32 The Holy Spirit Guarantees Our Glory—part 1 The Incomparable Gain of Glory (8:17-18)
and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (8:17–18)
Whether consciously or not, every genuine Christian lives in the light and hope of glory. That hope is perhaps summed up best by John in his first epistle: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2). Because of our consummate trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God graciously adopted us as His own children, and one day “we shall be like Him,” like the perfect, sinless Son of God who took our sin upon Himself in order that we might share not only His righteousness but His glory!
In addition to freeing believers from sin and death (Rom. 8:2–3), enabling them to fulfill God’s law (v. 4), changing their nature (vv. 5–11), empowering them for victory (vv. 12–13), and confirming their adoption as God’s children (vv. 14–16), the Holy Spirit guarantees their ultimate glory (vv. 17–30). In verses 17–18 Paul focuses on believers’ incomparable spiritual gain through the divine glory that they are guaranteed.
The various aspects and stages of salvation of which the Bible speaks—such as regeneration, new birth, justification, sanctification, and glorification—can be distinguished but never separated. None of those can exist without the others. They are inextricably woven into the seamless fabric of God’s sovereign work of redemption.
There can therefore be no loss of salvation between justification and glorification. Consequently, there can never be justification without glorification. “Whom [God] predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). Justification is the beginning of salvation and glorification is its completion. Once it has begun, God will not stop it, and no other power in the universe is able to stop it. “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39). During His earthly ministry, Jesus declared unequivocally: “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out…. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:37, 39–40).
Because he was created in the image of God, man was made with a glorious nature. Before the Fall, he was without sin and, in a way that Scripture does not reveal, he radiated the glory of his Creator. But when Adam fell by disobeying the single command of God, man lost not only his sinlessness and innocence but also his glory and its attendant dignity and honor. It is for that reason that all men now “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
Fallen men seem basically to know they are devoid of glory, and they often strive tirelessly to gain glory for themselves. The contemporary obsession with achieving self-esteem is a tragic reflection of man’s sinful and futile efforts to regain glory apart from holiness.
The ultimate purpose of salvation is to forgive and to cleanse men of their sin and to restore to them God’s glory and thereby bring to Him still greater glory through the working of that sovereign act of grace. The glory that believers are destined to receive through Jesus Christ, however, will far surpass the glory man had before the Fall, because perfection far exceeds innocence. Glorification marks the completion and perfection of salvation. Therefore, as the late British pastor and theologian Martyn Lloyd-Jones rightly observed in his exposition of our text, salvation cannot stop at any point short of entire perfection or it is not salvation. Pointing up that truth, Paul told the Philippian believers, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).
Salvation brings continual growth in divine glory until it is perfected in the likeness of Jesus Christ Himself. “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). As part of His ministry to us during our lives on earth, the Holy Spirit carries us from one level of glory to another.
In proclaiming the incomparable gain believers have in their divinely-bestowed glory, Paul focuses first on the heirs (8:17a), then on the source (v. 176), the extent (v. 17c), the proof (v. 17d), and finally the comparison (v. 18).
THE HEIRS OF GLORY
and if children, heirs also, (8:17)
The emphasis in Romans 8:17–18 on believers’ glory is closely related to their adoption as God’s children (see w. 14–16). As is clear from that preceding context, the if in verse 17 does not carry the idea of possibility or doubt but of reality and causality, and might be better translated “because.” In other words, because all believers have the leading of the Holy Spirit (v. 14) and His witness (v. 16) that they are indeed children of God, they are thereby heirs also.
The heavenly angels not only serve God directly but also serve believers, because they are God’s children and heirs. “Are they [angels] not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” the writer of Hebrews asks rhetorically (Heb. 1:14). Because of our faith in His Son Jesus Christ, God the Father “has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12).
As explained in the last chapter, Paul’s figure of adoption seems to correspond more to Roman law and custom than to Jewish. We might expect this, because Paul was writing to believers in Rome. And although many of them doubtless were Jewish, if their families had lived there for several generations, they would be as familiar with the Roman custom as the Jewish.
