Tag Archives: inheritance

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Salvation, Top Ten Posts of 2014

#8 Post of 2014 – What Does “Inherit the Kingdom” Mean in 1 Cor 6:9-10?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson recently cited 1 Cor 6:9-10 when asked about sin in a GQ article. Here is the passage:

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (NIV)

What everyone has been focused on is the fact that “homosexual offenders” is included in this passage. The apostle Paul is clearly giving a list of vices that should be avoided, with homosexual behavior included in the list.

But what hasn’t been discussed, at least not that I’ve seen, is what “inherit the kingdom of God” means. This phrase appears twice in these two verses, and clearly Paul is claiming that not inheriting the kingdom of God is a bad thing.

Some Christians will argue that this phrase refers to entrance into heaven, and that it is targeted at non-Christians who are not saved, but I think this is wrong. We know that a thief did go to heaven – the thief on the cross. In addition, common sense tells us that many people who have truly professed faith in Christ have subsequently been drunk, or slandered, or stolen. Right? So it follows that true Christians have also committed the rest of the sins in Paul’s list.

If “inherit the kingdom” doesn’t mean enter into heaven, then what does it mean? Theologian Joseph Dillow provides the answer in his book The Reign of the Servant Kings. Listen to what he says.

[Paul] is not warning non-Christians that they will not inherit the kingdom; he is warning Christians, those who do wrong and do it to their brothers. It is pointless to argue that true Christians could never be characterized by the things in this list when Paul connects the true Christians of v. 8 with the individuals in v. 9.

It is even more futile to argue this way when the entire context of 1 Corinthians describes activities of true Christians which parallel nearly every item in vv. 9-10. They were involved in sexual immorality (6:15); covetousness (probable motive in lawsuits, 6:1); drunkenness (1 Cor. 11:21); dishonoring the Lord’s table (1 Cor. 11:30–for this reason some of them experienced the sin unto death); adultery (5:1); and they were arrogant (4:18; 5:6).

Yet this group of people that acts unrighteously, . . . and that is guilty of all these things has been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 6:11)! They were washed and saved from all those things, and yet they are still doing them. That is the terrible inconsistency which grieves the apostle through all sixteen chapters of this book.

His burden in 6:9-10 is not to call into question their salvation (he specifically says they are saved in v. 11) but to warn them that, if they do not change their behavior, they will, like Esau, forfeit their inheritance. As Kendall put it, “It was not salvation, then, but their inheritance in the kingdom of God these Christians were in danger of forfeiting.”

This, of course, does not mean that a person who commits one of these sins will not enter heaven. It does mean that, if he commits such a sin and persists in it without confessing and receiving cleansing (1 Jn. 1:9), he will lose his right to rule with Christ. Those walking in such a state, without their sin confessed, face eternal consequences if their Lord should suddenly appear and find them unprepared. They will truly be ashamed “before Him at His coming” (1 Jn. 2:28).

According to Dillow, then, “inherit the kingdom” in the context of 1 Cor 6 is referring to rewards in heaven, not entrance into heaven. The Christian who persists in committing the sins enumerated by Paul will lose her rewards in heaven.

This is no small threat. Christians face losing a seat at the wedding feast, forfeiting their reign with Christ, and not hearing “Well done, good and faithful servant” at the judgment seat. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to give up any of those things.

Bible Interpretation, Faith and Works, Heaven, Salvation

What Does the Old Testament Teach about the Inheritance of the Saints?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 


As we’ve discussed before on the blog, there are two kinds of inheritance for Christians: 1) entrance into heaven and 2) reigning (rewards) in heaven. Many evangelicals mistakenly interpret all New Testament (NT) passages about the believer’s inheritance as referring to entrance into heaven, when this is clearly not the case (see this post and this post).

Theologian Joseph Dillow, in his magnificent book The Reign of the Servant Kings: A Study of Eternal Security and the Final Destiny of Man, explains that the concept of two kinds of inheritance originates in the Old Testament (OT), in particular with the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt and eventual entrance and possession of Canaan. The NT writers had ancient Israel in mind when they spoke of the inheritance of NT believers.

Dillow lays out several principles about inheritance that can be taken from the OT:

1. There is a difference between inheriting the land of Canaan and living there. The former refers to ownership and the latter to mere residence.

