Incentives:
Co-Reigning with Christ
1 John
5:4, 5 NASB “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and
this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith.
Rev 3:21,22 NASB “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to
sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father
on His throne.
Stephen Weinberg is a professor of physics at
So what solace does he offer in light of this? What is the significance
of man according to Weinberg and others in our secular culture who hold to a
system of origins based on evolution? What are we to make of this pointless
situation in our hostile cosmos? He only has one answer. “The effort to
understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a
little above the level of a farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.”
In writing about religion he states: “Religion is an insult to human dignity.
With or without it you would have people doing good things and evil people
doing evil things, but for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
What a cynical view of life! What a depressing view of life! He
expresses in this quote the despair, the emptiness, the anger of modern man
toward God. Modern man who is without truth, without hope and without Christ
has nothing to truly live for other than the pleasure, the stimulation of the
moment, or whatever he finds some little meaning in what he studies. For the
Christian, though, we have purpose, meaning, a clear destiny explained in the
Scripture. The Scripture teaches that not only do we have a purpose and destiny
but that destiny is to rule and reign with Jesus Christ, and that today’s life
functions within the framework of a training ground for that future destiny. As
we orient our thinking to that future destiny it gives meaning and purpose and
value to even the most minute things that happen in our life. Things that seem
to be pure coincidence suddenly take on new meaning and emphasis. We see this
in such passages as Revelation 3:20, 21.
These letters in Revelation 2 & 3 are to challenge believers with
the reality that Jesus Christ can come back today, tonight, tomorrow. The
question is: Are we ready? not simply in the soteriological sense of preparing
one’s self by faith in Jesus Christ as to whether or not our destiny is heaven.
That is important, the most important decision that we will ever make in this
life. At that instant we not only have eternal life but we are adopted into the
royal family of God through a process known as regeneration, and we become
spiritual infants. There is a process of growth that takes place after that
where we grow to spiritual maturity. But it is not just for the fact of growing
to spiritual maturity, it is that we are in training for a future role and
responsibility, and this is what we see emphasized in these overcomer passages
at the end of each of these evaluation reports. It is indicated by the use of
this word “throne” in Revelation 3:21, that if we are overcomers then we will
be granted a special privilege and position to sit with the Lord Jesus Christ
on His throne. As He shares that position with the Father, so we too will share
in that position with the Lord Jesus Christ. So our emphasis now is to
understand the emphasis of this reference to sitting “with Me on my throne.”
Revelation
This throne of the Lord Jesus Christ derives from an Old Testament
promise, referred to as the Davidic covenant. David was the first great king of
There are four eternal promises in the covenant. They are eternal in
nature; they are mediated through Jesus who is the Messiah. There is the
promise of an eternal dynasty, the promise of an eternal throne, the promise of
an eternal kingdom, and the promise of an eternal descendant. So the foundation
for talking about the throne of Jesus Christ is in 2 Samuel 7.
The next time we see this promise developed a little bit in the Old
Testament is in Isaiah 9:7: NASB “There will be no end to the
increase of {His} government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his
kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From
then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish
this.” So the Messiah will establish the throne of David and reign over His
kingdom. This is important because this is the backdrop for Luke 1:32, 33 where
the angel Gabriel announces to Mary the birth of a son: NASB “He
will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God
will give Him the throne of His father David;
So we come back to Revelation 3:21: “He who overcomes, I will grant to
him to sit down with Me on My throne...” What throne is this? In the light of
what we have seen in 2 Samuel 7, Isaiah 9 and Luke 1 it is the throne of David.
That is His throne. He is not sitting on that throne now, the throne of David
is going to be centered in
There are numerous references to a throne in the book of Revelation.
There is the throne of Satan mentioned in the letter to
All of this is important for understanding the entire concept of our
inheritance and rewards, for that is what these overcomer passages are talking
about. They are emphasizing the fact that there is an incentive out there for
believers.
All believer have the potential for rewards and inheritance. God set
these up in eternity past. So there is a package deal of assets, blessings,
rewards, and privileges that has our name on it. It was set aside by God in
eternity past and as you would grow to maturity, then as a result of your
growth and capacity God would begin to distribute blessings in time, and then
as a result of what you did in time there would be a distribution of other
blessings and rewards in the future. They are already yours, they have your
name on them. You don’t have to do anything to earn or deserve them, it is
grace. But you have to grow to maturity or you won’t get to enjoy them. It is
not works. God is not rewarding us for works in that sense, it is a growth of
capacity. And God is not going to bless us beyond our capacity to handle it,
otherwise the distribution of these blessings would just be abused and it would
ruin us. All believers have the potential for this inheritance, and that
distribution of eternal rewards and inheritance occurs at the judgment seat of
Christ.
Some rewards are described as crowns, Revelation 2:10; 2 Timothy 4:8;
other rewards such as those mentioned in the evaluation reports of Revelation 2
& 3 have to do with privileges, responsibilities, and different things that
will be provided for us in the Millennial kingdom and the eternal state. All of
these come under the category of what is referred to as an inheritance, that
which is a possession of ours for eternity. There are two categories of
inheritance. Romans
We see this exemplified in 2 Timothy 2:8-13 NASB “Remember
Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel,
In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 Paul gives a grocery list of his sufferings.
“Are they servants of Christ?—I speak as if insane—I more so; in far more
labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger
of death.
So Paul then quotes, talking about the importance of this endurance: “It
is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we will also live with
Him…” This is a reference back to Romans 6:8, that at the point of faith alone
in Christ alone we are identified with Christ in the justice of God is such a
way that His death becomes your death and His payment for sin is your payment
for sin. Then the next verse tells us about what happens after salvation. “…if
we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us.”
Endurance isn’t a condition for salvation, it is related to spiritual growth.
This is the Greek word HUPOMENO [u(pomenw], meaning to remain under,
top persevere, to sustain, to bear up under adversity. It is the idea of
remaining in the adversity by means of the application of doctrine with the
result that you have joy, stability, peace and tranquillity. If we endure we
will reign with Him. That is what Revelation
Then we have a warning at the end of that verse: “If we deny Him, He
also will deny us.” Does that mean He denies us salvation? No. It means that if
we deny Him He denies us rewards. Then, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot
deny Himself.” That is our promise of eternal security. Even if we fail He is
faithful and can’t deny Himself; you will still be saved, but we will lose
rewards.
So there is this emphasis on the fact that we will reign in the future.
1 Corinthians 6:2 NASB “Or do you not know that the saints will
judge the world? … Do you not know that we will judge angels?” Revelation 20:4 NASB “Then I
saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them.” These
thrones are the thrones that we will sit on as believers in the church age in
our resurrection bodies, returning with the Lord and ruling in the kingdom.
This takes place when he returns. Matthew 25:31-32 NASB “But when
the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will
sit on His glorious throne.
The issue for us: Are you an overcomer?