The Inheritance
Perspective
On one side I am bombarded with info on sexual sin in the Australian Church, on the other side I am acutely aware of a world plunged into the apocalyptic theatre which brings “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1). Out of catastrophe tremendous spiritual purity is emerging (see below), but Western Christians seem not to be seeing in the Spirit (Rev 1:10). We have forgotten how to “read the Bible backwards” and that Jesus himself is the “alpha/beginning”, the “omega/end” and the Way in between (Rev 22:13, John 14:6). The outworking of the ultimate divine purpose in history can only be perceived through the goal of divine judgements to which the Lamb subjects the world between his first and Second comings (Rev 6). Our consciences will see these terrible judgements as signs of grace when we have a revelation of the greatness of the End to which everything is directed. Without such a revelation of “the inheritance” gross sin must persist in the Church (Acts 14:22; Rev 1:9; 7:14).
The Goal
Jesus had a preview of “the joy that was set before him” (Heb 12:2) through entering the cloud of glory on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36). This foretaste of sharing the Father’s eternal throne (Rev 3:21; 7:17; 12:5; 22:1, 3) empowered him to endure the cross. Likewise, Paul would never have been able to endure the ordeals of his call without a revelation of the glory of Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-8). It was a vision of the limitless glory of the perfected Son of Man (Rev 1:12-20) that capacitated John to bear the burden of the testimony of the Lamb’s war in Revelation. We cannot appreciate the ordeals to which the world is subjected by the wrath of the Lamb (Rev 6 etc.) unless we are grasped by the magnitude of the end goal to which they are directed: “The one who conquers will have this inheritance, and I will be his God and s/he will be my son.” (Rev 21:7). The inheritance promised to the faithful believer (cf. Rom 8:37; 1 John 5:4; Rev 2:7; 3:21) is a full share in everything the Father has promised to Jesus (Rom 8:17; Eph 1:10; Heb 1:2). As Paul puts it, “all things are yours, 22 …the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” (1 Cor 3:21-23). This perspective is hardly real to affluent Australian Christians, but the Lord is busily working to change our minds.
Shocked?
Until Christ’s Return the earth is subject to various traumatic “natural” disasters (fire, flood, famine, plague, volcanic and seismic convulsions), as well as wars, but more profoundly we know them as apocalyptic shocks personally delivered by the hand of the Lamb of God (Rev 6:1ff ). The purpose of these painful convulsions is to strip from the Bride of Christ any final allegiance to the judged Babylonian structures of this world (Rev 11:18). Hearken to the apostle: “This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, 30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, 31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.” (1 Cor 7:29-31). The purpose of apocalyptic shock is to prepare God’s people for their eternal inheritance in the age to come. The cry, “Come out of her (Babylon), my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues” (Rev 18:4 cf. 2 Cor 6:17) is a call to the Church to cease identifying with the values of a fallen world. We do not belong in a world dominated by the commodification of everything, filled with gross economic inequality, sexual exploitation, infanticide, blatant homosexuality, the trafficking of souls and so on. (Compare Rev 18:11-13 with today’s West.) The disasters of 2020 call the Australian Church to detach from her worldliness. But what will replace our normal creature comforts?
Crucifixion and Adoption
The fruit of the death and resurrection of Jesus is his sending forth of the Holy Spirit in his power to adopt sons (Acts 2:33; Rom 8:29). The apocalyptic travails of this present age serve the Spirit’s work and witness in forming a single mature humanity across the globe (Rom 8:26-30; Eph 2:15; 4:13). We may struggle to perceive this in Australia, but listen to the prophetic testimonies emerging from Christians in Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. “When disaster strikes it is but a form of God’s love.” (anonymous pastor). Or the final words of the now famous whistleblower Dr Li Wenliang, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness.” (2 Tim 4:7. Such pure spirituality, formed through great tribulation, surely seals the end of communism in China. The resurrected life of Christ in the Church is the portent of a renewed cosmos on exhibit for all to see. Such maturity in Christ is firmly conscious of adoption by God and accepts suffering with Jesus as a seal of coming glory (Luke 22:46; Rom 8:17). From the darkness of sharing the agonies of crucifixion (2 Cor 4:10) a light shines forth from the hearts of mature believers illuminating the reality of the age to come. Such profound illumination does not come without cost.
Conclusion
“we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Cor 2:12). It is the Spirit of adoption who interprets for us what God is doing in the world (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6) and unveils his final purposes to make us his sons and heirs (Rev 21:7). Amidst the groans, screams and pains, of this whole passing creation (Rom 8:18-23), we must be moved by the Spirit of Christ crucified to let go of every self-centred idolatrous attachment to the things of this world (Col 3:5). Having done so, we will receive a much more vital sense of the all surpassing greatness of the inheritance, nothing less than inheriting God himself (Rom 8:17). “What could be greedier than a man for whom God is not enough?” Augustine asked. May the self-serving Church of Jesus Christ in our nation ask itself this question. It is a question for this hour.