2. While Israel was promised the inheritance as a nation, the condition for maintaining their inheritance right to the land of Canaan was faith, obedience, and completion of one’s task. The promise, while national, was only applied to the believing remnant within the nation. Even though many within the nation were not born again, the New Testament writers use the nation as an example (1 Cor. 10:6, Gk. typos) of the experience of the born-again people of God in the New Testament.

3. The inheritance is not to be equated with heaven but with something additional to heaven, promised to those believers who faithfully obey the Lord.

4. Just as Old Testament believers forfeited their earthly inheritance through disobedience, we can also forfeit our future reward (inheritance) by a similar failure. Loss of inheritance, however, does not mean loss of salvation.

5. Two kinds of inheritance were enjoyed in the Old Testament. All Israelites who had believed and were therefore regenerate had God as their inheritance but not all inherited the land. This paves the way for the notion that the New Testament may also teach two inheritances. We are all heirs of God, but we are not all joint-heirs with Christ, unless we persevere to the end of life. The former refers to our salvation and the latter to our reward.

6. A child of Israel was both an heir of God and an heir of Canaan by virtue of belief in God and resulting regeneration. Yet only those believers in Israel who were faithful would maintain their status as firstborn sons who would actually receive what had been promised to them as an inheritance.

Dillow then connects these conclusions to the NT:

The relevance of these conclusions to the doctrine of the saints’ perseverance [in the NT] is obvious. First, if this is in fact the Old Testament view, it surely must have informed the thinking of the New Testament writers. If that is so, then many passages, which have been considered as descriptions of the elect, are in fact conditions of obtaining a reward in heaven.

For example, Paul warns the Corinthians, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?” If “inheriting the kingdom” means “going to heaven,” then Paul is saying no wicked person can go to heaven. Such an interpretation would be consistent with the [Calvinist] system which says that the permanently carnal Christian is a fiction.

If, on the other hand, “to inherit the kingdom” refers not to entering heaven but to possessing and ruling in the kingdom as it does in the Old Testament, then an entirely different interpretation of the passage emerges. Instead of warning merely professing Christians that they may not be Christians at all, he is telling true Christians that, if they do not change their behavior, they may be in the kingdom, but they will not rule there.

Were the NT writers concerned with people getting into heaven by expressing trust in Jesus Christ? Obviously. That is the gospel message in its simplest form. But, they were also extremely concerned about what a person who has placed his trust in Christ does with the rest of his life. How you, as a believer in Christ, conduct your life determines your rewards in heaven.

There is no point in winning the lottery if you do nothing with the money after you win. Likewise, the person who places their trust in Christ, but then fails to follow Christ for the rest of their life, is like the lottery winner who receives the check in the mail and then sticks it under the mattress.

Faith and Works, Salvation

Do Christians Work for Their Inheritance? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

The New Testament (NT) writers often speak of believers gaining or losing a future inheritance from God. In many cases, the inheritance is gained or lost because of the works of the believer. Since we are clearly taught elsewhere in the NT that gaining entrance into heaven is only by faith, then what are we to make of acquiring or losing an inheritance from God by works of good or evil?

In part 1, we started looking at theologian Joseph Dillow’s answer to this question from his book The Reign of the Servant Kings: A Study of Eternal Security and the Final Destiny of Man. How do we interpret the many passages in the NT that speak of Christian believers gaining or losing an inheritance from God based on meritorious works?

Dillow first reminds us of the existence of carnal Christians, Christians who have turned their back on Christ and his teachings.

It is plain that the New Testament not only teaches the existence of the carnal Christian but of true Christians who persisted in their carnality up to the point of physical death (see Acts 5:1-10; 1 Cor. 5:5; 3:15; 11:30; Heb. 10:29; 1 Jn. 5:16-17). They will, having been justified, be in the kingdom; however, they will not inherit it (see Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5; 1 Cor. 6:9).

Inherit what?

Vine points out that the term [inherit] is often used of “that which is received on the condition of obedience to certain precepts (1 Pet. 3:9), and of faithfulness to God amidst opposition (Rev. 21:7).” Only the obedient and faithful inherit, not all who are saved. It is a “reward in the coming age” and “reward of the condition of soul which forbears retaliation and self-vindication, and expresses itself in gentleness of behaviour.” Vine points out that it is “the reward of those who have shown kindness to the ‘brethren’ of the Lord in their distress.”

The Sermon on the Mount illustrates the concept of merited rewards.

The Savior says, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit [kleronomeo] the earth” (Mt. 5:5). The subject matter is our reward in heaven: “Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward [misthos] in heaven” (Mt. 5:12). The idea of rewards is repeatedly emphasized in the Sermon, which is addressed primarily to the disciples (5:1).

