The Hope of Glorious Inheritance - Romans 8:16-25

Intro

We’ve been considering Paul’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit, specifically his doctrine of the works of the Holy Spirit. We’ve seen that the Spirit does a number of things for the believer in Christ, for the one upon whom there is no condemnation according to verse 1. Namely, the Spirit accomplishes our freedom, our status as the temple of the New Covenant, our belonging to Christ, our new spiritual life, our future physical life, our mortification of sin. All this can be summarized in this statement: we are led by the Spirit. Our lives as justified people are lived by the leading of the Spirit.

And this leading is the ground for our status as adopted sons and daughters of God, an adoption that is also accomplished by the Holy Spirit.

And in the same way that the leading is the ground for our adoption, our adoption is the ground for our inheritance.

It is to that inheritance that we turn our attention today.

Let’s being by examining Paul’s proof that we are indeed children.

The Spirit’s Testimony

Paul is eager to establish this doctrine of adoption, and he gives three separate supports for that doctrine, three proofs. The first is the leading of the Spirit back in verse 14. If you are led, you are adopted. The second is witness of our own affections. We do not have the ability to cry out Abba Father if we are not in fact children. Strangers have no reason to call God Father, sons have every reason to address him as such. And finally, here in verse 16, the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit assures us of our adoption. John Murray explains it this way:

The Epistle to the Romans XIII. Life in the Spirit (8:1–39)

In verse 15 reference is made to the filial response registered in the heart of the believer himself—“We cry, Abba, Father”. To use the language of verse 16, it is the witness borne by the believer’s own consciousness in virtue of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling as the Spirit of adoption. Now in verse 16 it is the witness borne by the Holy Spirit himself. And this latter witness is conceived of as working conjointly with the witness borne by the believer’s own consciousness. The Spirit’s witness must, therefore, be distinguished from the witness of our filial consciousness. It is a witness given to us as distinct from the witness given by us. The witness thus given is to the effect that “we are children of God”.

This word translated here testifies with is worth our attention this morning. It is the Greek worth symmartyreo and it carries with it the connotation of a legal witness, of someone under oath. It is a corroborating witness. Our spirits crying out Abba Father is the first layer of witness, but in order to confirm it, a corroborating witness must be brought forth, and it is the Spirit who does just that.

This is a wonderful and encouraging truth. We see the words and we likely understand that we are God’s children. We read Paul’s words and we know, theologically, that they are true. But how often do we not feel like children? Dan Doriani puts it this way:

Romans Children and Heirs (8:16–17a)

Yes, doubts intrude. Feelings fade and vacillate. We wonder, philosophically, how words can establish a relationship with the eternal God. Or we question our sincerity: “Am I different from anyone else? Am I stronger than I was two years ago?” We are impatient gardeners, waiting for seeds to sprout, and then tugging on those sprouts and judging them feeble. But if we wait, assurance comes as “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit.” As Sinclair Ferguson remarks in Children of the Living God, we can make two mistakes here: to expect a mystical, transporting experience and to expect nothing. Assurance can be dramatic or calm, but either way, it is a “joint witness” of God’s Spirit and ours.

Our hearts can be warmed and encouraged in no small way then by this truth. Whether or not we feel the passion of verse 15, we can rest assured that the Spirit’s witness of verse 16 holds us fast as children of God.

Robert Letham puts it this way:

Systematic Theology 25.1.4. The Foundation of Assurance

Finally, the testimony of the Holy Spirit clinches the matter. He is a seal (2 Cor. 1:20–21; Eph. 1:13–14), denoting ownership. He is the guarantee of our future inheritance, an earnest or deposit securing the full payment at a later date. Here lies the difference with Rome. Rome allows assurance based on good works, but this amounts to no more than a conjectural probability. The Reformers stressed the infallibility of assurance, since the testimony of the Spirit is infallible. This is no mystical experience unchecked by any objective criterion. His testimony is based on the promise of salvation revealed in his Word. It is rooted in Scripture, the ministry of the Word, and the sacraments.

We may waver. We may falter. As Letham says, trials and travails or even a bad head cold can cause us to question our own testimony and question our own assurance. But there can be no doubt based on these proofs, as Charles Hodge says:

Charles Hodge summarizes:

A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Commentary

Those who have filial feelings towards God, who love him, and believe that he loves them, and to whom the Spirit witnesses that they are the children of God, cannot doubt that they are indeed his children.

The Spirit thus confirms and corroborates our adoption.

And if the Spirit confirms and corroborates our adoption, then our adoption confirms and corroborates our inheritance, and it is to that inheritance and our status as heirs that Paul turns his attention to next.

Heirs

Paul builds his argument for heirship on the premise of adoption. Let’s focus for a moment on this word heir. It’s kleronomos in the Greek, and Paul repeats it three times here for emphasis.

Let’s focus on this first usage: if we are children, we are heirs. Paul has confirmed our adoption by three proofs up to this point, culminating with the testimony of the Spirit of God. Being fully assured of our adoption then, we can be fully assured of our inheritance.

