How emphatically Ephesians puts this. In chap. 1 it is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ whose mighty power is seen working in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places. And then our association with Him thus, is brought out in chap. 2. “And you, who were dead in trespasses and sins...among whom also we...were by nature the children of wrath even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” Such is the purpose of God.
-"the wondrous thought,
............
That we, the church, to glory brought
Should with the Son be blest.”
And such is our association with Him now, quickened, raised with Him, and in Him seated in heavenly places.
Colossians, too, in appropriate measure and expression, sets forth the same truth “You, being dead in your sins hath He quickened together with Him.” If Christ by “the operation of God” has been raised from the dead, then also “we are risen with Him.” And if, as to the things that are on the earth, Christ is “hid in God” now, one day to appear in glory, so, too, we have died, and our life is hid with Him in God, with Him in that day of His appearing also to be manifested in glory. “With Christ,” how frequent the expression! How varied also the occasions of its occurrence! So manifestly is it the case that the believer's association with Christ is, all through, a truth remembered and reiterated.
Nor does Romans omit it. It does not take us so far, nor set forth in the same full measure the truth of our association with Him; but clearly it is there. Rather is it that it is upon another plane that the truth here reaches us. From chap. 5:1, 2, of that interesting Epistle we are constantly in the presence of it. The new section which begins with the verse mentioned deals with matters which (as has often been remarked) the teaching of the earlier chapters of the Epistle is no answer to. Our state or condition is what is now being considered. The question of our sins, their forgiveness, and our justification, had already been gone into ere this point was reached. The truth of federal headship, and the result of our connection with, on the one hand, Adam, and, on the other, Christ—quite inapplicable to the first section of the Epistle—is apposite and forcible in its application to the question nr raised for solution. Briefly put, our connection or association with “the one man, Jesus Christ,” in contrast to the other federal head Adam, results in not only justification of life for us in the end of chap. 5; but also in deliverance for us in chap. 6 from sin as a master: and in chap. 7 from the law as a husband. Chap. 8 again, after summarizing in its opening verses the teaching of these three chapters, opens out the blessedness of the Christian position, free of all these things, and characterized now by the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. And this our positive Christian position, is bound up with our association with Christ no less truly than the negative relations to sin, and law, in chapters 6 and 7. For we are not only spoken of as “in Christ Jesus” (verse 1); but having the Spirit of Christ we are “His” (verse 9); and Christ is “in us” (verse 10). So that, with the fact that the general truth of our association with Christ is a very important one, we also perceive that it holds no inconsiderable place in the teaching of the Epistle.
In the verse more immediately under notice (8:17), this truth of association with Christ is given particular application— “If children then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs,” or ‘coheirs,' “with Christ; if so be that we suffer with,” or ‘co-suffer with,’ “Him, that we may be also glorified together,” or ‘co-glorified.' As to three things, may it not be said, the value of the link is brought out—our possession, “co-heirs"; our privilege, “co-sufferers"; and our prospect, “co-glorified ones.”
That an inheritance is ours, inalienable and secure we know, “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.” That suffering of one kind or another, as our present portion in this world, is what we may look for—this we accept, or soon learn by experience. “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” That, beyond all, glorification is in prospect for us according to the purpose of God— “whom He justified them He also glorified” —we are also assured of. And in all these things we have the super-added blessedness of being associated with Christ Himself, as this verse makes plain.
In the first place it may be noticed, all flows from relationship— “if children then heirs.” The birth-right and the birth-tie here go together. Children of God we are, here and now. The significance of that truth, relationship with God, and the importance of realizing the true nature of the spiritual birth-tie, it would seem impossible to overemphasize. This is a new relationship with God into which believers are admitted, upon another plane, and of entirely different nature from any previously enjoyed by man. The link is formed on our side through our being born again spiritually, born of God. In its full Christian content it is a relationship founded upon the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, entered upon in association with the Son of God in resurrection, its basis essentially the possession of eternal life in Him and God's sending forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying “Abba, Father.” As also herein Rom. 8, where we have the owning (verse 14), adoption (verse 23), and manifestation (verse 19), spoken of, of those blessed with the position of “sons of God,” the birth-tie itself comes immediately into evidence— “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our that we are children of God.” Heirship, then, we find here connected with our relation to God as His children. Galatians connects it with sonship (Gal. 4:77Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Galatians 4:7)). They do not differ essentially, although to be distinguished materially, “children” and “sons.” He is a child of God, who, receiving Christ and believing on His name, is “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12, 1312But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12‑13)). Sons of God they all are who have “faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:2626For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26)). If the one speaks of the tie or bond of relationship which constitutionally pervades the family of God, the other sets forth the place and position, albeit responsibility also, characterizing those who under the Christian economy are so related. What our passage then shows is that not merely to sonship, with all the wealth of privilege and place implied in the term and to be made good when the “adoption” and “revelation” of the sons of God installs us in our position as such—that not merely to that does heirship attach; but that such is involved in the birth-tie itself, “if children then heirs.” Are we not therefore doubly secured in our heritage, by right and by title through the grace of God?
“Heirs of God!” What a portion is ours! No mere legacy from one whom death relieves or deprives of its possession—from one who, fading in a fading scene, passes on what he has done with, and which itself is only a little less perishable, at the best, than he himself is! We inherit from One who never passes away. And if to describe wherein it consists materially be beyond us, we still may know by the Spirit's enlightening what are “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” Nor is it merely as the “inheritance of the saints in light” that it may be characterized. We are joint-heirs, co-heirs with Christ. It is no legacy bequeathed, as has been said, but rather a partnership of blessing we are brought into.
We are to be joint-partakers with Christ as Eph. 1. shows us, in that which is to result from the fulfillment of the purpose of God. No sooner does that passage speak of the purpose to head up all things in Christ—the things in heaven and the things on earth—than it tells that this is even in Him in whom we have obtained an inheritance. That is to say, that in what we may call the re-formed, re-organized, administration of all things heavenly and earthly, which the dispensation of the fullness of times is to witness, the Lord Jesus Christ has unique and supreme place as Head, source, and security of blessing to all.
[U. T.]
(Continued from page 128)
(To be continued).