Romans 8.17b-The Christian Will Be Made A Joint-Heir With Christ For Enduring Undeserved Suffering
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday November 23, 2008
Romans: Romans 8:17b-The Christian Will Be Made A Joint-Heir With Christ For Enduring Undeserved Suffering
Lesson # 262
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 8:16.
This morning we will note Romans 8:17b, which teaches that Paul and his fellow Christians in Rome will be rewarded by God for enduring undeserved suffering by making them a joint-heir with Christ.
Romans 8:16-17, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
“Fellow heirs” is the adjective sunkleronomos (sugklhronovmo$) (soong-klay-ron-om-os), which refers to the fact that the Christian is a “co-heir, joint-heir” with Christ meaning that he will reign with Christ during His millennial reign as a result of enduring undeserved suffering.
The Christian will be a joint-heir with Christ if he fulfills the condition of being faithful to God while enduring undeserved suffering.
This is implied by the first class conditional statement to follow and is explicitly taught in other passages of Scripture.
Therefore, being an heir of God is conditioned on simply being declared justified through faith in Christ and being adopted into the royal family of God by the Holy Spirit.
This is indicated by Paul’s statements in Romans 8:15-17a.
However, being a joint-heir with Christ is conditioned on being faithful in enduring undeserved suffering as implied by the first class condition that follows the correlative clause and is explicitly taught in other passages of Scripture.
Therefore, being an heir of God is simply a reference to one’s position in the family of God or that one is a member of the family of God whereas being a joint-heir with Christ is a reference to reigning with Christ during the millennium and on into eternity.
Romans 8:17, “and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
“If indeed” is the emphatic conditional particle eiper (ei&per) (i-per), which introduces a protasis of a first class condition that indicates the assumption of truth for the sake of argument.
Here the protasis is “if, in fact and let assume that it is true for the sake argument that we are at the present time suffering with Him. Of course, we are.”
The apodasis is “(then) we are, as an eternal spiritual truth, joint-heirs with Christ.”
The emphatic conditional particle eiper implies that Paul assumes that his statement in the protasis that they and his fellow Christians in Rome are suffering with Christ represents their circumstances as they do in fact exist.
Paul’s audience would respond to his protasis and acknowledge that they were suffering with Christ.
That the Roman believers were enduring underserved suffering when Paul wrote this epistle is clearly indicated by his statements in Romans 5:3-5.
Romans 5:3, “In fact, not only this but we also make it a habit to rejoice on account of our adversities because we know for certain that adversity, as an eternal spiritual truth, produces perseverance.”
Romans 5:4, “And in addition, perseverance, as an eternal spiritual truth produces tested character and in addition tested character, as an eternal spiritual truth, produces confidence.”
Romans 5:5, “In fact, this confidence, as an eternal spiritual truth, never disappoints because God’s love is always being poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us for our benefit.”
Romans 8:17, “and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
“We suffer” is the verb sumpascho (sumpavsxw) (soom-pas-kho), which is a compound word composed of the verb sun, “with” and the verb pascho, “to suffer,” thus the word literally means, “to suffer with.”
Now, in Romans 8:17, the verb sumpascho can have two different interpretations.
First of all, it can refer to the Christian’s suffering in a positional sense because of his identification with Christ in His death, which takes place through the baptism of the Spirit the moment he was declared justified through faith in Christ.
This would then indicate that the glorification that Paul refers to in the hina clause to follow is a reference to the Christian being glorified in a resurrection body.
In Romans 6:4-5, Paul taught that because the Christian is identified with Christ in His death, he is guaranteed that he, like Christ, will receive a resurrection body.
Now, in order for this interpretation to be the correct one in Romans 8:17, the verb sumpascho would have to be in the aorist tense, which it is not.
The aorist tense would speak of the moment in the past when the Christians in Rome were identified with Christ in His death through the baptism of the Spirit the moment they were declared justified through faith in Christ.
The second interpretation of sumpascho is that it refers to the suffering Paul and his fellow Christians in Rome were presently experiencing as a result of appropriating by faith their identification with Christ in His death.
This is interpretation is supported by the emphatic conditional particle eiper, which implies that Paul assumes that his statement that they and the Christians in Rome are suffering with Christ represents their circumstances as they do in fact exist.
Suffering and tribulation in life are an integral part of the church age believer’s spiritual life, which is an extension of Christ’s spiritual life since the church age believer is in union with Him and a member of His body and His future bride.