In Jewish tradition, the eldest son normally received a double portion of his father’s inheritance. In Roman society, on the other hand, although a father had the prerogative of giving more to one child than to the others, normally all children received equal shares. And under Roman law, inherited possessions enjoyed more protection than those that were bought or worked for. Perhaps reflecting those Roman customs and laws, Paul’s emphasis in this passage is on the equality of God’s children and the security of their adoption.
Paul told the Galatians, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29; cf. 4:7). Here Paul is referring to spiritual heritage, citing Abraham, “the father of all who believe” (Rom. 4:11), as the human archetype of the adopted child and heir of God.
THE SOURCE OF GLORY
heirs of God, (8:17b)
The source of believers’ incomparable glory is God, their heavenly Father, who has adopted them as His own children and heirs. Paul assured the Colossian Christians “that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance” (Col. 3:24). This inheritance is only God’s to give, and He sovereignly bestows it, without exception, on those who become His children and heirs through faith in His divine Son, Jesus Christ.
In His description of the sheep and goats judgment in the last days, Jesus reveals the astounding truth that our inheritance with Him was ordained by God in eternity past! “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’” (Matt. 25:34). God does not adopt His children as an afterthought but according to His predetermined plan of redemption, which began before “the foundation of the world.”
The value of an inheritance is determined by the worth of the one who bequeaths it, and the inheritance of Christians is from the Creator, Sustainer, and Owner of the world. God not only is the source of our inheritance but is Himself our inheritance. Of all the good things in the universe, the most precious is the Creator of the universe Himself. The psalmist declared, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And besides Thee, I desire nothing on earth” (Ps. 73:25). Jeremiah wrote, “The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I have hope in Him’” (Lam. 3:24). In his vision on the island of Patmos, John “heard a loud voice from the [heavenly] throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them’” (Rev. 21:3). The greatest blessing God’s children will have in heaven will be the eternal presence of their God.
THE EXTENT OF GLORY
and fellow heirs with Christ, (8:17c)
Many of us are heirs of those who have very little to bequeath in earthly possessions, and our human inheritance will amount to little, perhaps nothing. But just as God’s resources are limitless, so our spiritual inheritance is limitless, because, as His fellow heirs, we share in everything that the true Son of God, Jesus Christ, inherits.
Paul exulted, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, … also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:3, 11). God the Father has appointed Jesus Christ the “heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2), and because we are fellow heirs with Him, we are destined to receive all that He receives!
In the arithmetic of earth, if each heir receives an equal share of an inheritance, each gets only a certain fraction of the whole amount. But heaven is not under such limits, and every adopted child of God will receive the full inheritance with the Son. Everything that Christ receives by divine right, we will receive by divine grace. The parable of the laborers in Matthew 20:1–16 illustrates this graciousness, showing that all who serve Christ will receive the same eternal reward, irrespective of differences in their service.
Believers one day will enter into the eternal joy of their Master (Matt. 25:21), who, for the sake of that joy, “endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). Believers will sit on the heavenly throne with Christ and rule there with Him (Rev. 3:21; cf. 20:4; Luke 22:30), bearing forever the very image of their Savior and Lord (1 Cor. 15:49; 1 John 3:2). In the infinite “grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, … though He was rich, yet for [our] sake He became poor, that [we] through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). In His great high priestly prayer, Jesus spoke to His Father of the incredible and staggering truth that everyone who believes in Him will be one with Him and will share His full glory: “The glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one” (John 17:22). We will not intrude on Christ’s prerogatives, because, in His gracious will, He Himself bestows His glory on us and asks His Father to confirm that endowment.
It is not that believers will become gods, as some cults teach, but that we will receive, by our joint inheritance with Christ, all the blessings and grandeur that God has. We are “justified by His grace [in order that] we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7). Jesus Christ “is the mediator of a new covenant, in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Heb. 9:15).
