Category Archives: Bible Reflection

Comfort for Christians by Arthur W. Pink

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GOD’S INHERITANCE

“For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 32:9)

This verse brings before us a most blessed and wonderful line of truth, so wonderful that no human mind could possibly have invented it. It speaks of the mighty God having an “inheritance,” and it tells us that this inheritance is in His own people! God refused to take this world for His inheritance—it will yet be burnt up. Nor did heaven, populated with angels, satisfy His heart. In eternity past Jehovah said, by way of anticipation, “My delights were with the sons of men” (Proverbs 8:31).

This is by no means the only scripture which teaches that God’s inheritance is in His saints. In Psalm 135:4 we read, “For the Lord has chosen Jacob unto Himself, and Israel for His peculiar treasure.” In Mal. 3:17 the Lord speaks of His people as His “special treasure” (see margin)—so “special” that the highest manifestations of His love are made to them, the richest gifts of His hand are bestowed on them, the mansions on High are prepared and reserved for them!

The same wondrous truth is taught in the New Testament. In Ephesians 1 we behold the apostle Paul praying that God would give unto His people the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of their understanding being enlightened that they might know “the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance” (verse 18). This is a truly amazing expression; not only do the saints obtain an inheritance in God, but He also secures an inheritance in them! How overwhelming the thought that the great God should deem Himself the richer because of our faith, our love and worship! Surely this is one of the most marvelous truths revealed in Holy Writ—that God should pick up poor sinners and make them His “inheritance!” Yet so it is!

But what need has God of us? How can we possibly enrich Him? Does He not have everything-wisdom, power, grace and glory? All true, yet there is something that He needs, yes, needs, namely, vessels. Just as the sun needs the earth to shine upon, so God needs vessels to fill, vessels through which His glory may be reflected, vessels on which the riches of His grace may be lavished.

Mark that God’s people are not only called His “portion,” His “special treasure, but also His “inheritance.” This suggests three things. First, an “inheritance is obtained through death: so God’s inheritance is secured to Him through the death of His beloved Son. Second, an “inheritance” denotes perpetuity—”to a man and his heirs forever” are the terms often used. Third, an “inheritance” is for possession, it is something which is entered into, lived upon, enjoyed. Let us now consider five things about God’s inheritance:

1. God purposed to have such an inheritance. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12). The “nation” here is identical with the holy nation,” the “chosen generation, royal priesthood, peculiar people” of 1 Peter 2:9. This favored people was chosen by God to be His inheritance: it was not an afterthought with Him, but decreed by Him in eternity past. Before the foundation of the world God fixed His heart upon having them for Himself.

2. God has purchased His people for an inheritance. In Ephesians 1:14 we are told that the Holy Spirit is the “pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.” So again in Acts 20:28 we read of “the Church of God which He has purchased with His own blood.” God has not only redeemed His people from bondage and death—but for Himself.

3. God comes and dwells in the midst of His inheritance. “For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance” (Psalm 94:14) This is a clear proof that these scriptures are not referring to the nation of Israel after the flesh. Just as Jehovah tabernacled in the midst of the redeemed Hebrews, so He now indwells His church, both collectively and individually. “Don’t you know that you (plural) are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (I Cor. 3:16). “Don’t you know that your body (singular) is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” (I Cor. 6:19).

4. God beautifies His inheritance. Just as a man who has inherited a house or an estate takes possession of it and then makes improvements, so God is now fitting His people for Himself. He who has begun a good work within His own is now performing it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6). He is now conforming us to the image of His Son. Each Christian can say with the Psalmist, “the Lord will perfect that which concerns me” (Psalm 138:8). Nor will God be satisfied until we have been glorified. The Lord Jesus Christ “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body!” (Phil. 3:21) “When he shall appear—we shall be like Him!” (I John 3:2)

5. And what of the future? God will yet possess, live upon, and enjoy His inheritance. In the unending ages yet to be, God will make known the “riches of his glory” on the vessels of His mercy (Romans 9:23). The glory which God shall ever live upon—as upon an inheritance—shall rise out of His people. What a marvelous statement is that which is found at the close of Ephesians 2, where the saints are likened unto a building “fitly framed together (which) grows unto a holy temple in the Lord,” of whom it is said, “in whom you also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”

Wonderful and glorious is the picture presented before us in Revelation 21:1-4: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a beautiful bride prepared for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever.”

What a marvelous statement is that in Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” The great God will yet say, “I am satisfied: here will I rest. This is My inheritance that I will live upon forever, even the glory which I have bestowed on redeemed sinners.” Surely we have to say with the Psalmist, ” Such knowledge is too wonderful for me—too great for me to know!” (139:6). May Divine grace enable us to walk worthy of our high calling.

But to all who did receive him

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“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” – John 1:12-13

“But who receive Him thus? Not all by any means. Only a few. And is this left to chance? Far from it. As the following verse goes on to state, ‘which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God’ (John 1:13). This explains to us why the few ‘receive’ Christ. It is because they are born of God. Just as verse 12 gives us the human side, so verse 13 gives us the Divine.