John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
2 Corinthians 4:17-18, “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
The believer who is executing the plan of God and learning Bible doctrine will go through suffering which is undeserved (1 Thess. 3:4).
It is called undeserved because they did not bring this suffering upon themselves (1 Pet. 2:19-20; 2 Cor. 1:6).
In Philippians chapter three, Paul expresses his desire to be identified with Christ in His suffering.
Philippians 3:10-11, “that I come to know Him experientially and the power from His resurrection and the participation in His sufferings by my becoming like Him with respect to His death. If somehow (by becoming like Him with respect to His death), I may attain to the exit-resurrection, namely, the one out from the (spiritually) dead ones.”
Romans 8:17, “and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
“So that” is the conjunction hina (i%na), which forms a purpose-result clause that emphasizes that God not only intends to glorify the Christian with Christ as a result of being faithful in enduring undeserved suffering but it also emphasizes that He will in fact carry out His purpose in doing so.
“We may be glorified with Him” is the verb sundoxazo (sundocavzw) (soon-dox-ad-zo), which denotes that Paul and his fellow Christians in Rome will be glorified with Christ as a result of being faithful in enduring underserved suffering as a result of appropriating by faith their identification with Christ in His death.
When Paul speaks of the believer being a joint-heir with Christ, he is referring to the believer being glorified with Christ during His millennial reign as a result of receiving his inheritance and rewards for faithfully enduring undeserved suffering while on planet earth.
The Scriptures teach that the Father will bestow upon the believer an eternal inheritance and rewards if the believer does His will (1 Corinthians 9:25; Ephesians 1:11; James 1:12; Revelation 2:10).
The moment we believed in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we were qualified to receive this eternal inheritance (Colossians 1:11).
Redemption is the basis for the eternal inheritance of believer (Heb. 9:15).
In 1 Peter 1:3-5, Peter speaks of the believer’s “confident expectation” of receiving an eternal inheritance, which was made possible by their being saved and the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
In Ephesians 1:18-23, Paul prayed that the Ephesian believers would receive enlightenment and insight into the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints, which is the result of their union and identification with Christ in His death, resurrection and session.
In order to receive this eternal inheritance, we must do everything as unto the Lord.
Colossians 3:23-25, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.”
Although the believer’s salvation cannot be merited but is received when a person expresses faith alone in Christ alone (cf. Eph 2:8-9), the believer’s inheritance on the other hand is meritorious.
This means that he has to fulfill the condition of being faithfully obedient to the will of God till physical death or the rapture (i.e. resurrection of the Church).
Because the church age believer can forfeit his eternal inheritance through unfaithfulness to the Lord, there are many warnings regarding being unfaithful (Hebrews 10:35-39; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
The church age believer must be an overcomer in order to receive his eternal inheritance, which it includes the following rewards from the Lord Jesus Christ at the Bema Seat Evaluation:
The “crown of righteousness,” is a reward given to believers for their faithfulness in executing their own spiritual life and functioning in their spiritual gift (2 Timothy 4:7-8).
“The Incorruptible Crown” describes all the crowns and is also a special crown given for faithfulness in running the race and exercising self-control in order to serve the Lord and finish the race (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).
The “crown of life” is given to the believer for enduring testings (trials) and temptation (James 1:12).
The “unfading crown of glory” is a reward promised to pastor-teachers for their faithfulness in the discharge of their responsibilities in shepherding their flocks (1 Peter 5:4).
“White garment” is a reward for faithfulness in the form of a translucent uniform of glory over the resurrection body (Revelation 3:4).
The overcomer will receive a “white stone” and “hidden manna” and a “new name” written on the stone, which refers to intimate access to the Lord Jesus Christ and great responsibility in Christ’s millennial government (Rev. 2:17).
The winner believer will have his name recorded in the historical record section of heaven (Rev. 3:12).
The overcomer will have a special audience with God the Father (Revelation 3:5).
The overcomer will be given the privilege of ruling with Christ during His millennial reign and throughout the eternal state, (Ro. 8:16-18; 2 Tim. 2:12a; Rev. 2:26; 3:21).
Revelation 3:21, “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”
Paul tells Timothy that he endures underserved suffering so that he might gain deliverance from the sin nature, Satan and his cosmic system from his union and identification with Jesus Christ and with it eternal glory.
2 Timothy 2:10, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.”
Paul also encourages Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:12 that they will reign with Christ if they endure suffering with Christ.
This echoes Paul’s statement in Romans 8:17b. He also teaches that if they don’t endure, that the Lord will deny them rewards.
2 Timothy 2:12-14, “If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us.”
