26.4 Placing Our Inheritance
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
In this lesson, we will now attempt to bridge the gap between our nature as Full Covenant Sons and our Inheritance, all the things we possess as the Full Heirs of God. In other words, we are laying a foundation for the final content session of this course – Our Inheritance, so that we can hit that next session going full speed. We intend to blast through the many elements of our inheritance inside the full assumption that all these things are, already, ours. I had originally thought to call this lesson “Our Expression,” but our outward expression as Full Covenant Sons is best known through the delineation of our inheritance.
Where Something Fits. Our inheritance is what most would call “the promises of God.” – And many, writing about the Covenant, would likely place those promises earlier and make a bigger deal of them. But I would far rather know that I live inside of and out from God’s Pro-Knowing than to know that all things belong to me.
You see, when we are looking at something complex, with many small interlocking parts – as the layout of the Covenant is in the Bible, when we look at one small part, our first question is not, “What is this,” but rather, “Where does this fit?” When we see exactly where this small thing fits, now we can know what it is – and we can understand quickly. But no matter how much we know “about” something, unless we know where it fits, our knowledge “about” must be wrong.
Right Leaves, Wrong Tree. When you read John Calvin, you see that he has all the pieces of the Bible and of the gospel, all laid out. You see that he has great understanding concerning everything God says in the Bible, including the basic truths of New Testament grace and salvation. And you see that he has woven all these great truths all together into an overarching understanding of God and man, of Christ and salvation.In your mind’s eye, then, look at this picture of a bare tree and envision it covered with small branches, leaves, and much fruit. So is Calvin’s version of the Nicene gospel.
Something Is Terribly Wrong. I am spelling this out again so very carefully because with clarity comes confidence and confidence is our Victory.
When anyone reads John Calvin, that person sees ALL the truths of the gospel woven beautifully together, as I fully recognize. But when I read those same words, a whisper inside says that something is terribly wrong. And what is terribly wrong is the trunk and large branches on which all those truths are hung. The trunk is the wrong trunk and the large branches are going in the wrong directions. The trunk is the definition of “God,” and the large branches are the directions of God’s purposes.
One Verse Defines “God.” Then, I ask myself, what one verse best informs how I arrive at the definition of God you find throughout these Symmorphy courses? And that one verse is John 14:20. In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you.
The first thing I know about “God” is that whatever “God” is, He is a Father carrying Jesus carrying me. And out from this insistence in me to know a God who fits John 14:20 and whom John 14:20 describes in every particular of His Being, that God turned me right side up in the fall of 2011 and I saw that God is beneath my feet, carrying me through every stumbling step.
God’s Stated Purpose. That moment was the last major piece of the puzzle of “What Is God” for me. I already possessed the determination that comes out from God’s stated purpose in Romans 8:29, to know a Jesus whom I can be just exactly like, and to know myself as one who can be made just exactly like this Jesus. For that is the primary point of the Covenant – we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.
And so I can look at most of the things John Calvin teaches and agree that, yes, that is true. But the problem is that his true truth is hanging on the tree of a false definition of “God,” a “God” he was seeing only through the lens of the serpent.
They All Fit Together. Now here is the point towards which I am driving. If you were to go back through this course, you would see, in bold print, innumerable Bible verses all delineating important aspects of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, add in all the verses from all four Symmorphy courses until now. You will see that all of these many verses are woven together into a seamless whole. They all “fit together.”
What makes all these verses fit together inside this tapestry I have woven? Look back through this Covenant course. EVERYTHING in the course, every thought, is coming out from a very powerful “definition” of what God IS.
The Same Leaves on the Right Tree. The tree trunk that generates and supports each single little thing that I teach is my profound knowing of what God IS. And I know what God IS through one Lens only, through a Man, my Brother and Friend, who, inside of His own agony, took ME into Himself in Gethsemane and carried ME through every stumbling step all the way through death and into LIFE! This “God,” seen through this Lens, is the only God I know. And this God is a very different sort of God than the Nicene “God” around which Calvin weaves all that he teaches.
And then, every branch of truth coming out from this knowing of God goes in the directions governed by Romans 8:28-30 and its close companion verses, 1 John 3:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18 – the purpose and intention of God.
That We Might Know. And thus the entire thrust and drive and purpose of this course is that we might KNOW this God who is our Father, and that we might KNOW this Jesus Sent into us, that we are just like Him.
Those two directions of knowing, then, contain 99% of our inheritance. The remaining 1% is made up of everything else, that is – all things. But because we are humans, and God has made us so, the 1% that is everything else is of great value to us, thus God also joys in our enjoyment of His wondrous creation and all His mighty works now belonging entirely to us.
