“Barabbas, Part 21:” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
We have been reviewing and examining a new and unexpected “rabbit trail” for this Series, namely, the phrase “we have.” Let's continue to see other things that “we have” now... right now... as believers. We have already examined the phrases, “We have redemption,” “we have forgiveness,” “we have peace with God,” and “we have the mind of Christ.” There are many more such phrases to review and examine. So, let's get started...
Our first occurrence of our “we have” phrase, tonight, refers to Jesus: “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11). “We have obtained an inheritance.” For years, I have been listening to multiple sermons per week. I cannot recall our inheritance preached or named in any of those sermons. It is worth our review and examination, so let's get started.
Alexander MacLaren tells us, “God's Inheritance and Ours: A dewdrop twinkles into green and gold as the sunlight falls on it. A diamond flashes many colours as its facets catch the light. So, in this context, the Apostle seems to be haunted with that thought of ‘inheriting’ and ‘inheritance,’ and he recurs to it several times, but sets it at different angles, and it flashes back different beauties of radiance.
For the words, which I have wrenched from their context in the first of these two verses, are more accurately rendered, as in the Revised Version, in ‘whom also we were made,’ not ‘have obtained’-’an inheritance.’ Whose inheritance? God’s! The Christian community is God’s possession. Then, in my second text, we have the converse thought-’the earnest of our inheritance.’
What is the Christian’s possession? The same God whose possession is the Christian. So, then, there is a deep and a wonderful relation between the believing soul and God, and however different must be the two sides of that relation, the resemblance is greater than the difference. Surely that is the deepest, most blessed, and most strength-giving conception of the Christian life.
Other notions of it lay stress, and that rightly, upon certain correspondence between us and God. My faith corresponds to His faithfulness and veracity. My obedience corresponds to His authority. My weakness lays hold on His strength. My emptiness is replenished by His fulness.
But here we rise above the region of correspondences into that of similarity. In these other aspects the convexity fits the concavity; in this aspect the two hemispheres go together and make the complete globe. We possess God, and God possesses us, and it is the same set of facts which are set forth in the two thoughts, ‘We were made an inheritance, ... the earnest of our inheritance.’
I. Now, then, let me ask you to look first at this mutual possession. We possess God; God possesses us. What does that mean? Well, it means plainly and chiefly this, a mutual love. For we all know-and many of us thankfully can bear witness to the truth of it in our earthly relationships,-that the one way by which a human spirit can possess a spirit is by the sweet mutual love which abolishes ‘mine’ and ‘thine,’ and all but abolishes ‘me’ and ‘thee.’
And so God sets little store by the ownership which depends on divinity and creation, though, of course, that relation brings with it a duty. As the old psalm has it, ‘It is He that hath made us, and we are His’; still, such a relationship as this, based upon the connection that subsists between the Maker and the work of His hands, is so purely external, and harsh, and superficial, that God does not reckon it to be a possession at all.
You perhaps remember how, in the great word which underlies all these New Testament conceptions of God’s ownership of His people, viz. the charter that constituted Israel into a nation, He said, ‘Ye shall be unto Me a people for a possession above all nations, for all the earth is Mine.’
And yet, though that ownership and mastership extended over everything that His hands had made, He - if I might so say-contemned it, and relegated it to a secondary position, and told the people that His heart hungered for something deeper, more real, more vital than such a possession.
Therefore, just because all the earth was His, and that was not enough to satisfy His heart, He took them and made them a peculiar treasure above all nations. We have, then, to think of that great Divine Love which possesses us when He loves us, and when we love Him.
But remember that of this sweet commerce and reverberation of love which constitutes possession, the origination must be in His heart. ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ The mirrors are set all round the great hall, but their surfaces are cold and lifeless until the great candelabrum in the centre is lit, and then, from every polished sheet there flashes back an echoing, answering light, and they repeat and repeat, until you scarce can tell which is the original and which is the reflection.
But quench the centre-light, and the daughter-radiances vanish into darkness. The love on either side is on one side spontaneous and underived, and on the other side is secondary and evoked, but it is love on both sides. His possession of us is, as it were, the upper side, and our possession of Him is, as it were, the underside of the one golden bond.
