What does it mean to be co-heirs/joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17)?

The apostle shows us still greater things. The Spirit we have received is the Spirit of adoption, and we therefore are children. Now he tells us, "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." For the present we may confine ourselves to the position we occupy as children, as we hope in another chapter to deal with our future condition in the Father's house. All the children then are heirs — heirs of God. It is not only that He has been pleased, in His love and mercy, to bring us into blessed relationship with Himself, but also He has made us His heirs, and, as if even this wondrous unfolding of His grace were not sufficient to satisfy His heart, it is added, "and joint-heirs with Christ." This last clause indeed contains the key to the whole of our blessing. God has associated us with His own beloved Son. He is the firstborn from the dead, and we compose the church of the firstborn through association with Him, and thus are also associated with Him in heirship to all that He Himself, as man, will inherit in virtue of His redemptive work. Every child of God is therefore put into the rank and position of the Firstborn, saving always His own pre-eminence and His own personal and essential dignity. Still as children we rank with Him joint-heirs with Christ. What words could so adequately express the wealth of God's grace, or of the blessedness into which we are brought? For it is not only that He has saved us, brought us to Himself, and bestowed upon us privileges and blessing, but He must, in order fully to satisfy His own heart, put us into the same rank with His beloved Son. Let these words then, "joint-heirs with Christ," have an abiding place in our souls, that we may, by constant meditation upon them, learn ever increasingly what God is in His grace, and what He has done for us through the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour; and surely the more we ponder them, the more we shall be led out to investigate and explore the boundless treasure of that inheritance of which we are the heirs, because heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

But it is added, "If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." This "if" by no means implies a doubt; it merely indicates the necessary condition of sonship, and the pathway to being glorified together with Christ; that is, if we are children, our pathway here must be one of suffering with Christ. If we are born again, and have the Spirit of adoption, we cannot escape it. The new nature in us, born of God as we are, must feel, in measure, as Christ felt in the presence of sin, Satan, sorrow, and death. The Spirit of God, who dwells within us, must lead us, in proportion as we are subject to His guidance, in the same path as that in which Christ walked, and to feel and act as He felt and acted in similar circumstances. We cannot therefore be children of God without suffering with Christ. But the measure of our suffering with Him will entirely depend upon the degree in which we are under the governance and power of the Holy Ghost. A child of God who is walking faithfully before God with an ungrieved Spirit will thus suffer with Christ much more than one who is walking carelessly. But it is the necessary path, and, it may be said, an unspeakable privilege. What greater privilege indeed (unless it be that of suffering for Christ) could we enjoy than that of passing through this world in company, as to feeling, with our blessed Lord — to sorrow and to suffer as He sorrowed and suffered in this wilderness of sin and death? And the more we suffer with Him the more we shall learn the depths of His heart of love, that never wearied in His ministry of tenderness and grace, though He had daily to endure the contradiction of sinners against Himself. The encouragement to such a path is not lacking; "for," says the apostle, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in" (or to, in respect of) "us." The joy set before Him sustained our blessed Lord Himself in enduring the cross and in despising the shame; and here the prospect of the glory, being glorified together with Christ, is adduced that it may have the same effect on us. Nothing indeed raises us above suffering like the contemplation of the future glory, and, measuring the former by the latter, it dwindles away into utter insignificance. As the apostle writes in another place, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." (2 Cor. 4:17.) But it should never be forgotten that the suffering as well as the glory is with Christ. This blessed companionship is never wanting. We suffer with Him, and we are glorified with Him. It is identification with a rejected Christ now, and identification with a glorified Christ in the future. What more could we desire, or the God of all grace bestow?