Now we can place our inheritance. Our inheritance is the fruit of the tree of knowing God our Father and knowing Jesus Sent.
The Fruit of Life. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. – You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you (John 15:7-8 & 16).
Our inheritance. – Now, in writing those two words, I have paused and made a list of all the verses in the New Testament containing these words: heir, inherit, inheritance, promise, making a promise, reward, will give, covenant, and making a covenant, etc. Through the remainder of this lesson we will attempt to position our inheritance out from the essence of those verses.
Abraham. We are viewing everything regarding our inheritance, however, entirely out from our present position as Full Covenant Sons and out from our intimate KNOWING of God our Father and of Jesus Sent into us. Whatever is the Lord Jesus, whatever belongs to the Lord Jesus, we PUT entirely upon ourselves in obedience to the gospel.
The first thing we see is that the promise of our inheritance is rooted utterly in God’s relationship with Abraham. The proto-New Covenant is Genesis 15. I AM your Shield and your exceedingly great Reward. And the picture of our inheritance is the Promised Land - Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you (Joshua 1:3).
Ask for All That God Speaks. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers (Abraham – ) to give them (Joshua 1:6). That “land” is Christ – knowing the full extent and meaning of all that is found inside of John 14:20.
Now, notice that Joshua would possess all that he would “tread upon.” That same concept, transferred into the New Covenant, is that of asking. We possess all that we ask, with this proviso – that we believe we have received what we have asked. Let it be to me according to Your Word.
And so I have taught you to do.
The New Covenant. Wow, having just inserted all the inheritance verses into a ten-page list, I see many things much more clearly. Paul absolutely bases the New Covenant, our inheritance, and all the promise of God in the gospel upon the promise God made to Abraham and the Covenant they entered into together. The covenant God made with the children of Israel through Moses is NOT the same thing. That covenant is the “old covenant,” which God annulled upon the cross of Christ. The Covenant God made with Abraham is the New Covenant into which you and I, in spite of having formerly been Gentiles, are included as FULL children of Abraham.
The Two Covenants. I have placed in the Appendix the article “The Two Covenants,” which you have already read as an assignment. Read it again. Technically, this article is the beginning elements of our Covenant with God as Paul and the writer of Hebrews lay it out in full contradiction against the covenant God made with Israel through Moses. And Paul is very clear about WHY God gave that old covenant through Moses – in order to keep the children of Israel at least a little bit close to His knowledge until Christ came.
Besides the connection the New Covenant establishes between us and Abraham, the many verses of our inheritance in the New Testament underline two very large things that ARE the Promise of God first to Abraham and now to us.
The Promise of the Spirit. The largest and most significant Promise God gave to Abraham and fulfilled in our lives is the Promise of the Spirit. That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:14).
And this Spirit comes into us, now one with our own spirit, but for a specific purpose. You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13b-14a). – Now we have received… the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God (1 Corinthians 2:12).
The Writing of the Covenant. In other words, the vast majority of our inheritance, knowing Father and Son, comes into us through the Spirit as Words written upon our hearts of flesh.
Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written… with the Spirit of the living God… on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart (2 Corinthians 3:3 – reduced). This is the writing of the Covenant, God Himself within our hearts, a far greater reality than the Bible.
Yet, as we will see in Symmorphy V: Life, there is hidden inside this Promise of the Spirit to Abraham a most precious reality – Abraham – waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 8:10).
Age-Abiding Life. Abraham had his heart set on the same thing God is placing before our eyes – a fully successful Christian Church walking this earth as all the fullness of Christ, walking together, loving one another with a pure heart fervently. Yes, this is exactly what Abraham SAW by faith.
Then, the other great arena of the Promise given first to Abraham and now to us, Abraham’s seed, singular, is the Promise of age-abiding LIFE – brethren dwelling together. To Abraham, the Promise was a son, Isaac. Paul makes it very clear that you and I ARE that Isaac. Yet the son Abraham waited upon God to receive was not Isaac, but the Lord Jesus Christ. – And in Him is the LIFE.
Our Full Expression as Sons. Thus the Promise of Life, the Promise of the Land of Inheritance, is Christ Jesus – John 14:20. Know that I am in the Father and you IN Me and I IN you. The extent of meaning and reality, experience and reward, inside this place of Promise is without measurement.
And thus, having PUT the Lord Jesus Christ entirely upon ourselves AS IF we are, right now, Full Covenant Sons, incorruptible and immortal, we look out from our utter and only place of existence, here inside of Jesus inside of Father, and we see the full experience, right now, of all our possession. Every aspect of our inheritance is our full expression as sons.
He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son (Revelation 21:7).