It matters not whether you look at the stream with your face to its source or with your face to its mouth, the silvery plain is the same; and the deepest tie that knits men to God is the same as the tie that knits God to men. There is mutual possession because there is mutual love. Then again, in this same thought of mutual possession there lies a mutual surrender.
For to give is the life-breath of all true love, and there is nothing which the loving heart more desires than to be able to pour itself out-much rather than any subordinate gifts-on its object. But that, if it is one-sided, is misery, and only when it is reciprocal, is it blessed. God gives Himself to us, as we know, most chiefly in that unspeakable gift of His Son, and we possess Him by virtue of His self-communication which depends upon His love.
And then we possess Him, and He possesses us, not less by the answering surrender of ourselves, which is the expression of our love. No love subsists if it is only recipient; no love subsists if it is only communicated. Exports and imports must both be realised in this sweet commerce, and we enrich ourselves far more by what we give to the Beloved than by what we keep for ourselves.
The last, the hardest thing to surrender, is our own wills. To give them up by constraint is slavery that degrades. To give them up because we love is a sacrifice which sanctifies, even in the lowest reaches of daily life. And the love that knits us to God is not invested with all its blessed possession of Him, until it has surrendered its will, and said, ‘Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.’
The traveller in the old fable gathered his cloak around him all the more closely, and held it the more tightly, because of the tempest that blew, but when the warm sunbeams fell he dropped it. He that would coerce my will, stiffens it into rebellion; but when a beloved one says, ‘Though I might be much bold to enjoin thee, yet for love’s sake I rather beseech,’ then yielding is blessedness, and the giving ourselves away is the finding of God and ourselves.
I need not touch, in more than a word, upon another aspect of this mutual possession, brought into view lovingly in many parts of Scripture, and that is that there is in it not only mutual love and mutual surrender, but mutual indwelling, ‘He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.’ Jesus Christ has said the same thing to us, ‘I am the Vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me bringeth forth much fruit.’
We dwell in God, possessing Him; He dwells in us, possessing us. We dwell in God, being possessed by Him. He dwells in us, being possessed by us. And He moves in the heart that loves, as the Master walking through His house, as the divinity is present in the temple, and as the soul permeates the body, and is sight in the eye and colour in the cheek, and force in the arm, and deftness in the finger, and swiftness in the foot.
So the indwelling God breathes through all the capacities, and all the desires, and all the needs of the soul which He inhabits, and makes them all blessed. The very same set of facts - the presence of a divine life in the life of the believing spirit-may either be looked at from the lower end, and then they are that I possess God, and find in Him the nutriment and the stimulus for all my being...
or may be looked at from the upper end, that He possesses me and finds in me capacities and a nature the emptiness of which He fills, and organs which He uses. In both cases mutual love, mutual surrender, mutual inhabitation, make up God’s possession of me and my possession of God.
II. And now let me point you in a very few words to some of the plain, practical issues of this mutual possession. God’s possession of us demands our consecration. ‘Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price,’ therefore, to live for self is to fly in the face of the very purpose of Christ’s mission and of God’s communication of Himself to us. There are slaves who run away from their masters and ‘deny the Lord that bought them.’
We do that whenever, being God’s slaves, we set up anything else than His will as our law, or anything else than His glory as the aim of our lives. To live for self is to die, to die to self is to live. And the solemn obligations of that most blessed possession by God of us are as solemn as the possession is blessed, and can only be discharged when we turn to Him, and yield the whole control of our nature to His merciful hand...
Yield yourselves to God, for He has yielded Himself to you, and in the yielding we realise our largest and most blessed possession. It is a good bargain to give myself and to get God. God’s possession of us not only demands consecration, but it ensures safety. Remember that great word, ‘No man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.’ God is not a careless owner who leaves His treasures to be blown by every wind, or filched by every petty robber.
He is not like the king of some decrepit monarchy, slices of whose territory his neighbours are for ever paring off and annexing. What God has God preserves. ‘He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.’ ‘They are Mine, saith the Lord, My jewels in the day which I make.’