The word misthos basically means a “payment for work done.” Jesus is speaking of the inheritance here as a reward for a humble, trusting life. There is no indication that all Christians have this quality of life. In fact, it is possible for a Christian to become “saltless” (Mt. 5:13) and be “thrown out.” True Christians can lose their saltiness, their testimony for the Lord. When they do, they forfeit their reward in heaven. Furthermore, He specifically says that the disobedient believer who annuls “one of the least of these commandments” will be in the kingdom (Mt. 5:19) but will be “least” in contrast to “great” in that kingdom.

It seems that there are two kinds of inheritance: entrance into heaven and rewards in heaven. The first inheritance cannot be forfeited, but the second can. Most of the time in the NT, when inheritance is mentioned, rewards in heaven are the subject. Dillow explains:

While entering the kingdom has often been equated with inheriting the kingdom, there is no semantic or exegetical basis for the equality. Even in English we acknowledge a distinction between entering and inheriting. A tenant, for example, may live on or enter a landowner’s great estate, but he does not own or inherit it. . . .

[T]here is no reason to assume that entering the kingdom and living there is the same thing as owning it and ruling in it. The heirs of the kingdom are its owners and rulers and not just its residents. Kendall agrees, “In other words, salvation is unchangeable but our inheritance in the kingdom of God is not unchangeable. Once saved, always saved, but our inheritance in God’s kingdom may change considerably.”

Here is the bottom line: whenever the writers of the NT are talking about a future inheritance to be gained or lost based on the works and character qualities of the Christian believer, the subject is rewards in heaven, not entrance into heaven. If you remember this simple rule, a number of difficult passages will become clear to you. As a born-again believer, your entrance into heaven is secure, but your rewards are not.

Faith and Works, Salvation

Do Christians Work for Their Inheritance? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

The New Testament (NT) writers often speak of believers gaining or losing a future inheritance from God. In many cases, the inheritance is gained or lost because of the works of the believer. Since we are clearly taught elsewhere in the NT that gaining entrance into heaven is only by faith, then what are we to make of acquiring or losing an inheritance from God by works of good or evil?

Theologian Joseph Dillow has offered an answer to this question in his masterful volume The Reign of the Servant Kings: A Study of Eternal Security and the Final Destiny of Man. Dillow first explains what the Greek word for “inheritance” (kleronomia) means:

Like its Old Testament counterpart a kleronomia is fundamentally a possession. How it is acquired or passed on to one’s descendants is not intrinsic to the word. The word does not always or even fundamentally mean an estate passed on to a son at the death of a parent, as it does in Gal. 4:7. To include those contextually derived notions within the semantic value of the word itself is . . . to commit an illegitimate totality transfer. Arndt and Gingrich define it as an “inheritance, possession, property.” Abbott-Smith concurs that it means “in general, a possession, inheritance.” Rarely, if ever, does it mean “property transmitted by will.” Vine observes that “only in a few cases in the Gospels has it the meaning ordinarily attached to that word in English, i.e., that into possession of which the heir enters only on the death of an ancestor.”

How is the concept of inheritance used in the NT? Dillow catalogs several different usages:

[T]he words for inheritance in the New Testament often involve spiritual obedience (i.e., faith plus works) as a condition of obtaining the inheritance. Becoming an heir (kleronomos) can occur through filial relationship, through faith, or through some kind of works of obedience. The acquisition of the inheritance (kleronomia) is often related to merit.

Dillow points out that when the verb “to inherit” is used in the NT, it is almost always contextually linked to “either the presence or absence of some work or character quality as a condition of obtaining or forfeiting the possession.” (emphasis added) The problem is, then, what the possession is.

Some biblical interpreters (i.e., hyper-Calvinists) have mistakenly argued that the possession that is inherited is entrance into heaven, but this interpretation creates serious problems because entrance into heaven is all about faith, not works. To solve this problem, hyper-Calvinists will argue that true Christians will necessarily persevere to the end and gain their inheritance. If a person thinks they are a Christian, but then fails to inherit entrance into heaven, then they were never a true Christian to begin with.

This interpretation, however, is deeply flawed and unsatisfying. The numerous “inheritance” passages in the NT are invariably written to Christian audiences. The passages which speak of a person gaining or losing an inheritance because of his works are written to believers. We need to take these passages at face value and deal with this fact. In part 2, we’ll continue Dillow’s analysis.