Romans - Part 4: SPIRITSample

“Heirs of God”

“… and if children, heirs also …” Romans 8:17a

In our minds, the idea of being heirs always means that someone (usually an older family member) has died before someone else receives the inheritance. I wondered how that could fit with verse 17 of Romans 8, since God is eternal, and will never die. Paul was the right person to write this epistle to the Romans, being a Roman himself and very knowledgeable about their laws and practices. So, I found it fascinating to discover that for the Romans, it was not looked at that way. Unger’s Bible Dictionary quotes Sir Henry Maine, who says, “The notion (among the Romans) was that though the physical person of the deceased had perished, his legal personality had survived and descended, unimpaired to his heirs or co-heirs, in whom his identity … was continued. (He) lived on in his heir or in the group of his co-heirs.” Sound similar to what Jesus told His disciples as He left them? He promised His Holy Spirit would come to live in them, not just live with them.

Another interesting point in Roman law was that the moment a child was born he was his father’s heir. There was already a kind of co-partnership in regard to his inheritance. (“Already, not yet” as our pastor likes to say about the Kingdom!) Quoting Unger again, “The heir has not to wait for the moment of his father’s decease. In and through his father he is already a participator in the family possessions. The father does not die but lives on forever in the family. Physically absent, he is spiritually present, not with so much as in his children. The phrase, ‘the heirs of God’ vividly describes the intimate and eternal union between the believer and God. The faithful soul possesses the kingdom of God immediately, not in anticipation of the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven.”

Wow! I don’t know about you, but this makes me want to spend some serious quiet time thinking about all that is mine – right now! – as a child and therefore an heir of God! What has He already granted to me that I am not taking advantage of, and why don’t I? Don’t let the enemy deceive you today. You are God’s precious child, and there is much he has for you … today. “His kingdom comes, His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen?

-Wendy York