This word kleronomos is very interesting in the Greek. It’s a compound word, coming from the root kleros, meaning a share, allotment, or portion, and the root nomos, which means law. So an heir, according to Paul, is someone who has a legal right to a portion of something. And that’s much the same way that we would define heirs in our modern vernacular. We often think of the heir to the throne, or the heir to the fortune, or the heir to the estate. This is someone who, by either natural or legal right, obtains the throne, the fortune, the estate.

In his second usage of the word here, Paul indicates the source of the inheritance: God Himself. Now this should be obvious by inference, but Paul belabors the point to make sure his readers fully understand and comprehend this connection here. Not only do we have a filial relationship to God as children, we have a legal relationship to Him as heirs.

But Paul uses the word heir in a third, slightly different manner as well: synkleronomos, translated fellow heirs. The idea is a shared inheritance, obtained by multiple parties together. And who are the multiple parties, the shared recipients, the fellow heirs? Us and Christ. Paul thus ties our sonship, our status as children, with the sonship of Christ. We examined this a few weeks ago, digging deep into what made Jesus the true and better son of God, and then last week how that sonship applies also to us as children of God. Paul now declares that all that Jesus inherits as a son of God, he shares with us as God’s children.

This passage then becomes the basis by which many preachers and teachers such as RC Sproul and Paul Washer refer frequently to Jesus as our elder brother. He obtains the inheritance by virtue of his sonship, and shares the inheritance with us, his adopted brothers and sisters.

The Inheritance of Glory through Suffering

So what is the inheritance? Paul is clear: it is an inheritance of glory. Our inheritance is with Christ, and subsequently according to the end of verse 17, our glory is with him.

But this glory is only obtained after traveling the road of suffering. In other words, the goal of glory is only obtained once the path of affliction has been trod. Paul is clear here: suffering leads to glory. And if our inheritance is glory, then our inheritance comes by way of suffering. Let’s put it as simply as possible: if you desire eternal glory with Christ, you must suffer.

It’s important then to understand glory. What is meant by our glorification?

Paul pegs our glorification to the glorification of Christ, and therefore the best way to understand our future hope of glory is to understand the present reality of Christ’s glory.

Walter Bauer offers four senses of glory, specifically as it is applied to Christ.

Glory is the condition of being bright or shining. There is a sense of majestic splendor and beauty to Christ.

Glory is a state of being magnificent, great, or splendid. There is a sense of greatness to Christ’s glory, a sense of power and majesty.

Glory is honor in terms of recognition of status, performance, or fame. There is a sense of accomplishment associated with glory. Christ’s glory comes as a result of His work.

Glory depicts transcendence. Glory is connected with transcendent holiness, an otherness that cannot be fully quantified in human terms. That is the glory of Christ, a holy and transcendent glory.

This is the picture of Christ painted by Paul in Philippians 2:9-11

Philippians 2:9–11 NASB95

For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

and the picture of Christ painted by Matthew in Matthew 17:1-8

Matthew 17:1–8 NASB95

Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.

and the picture of Christ painted by John in Revelation 1:12-18

Revelation 1:12–18 NASB95

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.

This is the glorified Christ. But what qualified Jesus to inherit this glory? How did he earn it? He earned it through suffering.

The gospels, particularly Mark and Luke, are laced with the theme of Christ’s suffering:

Mark 8:31 NASB95

And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Peter and Mark, as they record this teaching, position Christ’s suffering in His passion and death as the groundwork for His resurrection. If Christ does not suffer and die, He does not rise.

Paul and Luke also held to this, as they record a similar scenario:

Luke 9:22 NASB95

saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”

Paul and Luke also record Jesus giving these words to the two men on the Emmaus Road:

Luke 24:26 NASB95

“Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”

Jesus functionally rebukes these men for believing that Jesus’ mission in his incarnation was to establish an earthly kingdom that would overthrow Rome. He calls them slow of mind and foolish of heart, and declares to them that His mission was to suffer and enter into glory by rising again.

It’s important to note there that Paul and Luke in their gospel understand Jesus’ glorification to be a result of His resurrection.

For Christ to obtain glory, then, He must first suffer.

And that becomes that pattern of movement for Paul. As Christ suffered and was glorified, so we also suffer and are glorified. Our inheritance of glory comes to us at the end of a road of suffering, just as Christ’s inheritance of glory came to him at the end of a road of suffering.

This was real in Paul’s life. The inauguration of Paul’s apostolic ministry is recorded for us in Acts 9, when the glorified Christ himself reveals to Ananias what the nature of Paul’s ministry will be:

Acts 9:15–16 NASB95

But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

The road to glory was a road of suffering for Paul.

And this movement from suffering to glory was critical in Paul’s presentation of his testimony of the gospel before Agrippa:

Acts 26:22–23 NASB95

“So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place; that the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.”

And this theme is not limited to Paul, but Peter and the author of Hebrews speak to it as well, in Hebrews 2 and basically all of 1 Peter.

And so Paul here in Romans 8 builds his argument upon this foundation: The Christian’s inheritance of glory is only obtained by traveling the road of suffering.

Paul paints a simultaneously ominous and beautiful picture of the life of the Christian in these verses.

