The True Inheritance

The central claims of the prosperity gospel include promises of physical healing and material wealth as the immediate reward of faith in Christ (Phil. 4:11–12). Yet Scripture teaches something entirely different. The Christian’s hope is found not in this life but in the resurrection and the eternal inheritance that follows. To miss this is to miss the gospel itself.

In his first letter, Peter writes to suffering believers scattered throughout the Roman provinces of Asia Minor. He does not assure them that their faith will spare them from trouble. He directs their attention instead to a hope that lies beyond this world: “He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3–4). The believer’s true inheritance is imperishable, beyond the reach of decay; undefiled, untouched by sin; unfading, unable to lose its glory through use or time. This is the prize that the gospel actually holds out.

Throughout the New Testament, the same pattern appears. Jesus warns against laying up perishable treasures on earth and instead commands His disciples to lay up treasures in heaven (Matt. 6:19–21). Paul reminds the Romans that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). The biblical writers do not promise the absence of suffering in the present life. They promise a future inheritance that makes present suffering bearable and even fruitful.

Indeed, the Bible repeatedly presents suffering as one of the means by which God conforms His people to Christ. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:16–17). The disciples of Jesus follow a Lord who was Himself a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). To follow Him is to walk where He walked, through hardship to glory.

This understanding equips us to speak the truth in love to those caught in the prosperity gospel. We do not minimize their genuine sufferings. We point them to a hope that suffering cannot diminish and a treasure that no thief can reach. The gospel does not deliver us from every present trouble. It delivers us from sin, from the wrath to come, and into an inheritance that lasts forever.