Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #16 of Revelation chapter 21 and we are going to read Revelation 21:7:
He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
At this point God had just spoken some of the most glorious verses found in the entire Bible. In verse after verse He gives comfort and encouragement to His people that the time has come. Of course, He was looking ahead to this time when He moved the Apostle John to write these things in the 1st century AD concerning the passing away of this present creation and the creation of the new heaven and new earth. God was looking ahead to that day and now He is making a statement which ties in the promise given to Abraham of the land for an everlasting possession to him and his seed.
Notice that it says at the beginning of this verse, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things,” and we should not overlook that word “inherit.” The word “inherit” has to do with the land. The Israelites were given the land of Canaan. It was the promised possession. Historically, when God brought them out of Egypt and through the 40-year wilderness sojourn, He brought them into the land of Canaan. They had to do battle to win the land, but once the enemies were defeated God gave the land of Canaan to Israel by lots and it became their inheritance. The Lord is using this figure in regard to the new heaven and the new earth when He says, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.” Remember, Jesus said, “The meek shall inherit the earth” and that ties into the promise God gave to Abraham and all spiritual Jews, the “seed in Christ” that would come through the Lord Jesus Christ.
First, let us look at the word “overcometh.” You hear this word in church circles with professed Christians. They talk a lot about overcoming their sins, overcoming the Devil and overcoming this and that. A lot of the time what they have in mind is that they have to do it. They have to put forth effort and exercise their will and their faith and they will overcome. If we are not careful, we could come away with that kind of idea regarding this word. God is talking to those that are strong. They are winners and they are the ones that made it through and they overcome. Actually, there is a good deal of Biblical language we could misapply to think of this word in that manner. For example, it says in Matthew 10, “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.” It is like the “survival of the fittest” in the erroneous teaching of evolution, so we do not want to get anywhere near that kind of thinking. It has nothing to do with being strong, tough, resilient and able to “bounce back” as the victors. That is not what God means.
It is not very exciting and it does not cause man’s ears to tingle when we share the truth of the Bible, but the truth is that God is not looking at the individual sinner as he who overcomes. He is not looking at you or me or anybody else. He is looking at One and that would be the One without Sin, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was without sin but who bore the sins of His people. It says 1John 5:4-5:
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
The word “victory” is the same word as “overcometh.” The way this is written in verse 5, we could easily get the wrong idea and think that it is through our “belief” and our “faith” that we would overcome and if we are failing to overcome as we think we should, it is because we lack faith or lack belief. That is not so. Actually, God tells us twice in verse 4, “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.” In order to overcome, one must be “born again.” How can I get myself born again? Of course, today there is no more salvation, but when God was saving in the day of salvation (also known as the acceptable “year” of the Lord), God would grant faith by giving the person a new heart and a new spirit. He did all the work in salvation. We were not justified by our own faith because that would be a work and Galatians, chapter 2 tells us, “No man is justified by the works of the law.” God does command that we believe. Take a look at 1John 3:23:
And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
This is His commandment that we should believe. Remember the verse in Acts that so many like to quote: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” That is a commandment. This is God’s commandment and, yet, some people think they can keep that commandment. They say, “I can keep that commandment. I will believe and I will be saved. It is simple. Any child can understand it.” However, they are in error. They have made a grave mistake and they have fallen into trap because God is commanding it and whenever God commands something, our response is a “work.” So when God says, “Thou shalt not kill,” or “Thou shalt not steal, or “Honor your mother and father,” do the churches say, “Well, God says to keep the Ten Commandments, so I will keep the Ten Commandments and I will be saved”? No, they do not say that. Why not? The Jews were misled along those lines when God commanded them to be circumcised or to follow certain ceremonial laws or sacrificial rites. They fell for that snare. But the churches learned and they could see that Galatians 2:16 says that no man is justified by the works of the law. So they respond, “I am not going to say that any work can save me or any attempted act of obedience to a commandment of God because that is a work. I am not going to get into that trouble like Israel did.” But then they fall into the same trap when God says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and they run headlong after it and they believe and are convinced they are saved because they believed. But what they really did was to perform a work, so it is never our faith that is in view when it comes to saving faith – it is only the faith of Christ. I am going to read what I referred to a couple of times in Galatians 2:16:
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
So God could have added it is not by our faith. It is the faith of Christ. So when God says, “This is the victory that overcometh the world, our faith,” He does not mean that a person can muster up faith: “I believe in Jesus. Now I am justified. Now I have overcome.” If we are truly a child of God because God has done the work of salvation in us to make us born again, our faith IS Christ’s saving faith and His work of faith. It becomes our salvation and that is what God has in view and that is what overcomes the world. That is the only thing that overcomes the world and it is what gives the victory to those God has saved. That is what Revelation 21, verse 7 has in view: “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.” We can understand this to say, “He that Christ saves by Christ’s faith,” the individual to whom God has granted grace. God says it fairly plainly, but those that do not have ears to hear do not hear what He says in Ephesians 2:8:
For by grace are ye saved through faith…
And just in case some thinks it is their own faith, God goes on to say in Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
If it were a man’s faith, it would be a work, but that cannot be because no man is justified by the works of the law, so we are saved by faith and that faith is not of ourselves, as Galatians 2:16 told us; it is the faith OF the Lord Jesus Christ. It is His faith that saves and it is through His faith that we overcome in Him and through Him: “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.” We will inherit all things that God had promised in His Word. In going over the earlier verses in Revelation, chapter 21, we have discussed some of these glorious and wonderful things – things that are beyond our ability to comprehend. We just cannot really understand the fullness of it. If we could, we would be far more joyful and excited. If we could be “transported” as the Apostle Paul was when he heard unspeakable words and he spoke of the unspeakable gift, and we could just get a glimpse of the future God has for us and then come back to this earth, we would look so excitedly and with great expectation to the eternal future that awaits us. It is eternal life. It is eternal bliss. It is eternal peace and happiness. It is an eternal possession where we will do work that is valuable, with purpose and meaning. We will not build and another inhabit, but we will inhabit. We will not plant and another get the fruit, but we will enjoy the fruits of our labor, and so forth. There will be great meaning to life.
