“we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ…”
I’m beginning in the middle of the end of this Epistle. I frequently feel as though I am in the middle of the end of something. I promise you I am not ignoring what comes before this set of words nor am I ignoring what follows and I will eventually get around to them, but mostly I want us to focus on this sliding, telescopic idea: We are the children of God the Father; we are the heirs of God the Blessed Trinity; and we are joint-heirs with Christ. Children, heirs, joint-heirs Of God. What does that mean?
First of children are not equal and if you don’t believe me, just ask one of them and I suggest you start with the youngest or the middle one. Furthermore, just because one is a child that does not mean one is an heir. I have known children who were disinherited by their fathers and mothers. And for that matter, even that child who makes it to the “heir status” is frequently complaining and never sure of paternal love! Heirs hardly ever enjoy equality and it was especially true back when St. Paul was writing to these little house-churches in Rome.
The first cut was based on one’s gender. Women were never even in the running. Imagine not even being able to imagine that. Women were property, real estate, in antiquity – in Greece, in Rome or within Israel. A woman was property sold by the Father to another family to become the wife of another man’s son and that’s mostly true for Rome and certainly true in Israel. Paul’s phrasing in this grouping of words and the idea he means to communicate -– an idea which in all likelihood was a stumbling block to Paul at first — would have been a stumbling block to his original audience. He flips back and forth between two Greek words when describing our relation to God, our relation to one another, and our standing in God’s dominion. Paul piles up the phrase “Sons of God” over and over again as in the verse: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” And he used that word “son” exclusively for Jesus’ relation to the Father — Jesus is always the “Son of God” and never the “child of God.” The “son” and in particular the “elder son” was expected to inherited the family’s wealth and responsibility. But then Paul flips it on the Romans at the end of this passage when he writes,
“we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ…”
Now Paul did not say to himself: “I have already used the word “son,” too much and I need to use another word for stylistic reasons – or at least keep these Roman’s attention.” No! Paul knew exactly what he was doing. He dictated the word to one of his acolytes named Tertius – God bless the boy who I imagine writing as fast as he could as Paul strode back and forth in his cottage in Corinth! I wonder if Tertius stopped writing and looked up at Paul and said, “What? Are you sure about that?” – “Tekna,” which means just what our translation renders — “children.”
Paul used the word “sons” far more frequently in his epistles, but it is clear that Paul’s choice of words here speaks of our relation to God the Father in what would have been for these folk a quantum leap into an uncharted world. And the higher you ascend, the larger your horizon. Paul is taking the little Roman parish higher and higher. The interchangeable use of the word “son” for “child” turned their world upside-down.
Why is the world turned topsy-turvy by Paul’s words? Because Paul means to include every single disciple of Jesus – and that means that women have the very same gospel privileges as men. Women are baptized on their own, not by proxy in their husbands’ or fathers’ name. Women are just as much “children of God…heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” as men and in the world of antiquity that is a very big deal. Christian liberty, for a woman back then, became a social and political force that the Church instantly embraced. A daughter could not inherit her father’s sheep farm or his vineyard, but she was perfectly equal to her brothers-in-Christ in the Kingdom of God and everyone knew that the Kingdom of God would outlast any sheep farm or vineyard or any other institution here in the middle of the end of things.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Now here’s another curiosity in this set of words:
“we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ…”
Male and female, bond or free, Jew or Greek are loved by God the Father with the love he has for his eternal Son — and we are all His heirs. What else does that mean? An heir is one who inherits his Father’s wealth when the Father dies. I have a friend who’s father died and shortly after that his mother died and he inherited all the family wealth. He loved his mom and dad, and he was sad when they died. But he says there is nothing like inheriting wealth you never earned. Well, like it or not that is a pretty good definition of the grace of God. Nothing is sweeter than inheriting wealth you never earned.
There is another twist on the matter of inheritance: we all know that one may be an heir and even receive one’s inheritance before the death of the Father. Next week, Trinity IX, we have exactly that situation. A young son goes to his Father and says to him:
“Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he (the Father) divided unto them (his two sons) his living.”
I want to suggest that our Lord, in that parable and in the Epistle for today, is giving us remedial instruction on how to rule the Family when our time comes. God will not die, yet we are heirs who will share in ruling over his Creation. The verses that follow these in Romans 8 make it clear that our relation to God as his Children establishes our responsibility to rule over Creation as the Father’s deified Children. And I want to suggest that this takes us back to the Garden and our original role as the Husband to Creation. We are all, male and female called to Husband Creation. If that sounds odd just remember that we are all, male and female, called the Bride of Christ. As heir of God we are called to husband creation and that means that we are to dress creation, to keep it, to honor it, to love and to cherish the Garden of God. In what follows the Epistle for today St. Paul presents a vision of cosmic liberation that will result a new earth, a re-created earthy environment that will be fitted for God’s restored, resurrected children:
“For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Romans 8:18-23
We too wait and groan within ourselves along with creation, as we anticipate the victory of God and the redemption of the material world. We wait for the “redemption of our bodies,” looking for an eternal vocation that includes our bodies. The material world is not our enemy, nor is it a prison – it is our home. We sigh, we groan together because there is an oneness, a unity, and a sense of belonging – of being-at-home with the material creation that we know deep inside ourselves. Though this sense of oneness with the creature is sorely impaired, the longing is profound and we have a revelation from God affirming the truth of that intuition. And so Paul gives us a vision of our destiny as children of God that includes the destiny of this earth – from whose own soil and substance the hand of God sculpted our bodies in the beginning. And from her gardens and rivers and steams, from bird and beast and reptile – a redeemed order will come together as a fit habitat for the children of God. And the Gardener, the Last Adam, the Eternal Son of the Father, will return to his creation with his siblings in tow.