“Joint-heirs with Christ”

“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 8:17)

If we are the children of God, we shall possess all the inheritance of the saints in light. That is only reasonable. But here the Spirit of God tells us that all who live by faith in Christ, walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit, being totally free from all sin and from all fear of condemnation, or even the possibility of it, live in the constant, immediate hope and expectancy of the glorious liberty of the sons of God, as “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.” That means, being one with Christ, all God’s elect shall fully possess all that Christ himself has earned and possesses as the God-man, our Mediator. The Savior himself declares that the glory God the Father gave him as the reward of his obedience (John 17:4-5) he has given to us (John 17:22).

            If there were no other statement regarding the heavenly inheritance of God’s saints with Christ, this one statement shows the utter folly of those work-mongers, who, constantly seeking a place for works in the kingdom of grace, teach that there are degrees of reward in heaven. The doctrine of degrees of reward for God’s elect in heaven is as foreign to the Bible as the papists’ doctrine of purgatory. It exists without a shred of evidence in Holy Scripture. I have no idea who concocted this doctrine; but whoever he was, he was totally ignorant of the gospel of the grace of God.

            Without question, the Scriptures teach that there are degrees of punishment for the wicked (Matt. 11:20-24). Those who are given greater light and despise it shall have greater condemnation in hell than those who sinned against less light. Those who go to hell, as it were shoving God out of their way by despising the gospel, will suffer greater wrath than those who go to hell rejecting only the light of creation. There shall be degrees of punishment, because there are degrees of wickedness and guilt.

            Not only do the Scriptures not teach the doctrine of rewards in heaven, the doctrine is contrary to and contradicts everything taught in the Bible about grace and the believer’s acceptance with God in Christ. How can there be degrees of joint-heirship with Christ? To be a “joint-heir” is to be a co-possessor of the inheritance.

            The doctrine of degrees of reward among the saints makes the inheritance of eternal glory a matter of works. Those who teach it try to say “grace”, but it comes out “works.” They tell us, “We are saved by grace; but after we are saved, we must earn our crowns and positions in heaven by our own faithfulness and obedience to the will of God.” In other words, they would have us believe that God gets us started toward heaven by grace, through the merits of Christ’s  blood and righteousness; but we earn the ultimate glory and blessedness of heaven by our own merits! The Lord our God does not give grace, and then make us earn glory. It is written, “The Lord will give grace and glory!”

            The doctrine of degrees of reward in heaven denies the completeness of Christ’s atonement for sin. The Lord Jesus did not make atonement for some of his people’s sins, but for all of their sins: past, present, and future. There is not one iota of difference between this and the Roman doctrine of purgatory. It teaches that the believer must suffer for his sins (failures, lack of faithfulness, etc.) forever in heaven. What utter nonsense!

            The doctrine of degrees of reward in heaven denies the gospel doctrine of imputed righteousness. The Holy Spirit tells us that all who trust Christ are, presently and forever, worthy of the inheritance of God’s saints (Col. 1:12). We are worthy of that inheritance which is the very glory of Christ our Mediator (John 17:22), because his righteousness is our righteousness before God. Just as Christ was made sin for us, and was justly rewarded for our sin with wrath, condemnation, and death, all who are made the righteousness of God in him shall be justly rewarded with eternal life, in all its fulness, possessing the very glory of heaven! Our sins were not partially imputed to Christ; and his righteousness is not partially imputed to us (Jer. 23:6; 33:16; 50:20).