The Divine side is the new birth: and the taking place of the new birth is ‘not of blood,’ that is to say, it is not a matter of heredity, for regeneration does not run in the veins; ‘nor of the will of the flesh,’ the will of the natural man is opposed to God, and he has no will Godward until he has been born again; ‘nor of the will of man,’ that is to say, the new birth is not brought about by the well-meant efforts of friends, nor by the persuasive powers of the preacher; ‘but of God.’

The new birth is a Divine work. It is accomplished by the Holy Spirit applying the Word in living power to the heart. The reception Christ met during the days of His earthly ministry is the same still: the world ‘knows him not;’ Israel ‘receives him not;’ but a little company do receive him, and who these are, Acts 13:48 tells us — ‘as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.'”

– A.W. Pink

C. H. Spurgeon brings out another truth from the same verses:

“Believe the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God to His people. Abhor the doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of God, for it is a lie and a deep deception.

It stabs at the heart, first, of the doctrine of adoption, which is taught in Scripture, for how can God adopt men if they are all His children already?

In the second place, it stabs at the heart of the doctrine of regeneration, which is certainly taught in the Word of God. Now it is by regeneration and faith that we become the children of God, but how can that be if we are the children of God already? ‘But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God’ (John 1:12-13). How can God give to men the power to become His sons if they have it already?

Believe not that lie of the devil, but believe this truth of God, that Christ and all who are by living faith in Christ may rejoice in the Fatherhood of God.”

– C. H. Spurgeon, ‘Our Lord’s Last Cry from the Cross.’

“Regeneration is the work of God’s invincible power and mere grace, wherein by his Spirit accompanying his Word he quickeneth a redeemed person lying dead in his sins and reneweth him in his mind, his will and all the powers of his soul, convincing him savingly of sin and righteousness and judgment, and making him heartily to embrace Christ and salvation, and to consecrate himself to the service of God in Christ all the days of his life.” – David Dickson, Select Practical Writings of David Dickson, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Printed for the Assemblies Committee, 1845), p. 211.

A Covenant Made in Eternity Past

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Below is a transcript from a C. H. Spurgeon sermon where he describes the covenant of redemption and then wonders what it would have been like to be to hear this sacred promise being made.

“Now, and God the Son; or to put it in a yet more scriptural light, it was made mutually between the three divine Persons of the adorable Trinity.”

“I cannot tell you it in the glorious celestial tongue in which it was written: I am fain to bring it down to the speech which suiteth to the ear of flesh, and to the heart of the mortal. Thus, I say, run the covenant, in ones like these:

“I, the Most High Jehovah, do hereby give unto My only begotten and well-beloved Son, a people, countless beyond the number of stars, who shall be by Him washed from sin, by Him preserved, and kept, and led, and by Him, at last, presented before My throne, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. I covenant by oath, and swear by Myself, because I can swear by no greater, that these whom I now give to Christ shall be for ever the objects of My eternal love. Them I will forgive through the merit of the blood. To these will I give a perfect righteousness; these will I adopt and make My sons and daughters, and these shall reign with Me through Christ eternally.”

Thus run that glorious side of the covenant. The Holy Spirit also, as one of the high contracting parties on this side of the covenant, gave His declaration, “I hereby covenant,” saith He, “that all whom the Father giveth to the Son, I will in due time quicken. I will show them their need of redemption; I will cut off from them all groundless hope, and destroy their refuges of lies. I will bring them to the blood of sprinkling; I will give them faith whereby this blood shall be applied to them, I will work in them every grace; I will keep their faith alive; I will cleanse them and drive out all depravity from them, and they shall be presented at last spotless and faultless.”

This was the one side of the covenant, which is at this very day being fulfilled and scrupulously kept. As for the other side of the covenant this was the part of it, engaged and covenanted by Christ. He thus declared, and covenanted with his Father:

“My Father, on my part I covenant that in the fullness of time I will become man. I will take upon myself the form and nature of the fallen race. I will live in their wretched world, and for My people I will keep the law perfectly. I will work out a spotless righteousness, which shall be acceptable to the demands of Thy just and holy law. In due time I will bear the sins of all My people. Thou shalt exact their debts on Me; the chastisement of their peace I will endure, and by My stripes they shall be healed. My Father, I covenant and promise that I will be obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. I will magnify Thy law, and make it honourable. I will suffer all they ought to have suffered. I will endure the curse of Thy law, and all the vials of Thy wrath shall be emptied and spent upon My head. I will then rise again; I will ascend into heaven; I will intercede for them at Thy right hand; and I will make Myself responsible for every one of them, that not one of those whom thou hast given me shall ever be lost, but I will bring all my sheep of whom, by My blood, thou hast constituted Me the Shepherd — I will bring every one safe to Thee at last.”