Have you ever felt you were less important than other people? Have you ever thought that you were not as valuable as someone else? God doesn’t see you that way. When we believe on Christ, Romans 8:17 says we become “heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ.” Every believer has access to all the riches Christ has to give.
In Todd Chipman’s wonderful book about adoption, Until Every Child Is Home, he tells the story Doug and Virginia Webster, Christians from Canada who adopted two boys and then later gave birth to a biological daughter of their own. The two older, adopted brothers playfully teased with their younger sister, “We’re special. We were chosen! You just came along!”[1] In an interesting turn of events, all three of the Webster’s children are the firstborn in their families. Both of their adopted sons was a firstborn and their daughter is a firstborn child as well. Doug Webster said, “As it turned out, all three of our children are firstborn, which is how I think the sons and daughters of God are privileged in the gospel of the kingdom.”[2] Chipman adds, “As we partner with our local church to care for kids in crisis, we participate in God’s concern for His glory in His image bearers. Every human is unique, all are first-born to God.”[3]
Indeed, when we are saved, we become joint-heirs with Christ. We are all first-born children in the sense that all of us get the entire inheritance of regeneration, forgiveness, grace, justification, the imputed righteousness of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. It’s not as if some of God’s kids get more of this than others! When we are saved, we are all first-born. Of course, Jesus is the firstborn over all creation (Colossians 1:15), but He saves us and makes each believer a firstborn child of God.
[1] Todd Chipman, Until Every Child Is Home: Why the Church Can and Must Care for Orphans (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2019), 51.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 55. I like this illustration, but my use of it here is not meant to imply that my colleague Dr. Chipman would agree with all of my conclusions on soteriology.