God says that the one He has saved will inherit “all things.” This goes back, again, to the promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:7-8:
And he said unto him, I am JEHOVAH that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord JEHOVAH, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?
Then God tells him to offer sacrifices and there is actually (spiritual) instruction in that because a sacrifice points to Christ and it is through Christ that we can know that we are heirs of promise and of the things God has said in His Word.
It says in Exodus 32:13:
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
Do you see how God just inserts that little statement, “for ever.” If He had not said that, we might think He was talking only to national Israel or the physical Jews about the physical land of Canaan. But God very consistently gives us these kinds of statements: “And all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.” Therefore, it is not anything that is part of this present world; nothing that is part of this creation will endure for ever. It has to be a new creation, a new land and a new earth and that is what God declares in Psalm, chapter 25, where He expands on the promise to Abraham and His seed. It says in Psalm 25:13:
His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth.
This is what Christ was drawing from the Old Testament when He said, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” God had already promised in the Old Testament that the meek would inherit the earth. The word “earth” in the Old Testament is sometimes translated as “land.” We find that in Psalm 37 God really spends a good deal of time going over the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. He says in Psalm 37:9:
For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon JEHOVAH, they shall inherit the earth.
Then He says in Psalm 37:11:
But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
This entire Psalm is really worth spending time on, but for our purposes, we will pick out a few verses. It says in Psalm 37:22:
For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off.
The cursed do not inherit the earth. They do not move on to the new creation. They are not equipped with new spiritual bodies. They are not given an eternal land for a habitation. They do not dwell with God in their presence for evermore, but their ending does not seem as awful today as it once did, does it? They do not have to suffer in an eternal place called “Hell,” and we are grateful that God has taught us about the true final judgment upon mankind. But it also tends to make us think that their punishment is not all that bad, that is until you see what the blessings of eternal life involve or until you are actually in the new heaven and new earth and you have a new spiritual body and you begin to enjoy the pleasures at the right hand of God for evermore.
You know, as we go on into eternity, we will not consider or remember the former things, but, certainly, the further we go into this eternal future that God has prepared for us and we will experience blessing, after blessing, after blessing. In contrast, the unsaved will die like beasts and they will be cut off and cease to be. It is a horrible thing that they will not enjoy these rich blessings of God that will be bestowed in such abundance.
But God is focused on His seed, the promised seed, and they will inherit the earth. It also says in Psalm 37:29:
The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.
Notice how God is not calling it “earth,” but He calls it “land.” By the way, this word is also translated as “earth” in other places in this same Psalm. This verse sounds very similar to what it said in Genesis, chapter 17, where it said the land would be an everlasting possession. It matches what we read in Exodus 32:13, where it said they shall inherit it for ever. God is clearly describing the new earth and it is the fulfillment of the promise. There is absolutely no question or doubt about it.
It says in Psalm 37:34:
Wait on JEHOVAH, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.
That matches our present situation since May 21, 2011. God has saved all His people, the promised seed, and we are left on the earth to be tried and tested, as it says in Zechariah 13:8:
And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith JEHOVAH, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.
The “third part” is the elect. They are left, but they endure and come through the fire at the end and then God will lift them up and exalt them into the new creation. Then it says in Zechariah 13:9:
And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, JEHOVAH is my God.
Notice how that relates to Revelation 21:3:
… Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
Do you see how Zechariah 13 fits in with enduring to the end to the time when the world passes away and God creates the new heaven and the new earth. Then we will inherit the earth and we will have seen the cutting off of the wicked.