Sermon 13: Romans 8:17-31

  Last night we closed our study with a consideration of the sixteenth verse of the eighth chapter of Romans:  "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."

  This evening we will commence with the seventeenth verse.  It will be impossible to consider each verse in the chapter separately, for our time is too limited, so that some of them will have to be passed with but a small amount of study.

  "And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."  There is one thought about this glory that I wish to make plain to you.  I stated last night that if we were joint-heirs with Christ, we must have whatever Christ has.  When He enters upon His kingdom, receiving that promise which God made to Abraham and to his seed, we shall enter upon it with Him.  We are joint-heirs with Christ; therefore whatever Christ enjoys now, we have too, if we are in Him. 

Whatever glory He has now, is for us also.  All the love that He enjoys in the presence of His Father, we enjoy likewise; for He says, "That the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me."  So it is that God has bestowed this wonderful love upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

  Think of it--God has one only begotten Son, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person; He is the well beloved; but O, the wideness of His love, that He is able to take us into it--to adopt us into His family and make us sharers of the same title that His only begotten Son shares.  Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.  Just as the world did not recognize Him as the divine Son of God, the heir of heaven; so it will not recognize us as the sons of God and the heirs of heaven.  "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."  We are the children of God now, just as much His sons now as we ever will be.  The glory of the Sonship is not manifested in us, but when Christ shall appear, we shall be like Him, for He "shall change this vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body."