The inheritance

An heir has a claim on an estate, but an heir is also, by definition, waiting. So how do you know the inheritance is really coming? When you buy a house you put down a deposit: part of the price paid now, as a guarantee that the rest will follow. Paul uses exactly that word for the Holy Spirit. You "were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance". God "has put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a down payment" (2 Corinthians 1:22). The Spirit in you is God's deposit on you. He has already paid the first instalment, and he does not default.

What is still owed? Regeneration made your spirit alive. Sanctification is changing your mind and your life. But you still have the same body, and it still gets tired, sick and old. The last part of salvation is glorification, and it is the part you are still waiting for. Paul is honest that the waiting is hard. "The whole creation has been groaning", and "we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:22-23). But he is also certain how it ends. "Those whom he justified he also glorified" (Romans 8:30). It is so settled that he writes it in the past tense.

What will happen? Jesus is coming back. The dead in Christ rise. Those alive are changed, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye". "This perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality." He "will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory" (Philippians 3:21). John says it plainly: "when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

Then read Revelation 21 and 22 slowly. A new heaven and a new earth. God himself with his people. "Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more." His servants "will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads... and they will reign forever and ever" (Revelation 22:4-5). That is where the royal title finishes: not a badge for now, but a throne for then. That is the inheritance. That is what the deposit was for. And it is why you did what you did in the water.

For those who refuse him, the Bible is equally plain about a second death, and I will not soften that either. But "all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure" (1 John 3:3). Live ready. Not anxious. Ready.