But our security depends on our consecration. ‘No man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.’ No! But you can wriggle yourself out of your Father’s hand, if you will. And the security avails only so long as you realise that you belong to God, and are living not for yourself.
Possessing God we are rich. There is nothing that is truly our wealth which remains outside of us, and can be separated from us. ‘Shrouds have no pockets,’ says the Spanish proverb. ‘His glory shall not descend after him,’ says the grim psalm. But if God possesses me He is not going to let His treasures be lost in the grave.
And if I possess Him then I shall pass through death as a beam of light does through some denser medium-a little refracted indeed, but not broken up; and I shall carry with me all my wealth to begin another world with. And that is more than you can do with the money that you make here. If you have God, you have the capital to commence a new condition of things beyond the grave.
And so that mutual possession is the real pledge of immortal life, for nothing can be more incredible than that a soul which has risen to have God for its very own, and has bowed itself to accept God’s ownership of it, can be affected by such a transient and physical incident as what we call death. We rise to the assurance of immortality because we have an inheritance which is God Himself.
And in that inexhaustible Inheritance there lies the guarantee that we shall live while He lives, because He lives, and until we have incorporated into our lives all the majesty and the purity and the wisdom and the power that belong to us because they are God’s.
But we have to notice the two words that lie at the beginning of our first text-’In whom we were made an inheritance.’ That opens up the whole question of the means by which this mutual possession becomes possible for us men. Jesus Christ has died. That breaks the bondage under which the whole world is held. For the true slavery which interferes with the free service and the full possession of God is the slavery of self and sin.
Jesus Christ has died. ‘If the Son make you free ye shall be free indeed.’ That great sacrifice not only ‘breaks the power of cancelled sin,’ but it also moves the heart, in the measure in which we truly accept it, to the love and the surrender which make the mutual possession of which we have been speaking. And so it is in Him that we become an Inheritance, that God comes to His rights in regard to each of us.
And it is in Him that we, trusting the Son, have the inheritance for ours, and ‘are heirs with God, and joint heirs with Christ.’ So, dear friends, if we would ‘be meet for the inheritance of the saints in light,’ we must unite ourselves to that Lord by faith, and through Him and faith in Him, we shall receive ‘the remission of sins and inheritance among all them that are sanctified.’”
To this, Albert Barnes adds: “Ephesians 1:11
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance - We who are Christians. Most commentators suppose that by the word “we” the Jews particularly are intended, and that it stands in contradistinction from “ye,” as referring to the Gentiles, in (Ephesians 1:13). This construction, they suppose is demanded by the nature of the passage.
The meaning may then be, that the Jews who were believers had “first” obtained a part in the plan of redemption, as the offer was first made to them, and then that the same favor was conferred also on the Gentiles. Or it may refer to those who had been first converted, without particular reference to the fact that they were Jews; and the reference may be to the apostle and his fellow-laborers.
This seems to me to be the correct interpretation. “We the ministers of religion first believed, and have obtained an inheritance in the hopes of Christians, that we should be to the praise of God’s glory; and you also, after hearing the word of truth, believed;”
The word which is rendered “obtained our inheritance” - means literally “to acquire by lot,” and then to obtain, to receive. Here it means that they had received the favor of being to the praise of his glory for having first trusted in the Lord Jesus.
“Of him who worketh all things - Of God, the universal agent. The affirmation here is not merely that God accomplishes the designs of salvation according to the counsel of his own will, but that “he does everything.” His agency is not confined to one thing, or to one class of objects. Every object and event is under his control, and is in accordance with his eternal plan.
The word rendered “worketh” means to work, to be active, to produce; Ephesians 1:20; Galatians_2:8; Philippians 2:13. A universal agency is ascribed to him. “The same God which “worketh” all in all;” 1 Corinthians 12:6. He has an agency in causing the emotions of our hearts.
“God, who worketh in you both to Will and to do of his good pleasure;” Philippians_2:13. He has an agency in distributing to people their various allotments and endowments. “All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will;” 1 Corinthians_12:11.
