- CHAPTER 3: Jesus, Heir of All Things

REBELLION AND SIN have left a monstrous blight upon the earth that God created. But we who have come to trust this Creator God and the written revelation He has left for us are convinced of two truths. One, heaven and earth are a unity, designed and created by the one God. Two, this sovereign God did not make the universe to be an everlasting contradiction; a day of restoration lies ahead.
When we approach the letter to the Hebrews, we discover a revealed truth within the writer’s insistence that God has appointed Jesus, the eternal Son, “through whom he made the universe,” as “heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2).
With that expression, the writer is asking us to stretch our minds and expand our understanding. See it again: God has appointed His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who made the worlds in space, to be the eternal heir of “all things.”
Perhaps in our day and age it does not sound very important that Christ is the heir of all things. That is because we may be applying our own restricted meaning to the words “all things.” We use the expression to denote the circumstances of life as they come along, easy or hard, simple or complex. But in these opening lines of the Hebrews letter the Holy Spirit is trying to give us a particular and significant meaning for the “all things” that are committed to Jesus Christ.
“All things” equals the universe
When the words all things are used in the Bible as they are found here, they are the theological equivalent of the word “universe” as used by the philosophers. Admittedly, this is not an easy concept for us to grasp. We are not used to stretching our minds! The preachers of our generation are failing us. They are not forcing us to crank up our minds and to exercise our souls in the contemplation of God’s eternal themes.
Too many preachers are satisfied to dwell primarily on the escape element in Christianity. I acknowledge that the escape element is real. No one is more sure of it than I. I am going to escape a much-deserved hell because of Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave. But if we continue to emphasize that truth to the exclusion of all else, Christian believers will never fully grasp what the Scriptures are teaching us about all of the eternal purposes of God.
This same observation is true also of those who are intrigued with just the social and ethical aspects of Christianity. These may be very fulfilling and engaging, but if that is where we stop, we will never comprehend the greater promises and the loftier plans of the God who loves us and who has called us.
We must get serious
As I have said before, for a great number of unthinking people Christianity has come down to this: a nice, simple, relaxing way of having good clean fun, with the assurance that when this earthly life is over we will still go to heaven. We need to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and vow, “I am going to think this thing through! I am going to pray through and lay hold of God’s meaning for my life, for my witness and for my future!” Our Lord is trying to show us His amazing and significant plans for our eternal future.
In our relationships down here on earth, we learn of a father who has decided he will prepare an inheritance for his son. He is going to arrange for his son to come into possession of all that is in his estate: properties, bank accounts, stocks and bonds, possessions. The son will receive title to the entire estate when the inheritance becomes effective. Think of it! The son is coming into an inheritance none of which he ever owned or possessed.
But that is not the case with the title and possessions and authority and power of our Lord Jesus Christ. Already He is Lord. As the risen, eternal Son, He is seated in the heavenlies awaiting the day of universal consummation. In his Gospel, the apostle John has introduced us to the eternal Son, who from the beginning was the Word of God:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4)
Before there was an atom or a molecule, before there was a star or a galaxy, before there was light or motion, before there was matter or mass, the eternal Son was God. He was. He existed. He would have been there even if there had not been accretion, for He was the self-existent God. Therefore, all thing sin all places have always belonged to Him.
God has a master plan
God is planning to do some wonderful and spectacular things with His vast creation. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, gave us a little glimpse into the future of the redeemed:
He has made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10)
The apostle is assuring us that even as an architect builder gathers the necessary materials needed to fashion the structure he has designed, so God will gather all things together. And how will He do that? By “bringing all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” If we will give the Scriptures attention, we will learn from them that a great future day is coming in which God will prove the essential unity of His creation. That spectacular display will be correlated and fulfilled in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. God will make it plain that all things have derived their form from Christ; they have received their meaning by the power of His word; and they have maintained their place and order through Him.
Jesus Christ is God creating.
Jesus Christ is God redeeming.
Jesus Christ is God completing and harmonizing.
Jesus Christ is God bringing together all things after the counsel of His own will.
Not yet do we see it
After that flight of anticipation for a future still coming, I must admit that we earthbound creatures do not yet see it or sense it like that. Let me speak again of our acknowledged human shortcomings, even those that have to do with our faith. It is very hard for us to envision the risen Christ Jesus as He is now glorified at the right hand of the Majesty on high. At best “we see but a poor reflection” (1 Corinthians 13:12). At worst we are stone blind!
Not always can we see the hand of God in the things around us. We experience in this life only unfinished segments of God’s great eternal plan. We do not see the hosts of heaven in the “cloud of witnesses” around us. We do not see the “spirits of righteous men made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23) or the beckoning row on row of principalities or the shining ranks of powers throughout the universe. In this time of our incompleteness, we do not comprehend the glory that will be ours in that future day when leaning on the arm of our heavenly Bridegroom we are led into the presence of the Father in heaven with exceeding joy.
