Jesus Reigns, and We Will Reign with Him

Jesus lives. He reigns in the heavens. And His kingdom on this earth at present is everywhere He is honored as King. He is King of the church, and King of our hearts.

We are co-heirs with Christ, so we will reign with Christ. This is a significant aspect of the believer’s eternal hope. We can find rest in it. We will be fulfilled thorough the good work that God will allow us to do in all eternity, without any toil associated with that work.

And while here, we can pray; we can say, “Jesus may your kingdom come.” I envision that prayer as two-part. May His kingdom come through the mission of the church to win more and more worshippers to Him, and may His kingdom come on earth as in the new earth, echoing the prayer of Revelation: “Come, Lord Jesus.”

While we await the present rule of Jesus on this earth, we can know that He lives and His throne is in the heavens, with the earth as His footstool (Isaiah 66:1). He even now intercedes for all of His faithful followers who love to listen to His directions.

Indeed, the ultimate goal of missions is for the Lord: that He would receive more praise on this earth from more faithful followers. Jesus lives to make intercession, the Lord tells us (Hebrews 7:25). He pleads for us before the Father — it is our good that He pleads. We know through this intercession something important about His heavenly kingdom: all hinges and rests on Him.

He is faithful to make intercession for us because He is our faithful Mediator before the Father. He keeps all of the worshipers in His kingdom for Himself through His intercessions that are based upon the perfection of His sacrifice.  And He can make those intercessions because He became fully man. He lives because He is God, and He can intercede for us as Mediator because He is fully God and fully man.

Think of it! He keeps us for Himself through His intercessory work based upon His atoning works so that His future reign of righteousness will be shared by us. We have a good — incomprehensible, even fearfully (in awe) — good God. His goodness knows no bounds. Surely, it is good that our present and future hopes rest on Jesus Christ.

Are you surprised that we will reign with Jesus? 2 Timothy 1:12 tells us it is true: “if we endure, we will also reign with Him.” The reign will come after this phase of our lives is over — when He rules and reigns on earth. John Calvin comments: “…we suffer with him, in order that we may be partakers of his glory … How unreasonable is it, that we should esteem more highly the transitory life of this world than the holy and sacred name of the Son of God!” The promise that we will reign with Christ causes us to look highly upon our future with Him, and it changes us in the present.

Calvin is right — we are made holy, even now, through our suffering. That holiness makes us fit to one day reign with Christ — that holiness, a gift of God through Christ to one day be perfected in glory. A future reign makes us desire to prepare ourselves, to run the race of this life with grace and endurance so that we will be ready for His coming.

Sometimes, following Christ involves a change in our dreams and desires. We won’t always feel fulfilled on this earth in everything that we do. But we are fulfilled in Christ spiritually at all times. We won’t always be as fruitful as we desire. But we will do the good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do here. We will have tribulations and hardships. But nothing can take us from the Lord who lives to intercede for us before the Father.

We may have trials, but we are kept by Christ — and He can be our focus, our first and best relationship and our most encouraging one. And we take joy in looking to Him first for His sake, not simply for ours. This is part of Christian maturity, that as the truth of the matchless, bounding grace of Christ is the cause for our daily praise, we come to focus ourselves on Him and on the worship of Him. We have a good God who forgives our sins and who will be the holy recipient of our service, worship, and praise forevermore. As commentator Knute Larson puts it:

“Western Christianity has often adopted one of the most damaging values to true Christian faith — the pursuit of comfort and ease. Christ is frequently presented as the answer to our problems or the fulfillment of our needs. Yet Paul understood the Christian life as one of continual struggle, suffering, and hardship — to bring glory to Christ. Christ brings to the believer the supernatural ability to persist, to endure, and to respond with, joy and thanksgiving (Col. 1:10–12).”

We can maintain this Christ-focus of our lives in our trials — the receiving of God’s goodness for His glory and the giving of praise for His glory. It is then in suffering we are to remember that Christ’s kingdom is going to be shared with us: “And if we are children, then we are heirs; heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ — if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:17). We will reign over all the world with Jesus Christ; in this we have great hope and peace for the path God has set before us on this earth. We have hope.

There are many ways to rejoice in this future inheritance. The Bible says we will have eternal pleasures at the right hand of God (Psalm 16:11). We can rejoice that only the Trustworthy and True will be on the throne, that we will be given gifts and treasures beyond our current comprehension because we will be found “in” Christ, that is, in union with Him. We can also understand that our suffering prepares us for eternal joy, as we gain more and more Christ-focus.

Needless to say, we are not on a perfect world. But one day, we will know what it is to be co-heirs with Christ who reign with Him, as the Scriptures say. What joy and gratitude issue from these truths, as we really meditate upon them!

Our suffering here certainly prepares us to appreciate the glories of the life to come. And surely, it will be a life found in, through, and with Christ. For, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

He is the Head of the church, and one day He will be the visible King on the throne of David. And the scepter of His kingdom will be righteousness (Hebrews 1:8). Take heart, that Jesus reigns and we have the hope of reigning in righteousness with Him. Bless the Lord! It all hinges on Him.

Source

Larson, Knute. I & II Thessalonians, I & II Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Vol. 9. Holman New Testament Commentary. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000.

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Lianna Davis is author of Keeping the Faith: A Study in Jude and Made for a Different Land: Eternal Hope for Baby Loss. She is also a contributor to We Evangelicals and Our Mission with Cascade Books. Lianna is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She lives in Illinois with her husband and daughter. You can learn more about her writing at her website.