“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” -Romans 8:16-17a

What does it mean to be an ‘heir’ of God? How can someone be an heir of someone who doesn’t die? Yes, Jesus died on the cross and He’s God, but He’s mentioned as our fellow heir in the above passage, not as the one from whom we will inherit anything–that’s the heavenly Father.

An earthly understanding of inheritance means that someone amasses wealth and then transfers that wealth to other persons upon death. But God never dies. And the one Member of the Trinity who did experience death (Jesus) is not named in this passage as the Benefactor, but as a Beneficiary along with other beneficiaries: “we are…fellow heirs with Christ.” So how does this work?

As Christ died physically, we too will die physically, but God the Father never dies and yet He transfers an inheritance to His begotten Son and to His adopted sons and daughters (followers of Christ). So what does it mean to be an heir of One who never dies, unless it means that the estate of our heavenly Father is endless and ever abounding? What does it mean to be an heir of God unless in this spiritual sense things work differently? To inherit something from a heavenly Father (who doesn’t die) somebody still has to die. That’s Jesus. But not just Jesus. We too have to die to ourselves, to our grabbing and striving after selfish things; this takes time and it isn’t pleasant. Paul says that we are fellow heirs with Christ, “provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17b).

When I think of getting an inheritance I think of families sitting in a lawyer’s office fighting with each other over a dead relative’s wealth like lions gathered around a carcass. Why do families squabble like this? Several reasons, but mostly because the inheritance is finite–there’s only so much ‘zebra’ to go around before it’s gone! I’m reminded biblically of the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). This impatient, demanding son received a fixed, finite amount of wealth from his father; and once he had spent it all on liquor, gambling and prostitutes it was gone. But was this the sum total of his inheritance? Surely not! Returning to his father broke and desperate, the son expected to be reviled by his father and forced to work as a slave for wasting his inheritance and sullying the family name. But instead of being reviled by his father, he was reinstated. You see, the prodigal son’s real inheritance wasn’t the money he craved and then wasted; it was the loving presence of his gracious father who had much more than money to lavish on his son.

Our heavenly Father certainly has wealth to bestow on His children, but we are not heirs merely of the things of God–gold, jewels, and mansions, etc. Paul says we are heirs of “God”–God Him-self, not just God His-stuff! And this is of course all made possible because our elder brother, Jesus, was not like the jealous and hard-hearted elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son. Jesus left the heavenly Father in pursuit of His wayward brothers and sisters and brings us back to the Father–not dirty and destitute, but washed and whole–to a welcome unlike any other.

Take some time to ponder what it means to be and heir of God and a fellow heir with Christ.