the divine possession with Him. To get a glimpse of what is meant by the title heirs of God, let us contemplate the relation between Christ and God, and we shall have an idea of what we are led to hope from our title sons of God; comp. Rom 8:29 --;Only to reach the possession of the inheritance, there is yet one condition to be satisfied: if we suffer with Him. Paul knows well that, ambitious as we are of glory, we are equally ready to recoil from the necessary suffering. Now it is precisely in suffering that the bond between Christ and us, in virtue of which we shall be able to become His co-heirs, is closely drawn. We only enter into possession of the common heritage of glory, by accepting our part in the common inheritance of suffering; εἴπερ: “if really, as we are called to it, we have the courage to”...These last words are evidently the transition to the passage immediately following, in which are expounded, first the miserable state of the world in its present condition, but afterward the certainty of the glorious state which awaits us.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.