Here the reasoning, it will be remarked, is not to our being God's children, but from it. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God: the inference is, that if children, we are also heirs. Wondrous to say, we are "heirs of God;" more wonderful still, "joint-heirs with Christ." Israel were the lot of Jehovah's inheritance. Not such is our place; we are heirs of what God possesses; and this is both asserted in all its fulness as well as accounted for in our added title — "joint-heirs with Christ." We are to share all things with Him, for as all things are His by right of creation and redemption, so are they ours by His grace who has placed in the utmost possible nearness to Himself. There is indeed the condition of suffering with Him in order that we may be glorified together; but this He makes good in all that are His. It is not suffering for Him; for all Christians do not. But all suffer with Him, who have the divine nature, even Himself as their life, in an evil world, which constantly wounds and tries those who have that nature. It will not be so in the millennial age; when, as the state of things will preclude suffering, so there will be no specific glorification with Him as the hope of such sufferers. Special trials and rewards will be no more, though there will still remain the reigning in life by one, Jesus Christ our Lord, for ever, But the reign with Him for a thousand years will be past, as also concurrently the place of suffering with Him.

Thus our association with Christ brings us into the new place which He has entered by death and resurrection, and into the relationship of sons. Yea, the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs — heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, the Heir of all things. But this supposes moral conformity with Him in this world, before we are conformed to His image in glory as in verses 29, 30, if we are suffering together that we may be also glorified together. This suffering flows from possessing life in Him whilst passing through a scene where all is opposed to Him; and the indwelling of the Spirit, instead of hindering this holy sorrow, is rather the spring of energy both in keen apprehension and deep feeling of every way in which Christ is dishonoured, and in meek endurance of all by which we may be tried according to the will of God. Hence, if this place of suffering in the world as it now is be a necessary consequence of divine life surrounded by all that is working out its way of misery, estrangement, and rebellion against Him, it is an immense privilege to suffer with Christ, cheered along the road by the prospect of sharing His glory.

Believers are, then, in very truth the living children of God. They have a Father whose name stands eternally betwixt them and all fear. But children are their parents' heirs. The name of blessing with which the God of glory has clothed Himself for our sakes, is not an empty sound. We are heirs — (verse 17), heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. Now, "the Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand (John 3:35). He has appointed Him, as alive from the dead, heir of all things. He was heir by virtue of eternal Sonship in ever-during fellowship of Divine glory. As the Creator of all things, He stood possessed, from the moment of their creation, of the perfect right of universal propriety; for all things were created by Him and for Him. He is now revealed in the resurrection as the vested possessor of the inheritance of God, after having made Himself capable of such investment by becoming flesh, and tasting death for everything * by the grace of God. And this inheritance He shares with us! As He has said elsewhere: "The glory which Thou gavest me I have given them" (John 17:22). All that the created capacity of the children of God can receive from Himself, is the portion of their inheritance as heirs of God. All that the blessed Lord can share with and impart to the objects of His measureless love, is the portion of the brethren as joint-heirs with Christ. As eternally Divine, — in the distinctness of His Sonship as the only begotten, as well as in the unity of the Godhead with the Father and the Spirit, — He will be for ever the object of His creatures' worship, and they will see a glory (John 17:24), and delight in its brightness, which yet they will not share, because it is essentially Divine. But there is a glory which they are called to share. And who shall tell the amount of that weight of glory, or sum the measure of that perfect blessedness, which the Father has counted Jesus worthy to receive, and which Jesus in love has made us worthy to enjoy?

But if those who are participators with Christ in His risen life are the children of God, then they are heirs — and what heirs! Heirs of God — possessors with Him of what He possesses, all things ours! But it is through Christ that we have come into this wonderful inheritance. It is as being joint-heirs with Him it is all ours. We have no claim upon it. We are absolutely without title to it save as He holds the title to it for us. But if we are joint-heirs with Him, then we share with Him the sufferings of the time of His patience, so that our glorification will also be a joint-glorification with Him (verse 17).

