The hill of Zion yields A thousand sacred sweets, Before we reach the heavenly fields Or walk the golden streets.2
1 Robert Bridges. 2 J. H. Jowett.
ROMANS viii. 17 499
III.
It is a Joint-Inhemtance.
"Joint-heirs with Christ."
The proper possessor of the Inheritance indeed is "the Son of God," the only-begotten of the Father. But His brethren are to share in it. All that glory, therefore, which the Lord had in enjoyment with the Father as His well-beloved Son before the Incarnation, together with whatever added glory the Incarnation and Atonement brought Him — all is to be shared with His brethren. He is the First-born, but He is the First-born among many brethren.
1. He cannot possibly be heir alone ; for union with Christ is the very reason why we are heirs of God, and union with Christ must for us also culminate in glory. It is not merely 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.
T[ Our right to it stands or falls with Christ's right to the same inheritance. We are co-heirs; if He be truly an heir, so are we ; and if He be not, neither are we. Our two interests are intertwined and made one, we have neither of us any heirship apart from the other ; we are joint-heirs, Christ jointly with us, ourselves jointly with Christ. So, then, it follows that if there be any flaw in the will, so that it be not valid, if it be not rightly signed, sealed, and delivered, then it is no more valid for Christ than it is for us. If we get nothing, Christ gets nothing ; if there should be no heaven for us, there is no heaven for Christ. If there should be no throne for us, there would be no throne for Him ; if the promise should utterly fail of fulfilment to the least of the joint-heritors, it must also fail of accomplishment to our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.1
1 C. H. Spurgoon.
500 JOINT-HEIRS WITH CHRIST
2. And this lets us see how great the inheritance is. For if we are to be joint-heirs with Christ, it cannot be a little thing that we are to share with Him. Can you imagine what the Father would give to His Son as the reward of the travail of His soul ? Give yourself time to think what the everlasting God would give to His equal Son, who took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and who humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Can you think of a reward that would be large enough for Him ? Let the Father's love and the Father's justice judge.
IV.
The Condition. " If so be that we suffer with him."
1. One condition of heirship the Apostle has stated already — that we be children of God. Is this another ? It is not an- other in the same indispensable way. The one is the indispens- able 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.
2. Nor does the Apostle mean to tell us 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 inherit- ance 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.
ROMANS viii. 17 501
3. Yet the condition is there — " if so be that we suffer with him." And how can it be otherwise ? Is not the whole secret of the inheritance that we be united to Christ — that it is a joint inheritance ? And when were ever two hearts united here that the union did not bring with it pain ? It cannot be otherwise, and it has never been. " Let love clasp grief, lest loth be drowned."