The agency of God is seen everywhere. Every leaf, flower, rose-bud, spire of grass; every sun-beam, and every flash of lightning; every cataract and every torrent, all declare his agency; and there is not an object that we see that does not bespeak the control of an All-present God.
It would be impossible to affirm more explicitly that God’s agency is universal, than Paul does in the passage before us. He does not attempt to prove it. It is one of those points on which he does not deem it necessary to pause and reason, but which may be regarded as a conceded point in the discussion of other topics, and which may be employed without hesitation in their illustration.
Paul does not state the “mode” in which this is done. He affirms merely the fact. He does not say that he “compels” men, or that he overbears them by mere physical force. His agency he affirms to be universal; but it is undoubtedly in accordance with the nature of the object, and with the laws which he has impressed on them.
His agency in the work of creation was absolute and entire; for there was nothing to act on, and no established laws to be observed. Over the mineral kingdom his control must also be entire, yet in accordance with the laws which he has impressed on matter. The crystal and the snow are formed by his agency; but it is in accordance with the laws which he has been pleased to appoint.
So in the vegetable world his agency is everywhere seen; but the lily and the rose blossom in accordance with uniform laws, and not in an arbitrary manner. So in the animal kingdom. God gives sensibility to the nerve, and excitability and power to the muscle.
He causes the lungs to heave, and the arteries and veins to bear the blood along the channels of life; but it is not in an arbitrary manner. It is in accordance with the laws which he has ordained and he never disregards in his agency over these kingdoms. So in his government of mind. He works everywhere. But he does it in accordance with the laws of mind.
His agency is not exactly of the same kind on the rose-bud that it is on the diamond nor on the nerve that it is on the rose-bud, nor on the heart and will that it is on the nerve. In all these things he consults the laws which he has impressed on them; and as he chooses that the nerve should be affected in accordance with its laws and properties, so it is with mind.
God does not violate its laws. Mind is free. It is influenced by truth and motives. It has a sense of right and wrong. And there is no more reason to suppose that God disregards these laws of mind in controlling the intellect and the heart, than there is that he disregards the laws of crystalization in the formation of the ice, or of gravitation in the movements of the heavenly bodies.
The general doctrine is, that God works in all things, and controls all; but that “his agency everywhere is in accordance with the laws and nature of that part of his kingdom where it is exerted.” By this simple principle we may secure the two great points which it is desirable to secure on this subject: (1) The doctrine of the universal agency of God; and, (2) The doctrine of the freedom and responsibility of man.
After the counsel of his own will - Not by consulting his creatures, or conforming to their views, but by his own views of what is proper and right. We are not to suppose that this is by “mere” will, as if it were arbitrary, or that he determines anything without good reason. The meaning is, that his purpose is determined by what “he” views to be right, and without consulting his creatures or conforming to their views.
His dealings often seem to us to be arbitrary. We are incapable of perceiving the reasons of what he does. He makes those his friends who we should have supposed would have been the last to have become Christians. He leaves those who seem to us to be on the borders of the kingdom, and they remain unmoved and unaffected. But we are not thence to suppose that he is arbitrary.
In every instance, we are to believe that there is a good reason for what he does, and one which we may be permitted yet to see, and in which we shall wholly acquiesce. The phrase “counsel of his own will” is remarkable. It is designed to express in the strongest manner the fact that it is not by human counsel or advice. The word “counsel” means “a council” or “senate;” then a determination, purpose, or decree.
Here it means that his determination was formed by his own will, and not by human reasoning. Still, his will in the case may not have been arbitrary. When it is said of man that he forms his own purposes, and acts according to his own will, we are not to infer that he acts without reason. He may have the highest and best reasons for what he does, but he does not choose to make them known to others, or to consult others.
So it may be of God, and so we should presume it to be. It may be added, that we ought to have such confidence in him as to believe that he will do all things well. The best possible evidence that anything is done in perfect wisdom and goodness, is the fact that God does it. When we have ascertained that, we should be satisfied that all is right.”
