In verses 31 and 32 Paul continues, “Wherefore watch, remembering that for three years, night and day, I did not cease admonishing each one with tears. And now I commit you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who have been sanctified.” Here Paul commits the believers to God and to the word of His grace. Grace is the Triune God received and enjoyed by the believers. I believe that during the three years Paul was in Ephesus, he daily spoke the word of God’s grace to the saints.
We can testify that, by the Lord’s mercy, the word of God’s grace can be found in the Life-study Messages. Recently a young brother charged the young people in the Lord’s recovery to become constituted of all the riches of the Life-studies. I agree with this brother’s word. If the young people are constituted in this way, in the recovery there will be a great dispensational transfer. I would encourage the young people to take the time over the next several years to become constituted of all the Life-study Messages. If the young people are saturated with these messages in the coming years, saturated with the word concerning God’s New Testament economy, many will be useful in serving the Lord full time. They will be able to go to other cities and countries and convey to others God’s New Testament economy. This will cause the situation among today’s Christians to be transformed. In this way the riches in the Life-studies will become known to the entire Christian community. However, the main thing is that among us many living vessels are raised up and constituted of God’s New Testament economy.
We should not think that only the young people need to be constituted of the Life-study Messages. Even those who are much older still have the time to be constituted of these messages and then have years to serve the Lord by carrying out God’s New Testament economy throughout the earth.
In 20:32 we see the function of the word of God’s grace. First, this word is able to build up the saints. To build up the saints requires the growth in the divine life, and the growth in the divine life needs the nourishment of the divine element and the edification and equipment with the divine knowledge. All these can be afforded only by the word of God’s abundant grace, which is the Triune God Himself who went through all the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension and who has been given to the saints for their enjoyment.
Second, the word of God’s grace functions to give us “the inheritance among all those who have been sanctified.” The divine inheritance is the Triune God Himself with all that He has, all He has done, and all He will do for His redeemed people. This Triune God is embodied in the all-inclusive Christ (Col. 2:9), who is the portion allotted to the saints as their inheritance (Col. 1:12). The Holy Spirit, who has been given to the saints, is the foretaste, the pledge, and the guarantee of this divine inheritance (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:14), which we are sharing and enjoying today in God’s New Testament jubilee as the foretaste and will share and enjoy in full in the coming age and for eternity (1 Pet. 1:4).
Our eternal inheritance is related to the divine life which we received through regeneration and which we are experiencing and enjoying through our entire Christian life. “This inheritance is the full possession of that which was promised to Abraham and all believers (Gen. 12:3; see Gal. 3:6ff), an inheritance, as much higher than that which fell to the children of Israel in the possession of Canaan, as the sonship of the regenerate, who have already received the promise of the Spirit through faith as a pledge of their inheritance, is higher than the sonship of Israel: compare Gal. 3:18-29; 1 Cor. 6:9; Eph. 5:5; Heb. 9:15” (Wiesinger, quoted by Alford).
An inheritance is a proper and legal possession. It is not gained by our energy, ability, or deeds. On the contrary, it is granted to us by another in a way that is legitimate. We do not work for an inheritance; we receive it.
On the day we were regenerated, we were given the right to share an inheritance. This inheritance includes all the blessings related to eternal life. Daily we need to take possession of this inheritance and enjoy it. This inheritance is legal, proper, and legitimate, for Christ died to purchase it for us, paying the price of His precious blood. Daily we may participate in and enjoy the inheritance that is ours today and for eternity.
According to Paul’s word in Acts 20:32, the inheritance is among those who have been sanctified. To participate in God’s inheritance requires us to be sanctified, and to be sanctified requires the word of God’s grace. In John 17:17 the Lord Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” To be sanctified (Eph. 5:26; 1 Thes. 5:23) is to be separated from the world and its occupation unto God and His purpose, not only positionally (Matt. 23:17, 19), but also dispositionally (Rom. 6:19, 22). God’s living word works in the believers to separate them from anything worldly. This is to be sanctified in God’s word as the truth, the reality.