Thus then, the Spirit bears witness that we are the children of God; but immense consequences follow. If children, we are heirs. As with regard to God, this might be even thought to be out of place. We inherit from our parents that which is left us when they pass away; but God never passes away. How are we to be His heirs? Only He, Himself, could have inspired such a thought as this. If we want to realize what it means, we have a beautiful example of it in the case of Israel, whose land is expressly claimed to be God's land. They are to be pilgrims and sojourners with Him, thus put into possession on His part, to hold that which is nevertheless His. How perfect the security that is given in this way to their possession of it! When they shall hold it after this manner, how impossible for them to lose it again, and even now the land being God's renders it absolutely impossible that any failure on their part can disturb His purposes with regard to it. They might forfeit it. If it were left to them, they surely would, altogether; but God cannot forfeit it, and if He puts them in possession of that which is His own, then they have an unfailing right to that possession. So with regard to our higher and more wonderful inheritance. We are heirs of God. The things that He has created, He has not created for Himself. He has no need of them. His whole heart goes with the gift of them to His people, yet so that in the sense in which we have spoken, the things inherited remain always God's, while we possess and enjoy them fully. There is another thing added here. We are joint heirs with Christ. How wonderfully does this certify to us the extent of the inheritance! Christ is the heir of all things, and to be joint heirs with Christ gives, as one may say, the thought of a limitless inheritance; but not merely so, it assures us of the perfect way in which Christ abides still and ever the Man Christ Jesus. He means to associate us with Himself for ever. The joy of the inheritance will be the joy of being associated with Christ in it.

But then immediately there comes in what may seem to be a condition; "If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him." Suffering then is necessary to glory, but surely not in any sense as a legal condition, — the suffering with Him, not mere suffering in itself, but suffering with Him, suffering as He suffered in the world which was contrary to Him entirely, suffering because of the knowledge of God and joy in Him which were His ever, in view of evil and all its consequences: this, on our part, is the necessary training for that association with Him, of which our being joint heirs speaks. We are preparing to have fully His mind, learning in the midst of evil, learning what evil is in its Ml character even in ourselves, as we have already seen. In ourselves we are brought into the closest possible connection with it, surely that we may realize forever its nature, that we may hate it as God hates it, and that we may be fully competent to walk with Him who has solved in His own person the whole question of good and evil, and who is the glorious Conqueror over sin by suffering. Thus then, our present lives have a meaning with reference to the future which we must never lose sight of. The suffering by the way is part of our very need, in order that we may be fit for the coming glory. But, as already said, we must not think of this as mere suffering, but, as with Christ Himself, that which was most truly such to Him sprang out of the very joy that He had in God (we are not speaking of atonement now, or that which was necessary for it), — so for us, suffering must have this character. It must put us ever in fellowship with Him in order to be of any value.

The Holy Ghost always reasons downwards, from God to man, for He reveals what God is, and therefore He says, "If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." If God has made you His children, will He leave you without an inheritance? In truth He will not; but the moment you bring God in, then you get the consequences down here. For if you get all this glory, you must have the cross here, for we do not have a half Christ; "If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together": and mark what stress he lays on the word with, "joint-heirs with Christ," "suffer with Christ," "glorified with him." It is thought by some to be a great attainment to see the union of Christ and His church, but it was living association with Christ that was presented in the words, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" And Saul was arrested and converted along with the revelation of Jesus Himself, by the knowledge of the fact that those whom he was persecuting were the members of Christ's body. It could not be said of Paul, "Ye have been with me from the beginning," for Paul saw the Lord only in glory, and therefore he says, he did not know Christ after the flesh.

It is on this gathering together of all things unto Christ and in Christ, as their Head (Greek, anakephalaiosis - heading up), that depends the character and the substance of the hope of the church, until God be all in all. In this point of view, Scripture speaks of Christ manifested, as being Heir of all these things, and of the church as being joint-heir with Him. This is, as it were, the formal character which is attributed to Him with regard to all things; that we may understand what is our place with Him. Thus it is written, that God has appointed Christ "heir of all things" (Heb. 1:2); that, in Him, "we have obtained an inheritance" (Eph. 1:11); that we are "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ," Rom. 8:17. This glorious title of Christ - the Heir - has a still more glorious origin. He is "the firstborn of every creature, for by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth … and for him," Col. 1:15-16. The church, the children of God, are therefore joint-heirs with Christ. How are they such? It is this which we are about to develop. Christ receives the inheritance in His character of man, of risen Man, once our companion in sufferings because of sin, and then the Head, the root and spring of all blessing.