We do our best to exercise faith. Yet we see the future consummation only dimly and imperfectly. The writer to the Hebrews has tried to help us in the proper exercise of our faith. He has done so with his amazing statement that our Lord Jesus Christ is the heir of all things in God’s far-flung creation.
It is a concept having to do with everything that God has made in His vast universe. Everything has been ordered, created and laid out so that it becomes the garment of Deity or the universal living expression of Himself to the world.
When we read that God has appointed Jesus, the Son, to be the heir of all things, the reference is to the whole creation of God as it will be seen in its future, ultimate perfection. We cannot believe that God has left anything to chance in His creative scheme. That includes everything from the tiniest blade of grass on earth to the mightiest galaxy in the distant heavens above.
All things—what is included?
“Heir of all things.” What does that phrase really include? It includes angels, seraphim, cherubim, ransomed men and women of all ages, matter, mind, law, spirit, value, meaning. It includes life and events on the varied levels of being. It includes all of these and more—and God’s great interest embraces them all!
Are you beginning to gain a new appreciation of God’s great universal purpose? I am not simply assuming the role of philosopher. The purpose of God is to bring together—to acquaint all rational beings with all other segments within His complex creation. I repeat that I believe in the essential unity of all God’s creation. Thus, I believe a day is coming when each part of God’s creation will recognize its own essential oneness with very other part. Toward that day the whole creation is moving.
When I wrote about this concept in an editorial in Alliance Life, a reader hastened to accuse me of being pantheistic. I am not pantheistic. And the essential unity of God’s creation is not pantheism. Pantheism teaches that God is all things and that all things are God. According to pantheism, if you want to know what God is you must come to know all things. Then, if you could put all things in your arms, you would have God. Pantheism is ridiculous—claiming and teaching that all things are God.
God is imminent in His universe. That I believe. But beyond that, He is transcendent above His universe and infinitely separated from it, for He is the Creator God.
Not a new concept
These basic concepts—the mysteries of creation and God’s unity forever displayed in His works—are not new. They were believed by the great Christian souls and minds of the earlier centuries. One of the notable Scottish Moravian authors was James Montgomery. Out of his writing comes this beautiful poem expressing the unity he sensed in God’s creation:
The glorious universe around,
The heavens with all their train,
Sun, moon and stars are firmly bound
In one mysterious chain.
The earth, the ocean and the sky
To form one world agree;
Where all that walk or swim or fly
Compose one family.
God in creation must display
His wisdom and His might;
Where all His works with all His ways
Harmoniously unite.
Montgomery’s use of the word harmoniously is impressive. It affirms that finally, when sin has been purged from God’s universe, everything in creation will be consummate with everything else. There will be universal cosmic harmony.
We are only too aware that the universe as we know it is in discord. On every side sounds the raucous rattle of sin. But in that coming day sin will be purged away and all things that walk, creep, crawl, swim or fly will be found to comprise one family indeed.
And the church, too
Allow me one more point. I want to say something about the body of Christian believers and this universal unity that one day will be established in the person of Jesus Christ. If I could ask, “Do you believe in the communion of saints?” what would be your reply? Would the question make you uncomfortable?
I suspect many Protestants would chide me right here, feeling I was getting too close to doctrinal beliefs held by ecumenists or perhaps by Catholics. I am not referring to ecumenicity and dreams of organizational church union. I am gazing ahead in faith to God’s great day of victory, harmony and unity, when sin is no longer present in the creation. In that great coming day of consummation, the children of God—the believing family of God—will experience a blessed harmony and communion of the Spirit. I surely agree with the foresight of the English poet, John Brighton, who caught a glimpse of a coming day of fellowship among the people of God. He wrote:
In one eternal bond of love,
One fellowship of mind,
The saints below and saints above
Their bliss and glory find.
I believe that is scriptural. I do not think anyone should throw out the great doctrine of the communion of saints just because the ecumenists embrace it.
Some day we will comprehend
The unity of all things in Christ is a concept every believer should lay hold of. When we witness the future day of Christ’s triumph, when He returns and we reach the consummation of all things, then we will fully comprehend the necessity for the “all things” in God’s eternal plan.
Many people are having their greatest battles over their deepening sense of futility and uselessness. It is important that we grasp God’s revelation that every one of us is essential to His great plan for the ages. You will seek answers in vain from fellow men and women. Seek your answers rather from God and His Word. He is sovereign; He is still running His world.
God wants us to know that He must have all the parts in order to compose His great eternal symphony. He would have us assured that each one of us is indispensable to His grand theme!