Day 3 | Spiritual Inheritance

Read: Romans 8:12-17

Children of God, Led by the Spirit

12 So then, my dear family, we are in debt – but not to human flesh, to live our life in that way. 13 If you live in accordance with the flesh, you will die; but if, by the spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

14 All who are led by the spirit of God, you see, are God’s children. 15 You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery, did you, to go back again into a state of fear? But you received the spirit of sonship, in whom we call out ‘Abba, father!’ 16 When that happens, it is the spirit itself giving supporting witness to what our own spirit is saying, that we are God’s children. 17 And if we’re children, we are also heirs: heirs of God, and fellow heirs with the Messiah, as long as we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

THE KINGDOM NEW TESTAMENT: A CONTEMPORARY TRANSLATION by N.T. WRIGHT. Copyright (c) 2011 by Nicholas Thomas Wright. Courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers. Used by permission.

Reflect:

What do you usually think of when you consider the concepts of indebtedness or being in debt? Where does the idea of debt come up in popular culture? What’s your understanding of how we are “in debt” to God? Is anything about this conception potentially problematic? How do you reconcile debt with love?

Consider:

Paul begins this passage by asserting that we are “in debt” and then telling us exactly what we are not in debt to—human flesh. He doesn’t immediately tell us what we are in debt to, but what he means becomes clear. We are in debt to God.

We are indebted to God in quite a strict sense because we are God’s heirs—fellow heirs with the Messiah. God has made a wonderful creation and is bequeathing it to the children. The promise of resurrection within God's New Creation brings Paul to this point. We have been left a glorious legacy. We are to be God's heirs and coworkers in this new world, sharing, by the Spirit, God’s wise and healing rule.

Typically, you only receive an inheritance after the giver has died. In that case, although you may be in some emotional sense in debt to the deceased, by definition, they are no longer around to receive your thanks. The debt of inheritance is not the debt of a financial contract. However, when it's a matter of inheriting from God our stewardship of the whole New Creation, Paul strongly implies that we are in a perpetual state of happy indebtedness to God the Father. This turns out to be a debt of love which only love can repay. Think again of the echo with Israel’s inheritance as God’s chosen firstborn people. If we're children, we're heirs. And that is why we are debtors, as in verse 12. We don’t owe God a grudging, uncomfortable obedience. Instead, we discover our vocation to inherit God's redeemed world, to become prayerful stewards and agents in the present. Within the groaning of the old creation, we bear witness to the promise of the new.

Practice:

One implication of our inheritance as Jesus’s followers is that we are intended to be “the people at whom the world looks to get an impression of who the Father must be, and what God’s creation might look like.” Are there specific individuals in your life who do this well? What do they do that is so remarkable? What is one thing you can do this week to better reflect this intention to the world?