“[W]hom he appointed heir of all things…”

                 Have you ever seen someone who has gotten himself into a situation that required skills or competence or knowledge they didn’t have?  On a personal level this situation can give an individual everything from anxiety, stress, panic attacks, sleeplessness and a whole host of other nervous ailments.  It has given rise to the expression, “He’s in over his head,” describing a person who can’t swim trying to stay afloat in the deep end of a swimming pool.  On a more public level — whether it’s a grad student in the midst of a doctoral program, a politician, a company executive, a trusted teacher, whatever — the stress and anxieties only intensify, sometimes giving rise to some bizarre behavior.

God appointed Jesus “heir of all things.”  For him to be that, it presupposes that he must have the knowledge and skill to manage and rule over all the things he received.  Try to imagine for moment what “all things” includes.  No, not just the obvious…everything in the universe.  Think on a topical level.  All the sea creatures in the oceans, for example, or all of the weather patterns in the world, or the movements of all the bodies floating in space—stars, planets, asteroids, galaxies, space dust, etc.  How about the intricate genetic complexities of the formation of tens of thousands of conceptions that take place each day?  Or the inner workings of the boiling core of the earth and how they affect things like volcanoes and earthquakes on the surface?  Are you beginning to sense the magnitude of “all things”?  Jesus is the heir of it all.  Being a good God means that he would not give “all things” to Christ unless he were suitable and capable of handling them all.  Certainly this inheritance requires a divine heir, for it comes from a divine Giver.

In its simplest meaning, an heir is a recipient, one who receives the possession(s) of another, usually in the form of a will upon the death of the owner of the possession(s).  But there are exceptions.  Hebrews 11:7 says that Noah “became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”  In other words, with the death of all the others in the world by the flood (except his family on the ark), Noah became the sole and initial heir of the blessings of righteousness since God gave him the responsibility for the message of righteousness.  In this case, someone else died besides he who is righteousness (see Jeremiah 23:6).  Paul writes of Abraham who later on in history “would become heir of the world…through the righteousness that comes by faith [in contrast to the law]” (Romans 4:13).  Clearly no one died suddenly to give Abraham this inheritance of a new “world,” a picture of fully redeemed humanity (Galatians 3:8-9) in “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1).

This biblical understanding is critical in understanding that God did not die so that Christ could receive the inheritance.  In fact, strangely enough, it was Christ who died so that he could be the heir of all things!  This is what we find in Colossians 1:19-20 where Christ reconciles “all things…through his blood, shed on the cross.”  On its face the death of the heir sounds very strange, but this is what he meant in one of my favorite parables, the one about the tenants (see Matthew 21:33-46, especially vs. 38-39).  However, if the heir must die to receive the possessions, it likewise requires his resurrection so the inheritance is actually passed from Father to a living heir, the Son.  The divine plan is so amazing, so incredible!

Consider a more personal part of this inheritance.  God is the giver, Christ the heir.  What does God give?  Speaking of future saved people, Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away… I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day” (John 6:37,39).  Later, describing those who God gave to Christ as sheep, Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish…” (John 10:27-28).  Read it clearly: the sheep are the sheep because they “listen…and follow” Christ, obviously by faith.  They receive eternal life because they believe, in contrast to those who “do not believe” (v. 25) and are “not [his] sheep” (v. 26).  In other words, of the “all things” that Jesus received from the Father, we who are made in his image are the most important and precious part of his inheritance!  Ask yourself this: What else did Jesus die for?  What else cost him so much?

Are you rejoicing because God gave you to the Heir of all things?  Do you rejoice because, as his sheep, you have eternal life, never ever to be lost?  Can others see the heir of all things in you?