One branch of the subject, not touched upon as yet, divides itself into two parts - heirship, and reigning with Christ. A christian is an heir, as well as a child, an "heir of God" and a "joint-heir with Christ," Rom. 8:17. Again, he will reign with Christ; and it may be of use to see what the part in our life here is corresponding to that of reigning. The inheritance is connected with our being children, "if children, then heirs," etc. The moment a person is in the position of a child, there is an heir. The reigning part we find connected with suffering: "If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him." Both these things are no doubt spoken of the Christian; still this is the principle, "if we suffer with him," etc.

Heirs and Joint-Heirs. — But since we are not only sons but also children, we read that "the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are 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," i.e., with Him (16, 17). What a prospect is here opened out to us! What a portion is ours! A prospect, a portion, with which our God and Father would have every real Christian to be acquainted whilst he is still upon earth. And learning of this, the feelings of the heart may find fitting expression in the language of the Lord by the spirit of prophecy, "Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to usward" (Ps. 40:5). Children! Heirs! God's heirs! Joint-heirs with Christ! Man never dreamt of such privileges, such an inheritance. No system of religion of human invention has suggested that such favours could be procured for its votaries. No creature could have supposed that any of fallen Adam's race could become God's heirs, and joint-heirs with His Son. But how simply is all this told out! Who, we may well say, but God the Spirit would have stated it in such a way? Concise, yet full; simple, yet grand. Heirs of God! No portion can be conceived more full than such an announcement conveys to us. Joint-heirs with Christ! No inheritance more blessed, none to be desired more than this. What earthly inheritance can compare with it?

Suffering with Christ. — But what is the present condition on earth of these heirs? Objects indeed of Divine favour, and subjects of angelic service (Heb. 1:14), may they look for a bed of roses, or for a triumphant progress through this world? Is it not written that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God? (Acts 14:22) Joint-heirs with Christ! Suffering was His lot: suffering with Him is to be their lot. How gracious of God to tell us this! How gracious indeed to bestow on us such a privilege! But no religious system of human invention would have predicted that God's heir, and His Son's joint-heirs, should have to suffer in any part of God's creation? Where He has sway, why should they suffer? A riddle this, incapable of solution by man, but now plain to us. Would any murmur then, or shrink back, deterred by the fear of what they might have to encounter? How encouraging, how cheering is the prospect beyond. Now suffering with Christ: then to be glorified with Him. To nothing short of this does the Gospel of God bid us look forward, and in the certainty that it will be made good. We have seen what the Lord did by suffering for us. We have been taught that we have died with Him to sin. We learn here that if we suffer with Him, we shall be glorified with Him. Into what associations with Him have we been, and shall we be brought!

Let us remark, however, that this is suffering with Christ, not for Him. To suffer for Christ is a privilege, a special gift of God; Phil. 1:29. One cannot be a Christian without suffering with Christ; for how could the Spirit of Christ produce in us a different mind from that which was in Christ as He passed through this poor world? The glory of the children of God is a subject of hope; now the sufferings of Christ in weakness are reproduced in a heart in which Christ dwells. We suffer here, where Christ suffered, as joint-heirs of the kingdom of love, where all will be joy and gladness. Although we are already, as a present thing, children, or rather sons, and therefore heirs also, we do not yet possess the inheritance; indeed, we cannot yet possess it, for it is still corrupt, defiled, and in this condition would not be suitable for us. Christ is seated at the right hand of God until His enemies be made His footstool. Then shall we reign with Him and be like Him.