Will All Believers Reign With Christ?

“Not all believers will eventually reign with Christ”—that idea is sometimes defended by appealing to 2 Timothy 2:11-13. All believers do indeed receive life with Christ, so the reasoning goes, but reigning with Him is reserved for those who endure in this life.

At first glance, verse 12 does indeed seem to provide clear support for that:

“if we endure, we shall also reign as kings with Him; if we disown Him, He will also disown us.”

The conclusion seems obvious: the believer who endures will eventually reign with Christ; the one who disowns Him remains saved, but forfeits his share in Christ’s reign. This creates a distinction between life with Christ, which every believer receives, and reigning with Christ, which would depend on our endurance.

But is that really what Paul says?

who are “we”?

To answer that question, we should not begin with verse 12, but with verse 11:

“For if we died together, we shall be living together also.”

Who are the “we” here? Believers only? Elsewhere Paul gives a surprisingly clear answer. In 2 Corinthians 5:14 he writes:

“… One died for the sake of all, consequently all died.”

Christ died for all, and therefore Paul also reckons all as having died with Him. And since all died with Him, all will also live with Him. That is precisely the point of the first line of the “faithful saying.”

The “we” in 2 Timothy 2:11-13 therefore cannot simply be filled in as: we believers. It concerns humanity in general. Within that “we,” different groups are then distinguished. Those who “endure” are those who believe and who, in this era, share in Christ’s rejection. They will also share in His glory and reign as kings with Him. Those who disown Him do not acknowledge Him and are likewise disowned by Him. They have no share in His reign.

But nowhere does it say here that they are believers who, through insufficient endurance, forfeit their future position. That first has to be read into the text before it can subsequently be read out of it.

an allotment you can forfeit?

There is something else. The idea that a believer can lose his share in Christ’s reign is difficult to reconcile with what Paul writes elsewhere about our allotment. In Ephesians 1:13-14 he says that believers are sealed with the “holy spirit of promise,” which is the “earnest of the enjoyment of our allotment.” An earnest is a guarantee. God Himself guarantees that the promised allotment will actually become our portion.

And what does Paul say about that allotment? Romans 8:17 describes believers as “enjoyers of an allotment from God” and “joint enjoyers of Christ’s allotment.” Paul directly connects sharing in Christ’s suffering with sharing in His glorification. Our allotment in Christ, then, is not a bonus that ultimately turns out to depend on whether we have endured sufficiently. Sharing in Christ’s glory belongs to the allotment for which God Himself has given us the guarantee.

That does not mean there can be no difference in glory or reward among believers. Paul certainly speaks about that. But that is something different from claiming that part of the Body of Christ will eventually be excluded from reigning with Him.

And ultimately the “faithful saying” concludes with precisely that on which our allotment in Christ rests:

“… if we are unfaithful, He remains faithful”

For He cannot disown Himself. Our allotment in Christ is not guaranteed by our faithfulness, but by His.

In a subsequent article, we examine a second argument for the same idea: the warning that certain people will have no inheritance in God’s Kingdom. Can a believer indeed forfeit that inheritance?

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