Who then are the “blessed by my Father”, that inherit the Kingdom of God? Are these people who are sinless? When we look at the passage carefully, we will notice, that it is not those who deserve to be in God’s presence, but those who inherit it. How can we understand that? The heirs of someone (as a rule) are his children. They do not inherit their fortune because they deserve it, but because they are the children of the testator. Inheritance is obtained after the testator has died. In His New Testament God uses that metaphor. Every person that receives God’s pardon through Jesus, belongs to the family of God, because the barrier, which separated us from God, is removed. Being a child of God then, we can joyfully call God our Father! But to belong to ‘the family of God’, one must be born into it. It says of Jesus:
“He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name (The name “Jesus” means Saviour), He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:10 – 13).
Explaining this, Jesus said:
“I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.
Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:3 – 7).
It requires some thinking to understand the deeper meaning of this metaphor. We are all alive, because we were born into this world. That was our physical birth. Jesus said that to be truly human the way God intended it, we must also be born spiritually. Without a spiritual birth one is spiritually dead.
Spiritual birth into the ‘family’ of God is effected through faith in Jesus. This faith not only constitutes trust in what He did for us, but also the recognition of our desperate need for His forgiveness. He was the one who was killed in our place. By this rebirth we become children of God and by that His heirs. (Romans 8:17, Galatians 3:29).
Having understood this, we will agree with an important statement in the New Testament:
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