Heir
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The Greek noun kleronomos means an heir — the person designated to receive an inheritance. In the ancient world, heirship was a matter of legal standing: the heir had rights to what the father possessed, rights that were real even before the father's death but not yet fully in hand.
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Full entry for κληρονόμος (G2818) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek noun kleronomos means an heir — the person designated to receive an inheritance. In the ancient world, heirship was a matter of legal standing: the heir had rights to what the father possessed, rights that were real even before the father's death but not yet fully in hand.
The BSB source-word alignment has 15 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include heir (7), heirs (4), [and] heirs (1), [are] heirs (1), an heir (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 21:38. Its strongest book concentrations include Romans (4), Galatians (3), Hebrews (3), James (1).
The Greek noun kleronomos means an heir — the person designated to receive an inheritance. In the ancient world, heirship was a matter of legal standing: the heir had rights to what the father possessed, rights that were real even before the father's death but not yet fully in hand. The word carries this dual quality throughout the NT — believers are already heirs (Gal.
4:7; Rom. 8:17) in the sense that their right to the inheritance is established and certain, yet the inheritance itself is described as future, reserved in heaven, awaiting full delivery at the resurrection and new creation (1 Pet. 1:4). Galatians develops the concept with particular precision. The argument of Galatians 3-4 moves from promise to seed to heir: God made a promise to Abraham, the promise passed through the Seed (Christ), and those who are in the Seed become heirs of what the promise contains.
Crucially, the inheritance belongs to the heir by promise, not by law (Gal. 3:18) — a distinction that is the whole argument. An inheritance received by law-performance would be a wage; an inheritance received by promise is a gift. The heir does not earn the estate; the heir receives it because of who they are in relation to the father. Christ is the natural heir of all things (Heb.
1:2), And those united to Christ become co-heirs — heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17). The inheritance is nothing less than God himself, the new creation, and the fullness of the Abrahamic promise.
The local Greek index currently counts about 15 occurrences for kleronomos in the New Testament, with concentrated use in Galatians 3-4 (the promise-heir argument), Romans 4 and 8 (faith and co-heirship with Christ), Hebrews (Christ as heir of all things; believers as heirs of the promise), and Matthew's parable of the tenants (the son who is killed because he is the heir). The related noun klēronomia (inheritance) and the verb klēronomeō (to inherit) extend the family of terms widely through the NT.
So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.
The logical culmination of Galatians 4:1-7: the movement from slave to son to heir. Heirship is here grounded in sonship, and sonship in God's act ('through God' — this is divine initiative, not human achievement). The verse crystallizes the entire argument: those who were under bondage to the elemental principles are now heirs — which means the inheritance that was always the goal of the promise is now theirs in Christ.
And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.
The conclusion of the Galatians 3 argument: identity in Christ (belonging to him) is what makes someone both Abraham's seed and an heir. The phrase 'according to the promise' (kat' epangelian) is the key — inheritance flows from the promise, not from ethnic descent or legal performance. This verse is the direct link between epangelia (Session 178) and kleronomos: the promise produces heirs.
And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him.
Romans 8:17 gives the most expansive statement of Christian heirship: co-heirs with Christ himself. What Christ inherits — the glory of God, the new creation, the fullness of the Father's love — is shared with those who are in him. The suffering clause is not a condition of heirship but a descriptor of the path: co-heirs with Christ follow the same pattern of suffering-then-glory that he walked.
But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe.
Hebrews opens by naming Christ as the heir of all things — the natural, appointed heir of the entire creation. This is the christological ground of everything that follows in the NT inheritance language: believers are co-heirs with the one who is heir of all things, which means their inheritance is nothing less than everything the Father has given the Son.
The one who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son.
Revelation's eschatological statement of inheritance reaches its fullest form: 'inherit all things' and 'I will be his God, and he will be My son.' The kleronomos-huiothesia pair (inheritance and adoption) appear together in their final form: heirship is sonship fully expressed, and sonship is God himself as the inheritance. The covenant formula 'I will be his God' is the content of the inheritance — not just a blessing from God but God himself.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Heir who inherits God's kingdom promises; applied to Christ and believers as sons of God.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
15 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
an heir, inheritor
Read versean heir, inheritor
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Read versean heir, inheritor
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Read versean heir, inheritor
Read versean heir, inheritor
Read versean heir, inheritor
Read versean heir, inheritor
Read versean heir, inheritor
Read versean heir, inheritor
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Read versean heir, inheritor
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 5 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 15 lexical occurrence verses.
κληρονόμος is built from these roots:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Kleronomos names the standing of every believer before the full eschatological reality of what God has promised in Christ — and the preacher's task is to help people inhabit that standing rather than living below it. The heir of a great estate does not need to work to earn the estate; he needs to know that the estate is his and to live accordingly. Paul's argument in Galatians 3-4 is pastoral precisely at this point: the Galatians are behaving like people who think they must earn what they have already been given.
They are returning to law-performance as though the promise had never been made, as though they were not already heirs. The preacher who holds kleronomos in full will press two things simultaneously. First, the certainty of the inheritance: it is received by promise (Gal. 3:29), through Christ (Gal. 4:7), confirmed by the Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14 — the Spirit as the 'down-payment' of the inheritance), and reserved in heaven (1 Pet.
1:4). Second, the magnitude of the inheritance: co-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17) means sharing in everything the Father has given the Son, including glory. This is not a modest promise — it is the most extravagant promise imaginable, and preaching it with full force requires letting its scope land before qualifying it with the suffering clause that accompanies it (Rom.
8:17B).
Gal.4.7
Kleronomos is built from klēros (a lot, a portion, an allotted share — the ancient method of distributing property by drawing lots) and nemomai (to possess, distribute, manage). The compound means 'one who manages or possesses their allotted portion.' The related noun klēronomia (inheritance) and verb klēronomeō (to inherit) form a family of terms running through the NT.
In secular Greek, kleronomos was strictly the legal heir who received property at a father's death. The NT expands the concept: believers are already heirs while the Father lives, because heirship has been established by Christ's death and resurrection, and the Spirit is the down-payment guaranteeing delivery of the full inheritance.
The OT inheritance language centers on the land: the promised land is Israel's naḥălāh (inheritance), given by God as a covenant gift, not earned by conquest (Deut. 4:21; Ps. 105:11). But the Psalms already press beyond land to God himself as the inheritance: 'The Lord is my portion' (Ps. 16:5; 119:57; Lam. 3:24). Paul reads this OT trajectory and makes it christological: the inheritance promised to Abraham was not merely the land but 'the world' (Rom.
4:13) — A scope that points toward the new creation. In Galatians, the inheritance is what believers receive through union with Christ the Seed: all that the Abrahamic promise contains. In Romans 8, the inheritance is the glory that will be revealed — co-heirship with Christ in the renewed creation. Hebrews names Christ as 'heir of all things' (Heb. 1:2) and believers as 'heirs of the promise' (Heb.
6:17). And Revelation 21:7 gives the final form: 'inherit all things' — not just a portion or a blessing but everything, with God himself as the one who says 'I will be his God.' The OT's land-inheritance becomes in the NT the inheritance of the cosmos and the covenant presence of God himself.
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