The Christian who is not eagerly looking for Christ’s Second Coming and living his life in accordance with Christ’s will is too tied to this earth. But according to God’s Word, only those believers who have an eternal perspective, who are truly heavenly-minded, can be of service to Him on earth, because they are freed from the earthly desires and motivations that hinder the obedience of many of His children. Faithful believers are fruitful believers, and they know that their true citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20) and that their inheritance is a promise of God (Heb. 6:12), who cannot lie and who is always faithful to fulfill His promises.
When Paul was caught up into the third heaven, he beheld sights and heard utterances that were beyond human description (2 Cor. 12:2–4). Even the inspired apostle was unable to depict the grandeur, majesty, and glory of heaven. Yet every believer some day not only will behold and comprehend those divine wonders but will share fully in them.
“And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure,” John tells us (1 John 3:3). The hope and expectation of sharing in God’s own glory should motivate every believer to dedicate himself to living purely while he is still on earth. Only a holy life is fully usable by God, and only a holy life is rightly prepared to receive the inheritance of the Lord.
One day everything on earth will perish and disappear, because the whole earth is defiled and corrupted. By great and marvelous contrast, however, one day every believer will “obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for [him]” (1 Pet. 1:4). Our present earthly life as believers is merely an “introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand,” and our ultimate hope and joy are “in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2). Because of his constant confidence in that ultimate inheritance, Paul could say, “I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need” (Phil. 4:12). It was also in light of our ultimate divine inheritance that Jesus admonished, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt. 6:19–21).
THE PROOF OF GLORY
if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. (8:17d)
As in the beginning of the verse, if does not here connote possibility but actuality, and is better rendered “because,” or “inasmuch.”
Paul is declaring that, strange as it seems to the earthly mind, the present proof of the believer’s ultimate glory comes through suffering on his Lord’s behalf. Because we suffer with Him, we know that we will also be glorified with Him. Jesus closed the Beatitudes on the same note when He gave a double promise of blessing for those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, that is, for His sake (Matt. 5:10–12).
Because the present world system is under the reign of Satan, the world despises God and the people of God. It is therefore inevitable that whether persecution comes in the form of mere verbal abuse at one extreme or as martyrdom at the other extreme, no believer is exempt from the possibility of paying a price for his faith. When we suffer mockery, scorn, ridicule, or any other form of persecution because of our relationship to Jesus Christ, we can take that affliction as divine proof we truly belong to Christ and that our hope of heavenly glory is not in vain, that ultimately we will also be glorified with Him.
Many of God’s promises are not what we think of as “positive.” Jesus promised, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become as his teacher, and the slave as his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!” (Matt. 10:24–25). Paul promised that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12; cf. 2:11). Peter implies the same promise of persecution in his first epistle: “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you” (1 Pet. 5:10). Suffering is an integral part of the process of spiritual maturity, and Peter assumes that every true believer will undergo some degree of suffering for the Lord’s sake. Those who will reign with Christ in the life to come will enjoy the rewards for their suffering for Him during their life on earth.
Paul declares with confidence and joy, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:8–11). Paul was willing to suffer for the sake of his fellow believers and for the sake of those who needed to believe, but his greatest motivation for suffering was the glory his suffering brought to God. “For all things are for your sakes,” he went on to say, “that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God” (v. 15). Yet he also willingly suffered for his own sake, because he knew that his travail for the sake of Christ would accrue to his own benefit. “Therefore we do not lose heart,” he said, “but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (vv. 16–17).
The more a believer suffers in this life for the sake of his Lord, the greater will be his capacity for glory in heaven. Jesus made this relationship clear in Matthew 20:21–23, when He told James, John, and their mother that elevation to prominence in the future kingdom will be related to experiencing the depths of the cup of suffering through humiliation here and now. As with the relationship between works and rewards (see 1 Cor. 3:12–15), the spiritual quality of our earthly life will, in some divinely determined way, affect the quality of our heavenly life. It should be added that since the ultimate destiny of believers is to glorify God, it seems certain that our heavenly rewards and glory in essence will be capacities for glorifying Him.
