Jesus didn’t come to establish a religion but a family
The word inheritance brings to mind the physical traits or accumulated wealth passed down from one generation to another. The drama of passing on the family inheritance has been the theme of countless books and movies. Picture the heirs eagerly sitting around a table as the lawyer opens the will and reads how the family will receive the estate. Who will get what?
The theme of inheritance is a significant part of biblical culture. The laws that governed Israel had strict guidelines for passing on the family inheritance to the next generation. The well-known parable called the prodigal son is built around the younger son’s demand for his inheritance even before his father had died.
When we think of spiritual inheritance, we most likely think of the inheritance God promised to us as a result of our faith in Christ. God’s adopted children are the inheritors of the riches of God’s grace, including our future home in heaven.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, (1 Peter 1:3-4).
The Holy Spirit living in us is our down payment for that inheritance. The final fulfillment remains in the future reserved in heaven for us, imperishable and unchanging. What all that involves remains a mystery, but since it is coming from the hand of our loving Father, it will undoubtedly be desirable and valuable (Ephesians 1:11, 13, 14).
Although we may readily recognize the promise of our inheritance from God, we may be surprised that we are God’s inheritance. God introduces this idea in his relationship with Israel. Out of all the nations, Israel is chosen to be his inheritance.
When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, When He divided all mankind, He set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. (Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 NIV emphasis added).
In his song, Moses says that God’s inheritance (portion) was the apple of his eye, and he shielded and cared for them as an eagle cares for its young. In the book of Exodus, God’s inheritance is called his treasure, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation (Exodus 19:5-6).
In the New Testament, Peter picks up this same theme, describing God’s family of faith in similar terms.
But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light. Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy (1 Peter 2:9-10 NLT, also 1 Peter 2:5).
Paul highlights this inheritance when he prays that we would grasp not only the “hope of his calling” but the “riches and glory of God’s inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18).
From the early chapters of Genesis to the climax in Revelation, God is expanding his inheritance: People created and remade in his image. There are many pictures that depict our identity in Christ such as children of God, saints, and citizens of his kingdom, but the picture that we are God’s inheritance is a new and humbling thought to me.
God’s inheritance strategy.
What is even more impressive is that God would use people to attain that inheritance. When God told Adam to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” he made mankind part of his strategy. God created the first two people, and all the rest have been begats. Perhaps one reason for the long lists of genealogies in the Old Testament is to remind us that people come through people. God’s inheritance of people in his image comes about through people.
This strategy of multiplying people through people is not only a physical one but also a spiritual one. God’s mission to develop his inheritance of image bearers, is through the strategy of spiritual generations of people begating more people. In New Testament terms, it is disciples who make disciples.
The training of the twelve apostles set the stage for a kingdom expansion of people by people. At the end of the age, angels may do the harvesting, but it is people who sow and cultivate the seed. It amazes me that God would entrust his inheritance to imperfect people, both physically and spiritually. Children are not only for the privileged, gifted, wealthy, or intelligent. God makes it possible for all of his children to begat future generations.
It should come as no surprise that Satan, in his cosmic battle against God, would center on the destruction and distortion of God’s desired inheritance. Throughout history, Satan has used his power to destroy God’s image-bearers by:
• Eliminating the unborn through abortions
• Destroying the living through wars, homicides, disease, famines
• Disfiguring the survivors through jealousy, greed, and injustice
• Distorting the spiritually reborn through immaturity, apathy, and avarice.
In recognition of this cosmic battle, Leroy Eims (author of “The Lost Art of Disciplemaking”) describes disciplemaking as not just an art but as an act of war.
Disciples making disciples is God’s plan for his inheritance. He wants to fill his kingdom with people who share his image from every tribe and nation and he uses people to do it. One generation reaching another. A longtime friend and Navigator staff, Larry Glabe, often gives the men he is discipling a small chain with this challenge: “Don’t’ be the last link.”1
For Reflection
1. What does your spiritual lineage look like?
2. What are other schemes of Satan to thwart God’s plan?
1. Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators, gave a message that has become a classic called “Born to Reproduce.” In it, he said there were only three things that keep a Christian from reproducing spiritually: lack of union with Christ, disease/sin, and immaturity.