Let's dig a bit deeper before we close: If we have an inheritance, and we do, that must mean that we are heirs, and we are. The Apostle Paul informs us, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:16-17).
Matthew Henry writes of this: “In these words the apostle describes a fourth illustrious branch of the happiness of believers, namely, a title to the future glory. This is fitly annexed to our sonship; for as the adoption of sons entitles us to that glory, so the disposition of sons fits and prepares us for it.
If children, then heirs, Romans 8:17. In earthly inheritances this rule does not hold, only the first-born are heirs; but the church is a church of first-born, for they are all heirs. Heaven is an inheritance that all the saints are heirs to. They do not come to it as purchasers by any merit or procurement of their own; but as heirs, purely by the act of God; for God makes heirs. The saints are heirs though in this world they are heirs under age; see Galatians 4:1-2.
Their present state is a state of education and preparation for the inheritance. How comfortable should this be to all the children of God, how little soever they have in possession, that, being heirs, they have enough in reversion! But the honour and happiness of an heir lie in the value and worth of that which he is heir to: we read of those that inherit the wind; and therefore we have here an abstract of the premises.
1. Heirs of God. The Lord himself is the portion of the saints' inheritance (Psalms 16:5), a goodly heritage, Psalms 16:6. The saints are spiritual priests, that have the Lord for their inheritance, Num_18:20. The vision of God and the fruition of God make up the inheritance the saints are heirs to. God himself will be with them, and will be their God, Revelation 21:3.
2. Joint-heirs with Christ. Christ, as Mediator, is said to be the heir of all things (Hebrews_1:2), and true believers, by virtue of their union with him, shall inherit all things, Revelation_21:7. Those that now partake of the Spirit of Christ, as his brethren, shall, as his brethren, partake of his glory (John_17:24), shall sit down with him upon his throne, Revelations 3:21.
Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst thus magnify him! Now this future glory is further spoken of as the reward of present sufferings and as the accomplishment of present hopes. As the reward of the saints' present sufferings; and it is a rich reward: If so be that we suffer with him (Romans 8:17), or forasmuch as we suffer with him.
The state of the church in this world always is, but was then especially, an afflicted state; to be a Christian was certainly to be a sufferer. Now, to comfort them in reference to those sufferings, he tells them that they suffered with Christ - for his sake, for his honour, and for the testimony of a good conscience, and should be glorified with him. Those that suffered with David in his persecuted state were advanced by him and with him when he came to the crown; see 2 Timothy_2:12.
See the gains of suffering for Christ; though we may be losers for him, we shall not, we cannot, be losers by him in the end. This the gospel is filled with the assurances of. Now, that suffering saints may have strong supports and consolations from their hopes of heaven, he holds the balance (Romans 8:18), in a comparison between the two, which is observable.
1. In one scale he puts the sufferings of this present time. The sufferings of the saints are but sufferings of this present time, strike no deeper than the things of time, last no longer than the present time (2 Corinthians_4:17), light affliction, and but for a moment. So that on the sufferings he writes tekel, weighed in the balance and found light.
2. In the other scale he puts the glory, and finds that a weight, an exceeding and eternal weight: Glory that shall be revealed. In our present state we come short, not only in the enjoyment, but in the knowledge of that glory (1 Corinthians 2:9; 1 John_3:2): it shall be revealed.
It surpasses all that we have yet seen and known: present vouchsafements are sweet and precious, very precious, very sweet; but there is something to come, something behind the curtain, that will outshine all. Shall be revealed in us; not only revealed to us, to be seen, but revealed in us, to be enjoyed. The kingdom of God is within you, and will be so to eternity.
3. He concludes the sufferings not worthy to be compared with the glory - ouk axia pros tēn doxan. They cannot merit that glory; and, if suffering for Christ will not merit, much less will doing. They should not at all deter and frighten us from the diligent and earnest pursuit of that glory. The sufferings are small and short, and concern the body only; but the glory is rich and great, and concerns the soul, and is eternal.
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Barabbas, Part 21”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” August 31st, 2022.
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