Present Suffering

Our lives and our world will be marked by suffering. Paul describes it in 5 ways:

A present suffering. This life will be marked by suffering and sadness, by persecution and passion, by misery and misfortune. Christ himself promised that as he was persecuted and suffered, so also will we. Bad things will happen to good people in this present life.

A present longing. The life is marked by a forward-facing desire, an eschatological eagerness for all to be made right. In this life we are called to wait, to persevere, to stand firm in hardship.

A present futility. This life is marked by frustration, by vanity, by transition. This world is passing away even now. Nature passes away. Our bodies pass away. There is a constant aging of all creation, growing old and reaching toward death on a daily basis.

A present corruption. This world is bound to corruption. The curse of the serpent made it so. Genesis 3:17-19 says “Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.””

A present groaning. Paul anthropomorphizes the creation here, describing it as groaning as through in the pains of labor. The longing of verse 20 is so great that it gives way to cries of agony, a guttural cry for deliverance from the present and persistent pain. And this groaning is not only seen in creation but in believers, who groan in empathy with the creation. Paul is specific here: the groaning of the Christian is precisely because we know what’s coming. We have the firstfruits of the Spirit, the indwelling and the sealing, and the regenerating, and the leading, and the mortifying, and the adopting firstfruits of the Spirit, and yet we still have suffering, futility, corruption, and so we groan.

But just as the road of suffering for Christ led to His glory, so also our road of suffering leads to our glory.

Future glory

A future glory that is to be revealed to us. That word revealed is the Greek word apokalypsis. Funny how much we’ve twisted that word in English. Yes, it does have to do with the end of the world, but it is in no way a negative idea or a bad thing. The apocalypse is the single greatest hope that the Christian has: that the glory of Christ will be revealed to us. That, as John says, we will see Him as He is.

A future glory that is to be revealed through us. Not only will glory be revealed to us by Christ, but it will be revealed through us to all creation. And the creation eagerly awaits this, hopes in it, has great confidence in it. The creation looks with eagerness and willful intent to the revealing of glory of the sons of God, a glory that is intrinsically and explicitly Christological in nature. The glory of the sons of God is the glory of the Son of God. As John says, “Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like him.”

A future glory of freedom. The glory of the new creation will be a reflection of a glory of the sons of God. Just as we are no longer slaves to corruption, to sin, to the flesh, to the world, to the devil, the creation looks forward to the day when it will be freed from it’s slavery to corruption. Charles Hodge says: “The very nature and condition of the human race point to a future state: they declare that this is an imperfect, frail, dying, unhappy state; that man does not and cannot attain the end of his being here; and even Christians, supported as they are by the earnest of future glory, still find themselves obliged to sympathize with others in these sufferings, sorrows, and deferred hopes.”

A future glory of new creation. The suffering of the creation is likened to the pain of childbirth, but as the pain of labor is soon forgotten in the glory of new life, so also the pain of suffering in this life is soon forgotten in the glory of the next life.

A future glory of adoption. Paul tells us that we have received the firstfruits, the spirit of adoption, but the full and final adoption is still future. That day when God will walk on the new earth as a father with his children is yet future.

A future glory of bodily redemption. The future adoption is inseparable for Paul from the future resurrection, the future bodily redemption. Just as the creation waits for it’s recreation, so the Christian waits for his or her resurrection.

Just as Christ’s suffering led to His glory, so our suffering leads to our glory.

Thus Peter can say

1 Peter 1:3–9 NASB95

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

We suffer in this life. We long. We groan. Leukemia takes over our bodies. Brain tumors invade our skulls. Alzheimers and dementia claim our minds. Our faith is mocked by wicked people. Babylonian government systems legislate against our conscience and convictions.

It was the same for our Lord.

Isaiah 53:3 NASB95

He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Isaiah 53:7 NASB95

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.

Philippians 2:6–8 NASB95

who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

But He suffered so that He might obtain glory, even as He prayed in the garden:

John 17:1–5 NASB95

Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

Philippians 2:9–11 NASB95

For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

And this then is our inheritance. If we suffer with him, we will be glorified with him. Therefore, we hope for what we do not see, and with perseverance we wait for it.

And until that day, we pray with Henry Francis Lyte:

Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow you; destitute, despised, forsaken, you on earth once suffered, too. Perish ev'ry fond ambition, all I've ever hoped or known; yet how rich is my condition, God and heav'n are still my own!

Let the world despise and leave me; they have left my Savior, too. Human hearts and looks deceive me; you are not, like them, untrue. And, since you have smiled upon me, God of wisdom, love, and might, foes may hate and friends may shun me; show your face, and all is bright.

Go, then, earthly fame and treasure! Come, disaster, scorn, and pain! In your service pain is pleasure, with your favor loss is gain. I have called you Abba, Father; you my all in all shall be. Storms may howl, and clouds may gather, all must work for good to me.

Haste, my soul, from grace to glory, armed by faith and winged by prayer; all but heav'n is transitory, God's own hand shall guide you there. Soon shall end this earthly story, swift shall pass the pilgrim days, hope soon change to heav'nly glory, faith to sight and prayer to praise.