The suffering in this life creates reactions that reflect the genuine condition of the soul. God allows suffering to drive believers to dependence on Him—an evidence of their true salvation.
Suffering because of our faith not only gives evidence that we belong to God and are destined for heaven but also is a type of preparation for heaven. That is why Paul was so eager to experience “the fellowship of [Christ’s] sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil. 3:10) and was so determined to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (v. 14).
The more we willingly suffer for Christ’s sake on earth, the more we are driven to depend on Him rather than on our own resources and the more we are infused with His power. Suffering for Christ draws us closer to Christ. Our suffering for Him also enables us to better appreciate the sufferings He endured for our sakes during His incarnation. Whatever ridicule, rejection, ostracism, loss, imprisonment, physical pain, or type of death we may have to suffer for Christ is nothing compared to what we will gain. As already cited, these sufferings, no matter how severe they seem at the time, are no more than momentary, light afflictions which are “producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).
Our being born again, our being given hope through Christ’s resurrection, our obtaining an imperishable inheritance with Him, and our protection by God’s power give us reason to “greatly rejoice” (1 Pet. l:3–6a). The apostle then reminds his readers, however, that “now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (vv. 6b-7).
Our eternal capacity to glorify God in heaven will depend on our willingness to suffer for God while we are on earth. As mentioned above, persecution of some sort is not merely a possibility for true believers but an absolute certainty. “If the world hates you,” Jesus assures His followers, “you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me” (John 15:18–21).
To take a strong biblical stand for Christ is to guarantee some kind of opposition, alienation, affliction, and rejection by the world. Unfortunately, it also often brings criticism from those who profess to know God but by their deeds deny Him (Titus 1:16).
Yet we also have the Lord’s wonderful assurance that nothing we suffer for His sake will do us any lasting harm, because “just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ” (2 Cor. 1:5). We have no greater privilege and no greater guarantee of glory than to suffer for Christ’s sake.
The so-called health and wealth and prosperity gospels that abound today are not true to the gospel of Christ but reflect the message of the world. The world’s seemingly good news offers temporary escape from problems and hardship. Christ’s good news includes the promise of suffering for His sake.
THE COMPARISON OF GLORY
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to
us. (8:18)
Logizomai (to consider) refers literally to numerical calculation. Figuratively, as it is used here, it refers to reaching a settled conclusion by careful study and reasoning. Paul does not merely suggest, but strongly affirms, that any suffering for Christ’s sake is a small price to pay for the gracious benefits received because of that suffering. The sufferings of this present time, that is, our time on earth, are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
In the New Testament, pathēma (sufferings) is used both of Christ’s sufferings and of believers’ suffering for His sake. Resist Satan, Peter admonishes, “firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world” (1 Pet. 5:9). Paul assured the Corinthian Christians, “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort” (2 Cor. 1:6–7).
Jesus Christ is the supreme and perfect example of suffering for righteousness’ sake. “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings” (Heb. 2:10). Just as suffering was essential to Christ’s obedience to His Father, so it is essential to our obedience to Christ.
Those who do not know Christ have no hope when they suffer. Whatever the reason for their affliction, it does not come upon them for Christ’s sake, or righteousness’s sake, and therefore cannot produce for them any spiritual blessing or glory. Those who live only for this life cannot look forward to any resolution of wrongs or to any comfort for their souls. Their pain, loneliness, and afflictions serve no divine purpose and bring no divine reward.
Christians, on the other hand, have great hope, not only that their afflictions eventually will end but that those afflictions actually will add to their eternal glory. Long before the incarnation of Christ, the prophet Daniel spoke of believers’ glory as “the brightness of the expanse of heaven,” and as being “like the stars forever and ever” (Dan. 12:3).
As followers of Christ, our suffering comes from men, whereas our glory comes from God. Our suffering is earthly, whereas our glory is heavenly. Our suffering is short, whereas our glory is forever. Our suffering is trivial, whereas our glory is limitless. Our suffering is in our mortal and corrupted bodies, whereas our glory will be in our perfected and imperishable bodies.