QUESTION
How does Ephesians 1:13-14 fit with your present understanding of the sealing of the Spirit and the earnest of the Spirit?
RESPONSE
I don’t have any problem with what it says fitting into my understanding. In fact I think it fits very well. When Paul says, “ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,” I think this doctrinally takes us right back to Romans 8 where
He originally taught us to understand that having believed the gospel of our salvation, (which includes us being sanctified and adopted as “sons”), “that holy Spirit of promise” sealed us in connection with who we are in the plan and purpose of God by ‘bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God’ and in connection with this promising to us our inheritance as “heirs of God,” as well as promising to us the issue of us being “joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” And with Him doing this very thing He with His promise to us is “the earnest of our inheritance” in our hearts, (producing within us by its effectual working the knowledge of who we are in the plan and purpose of God, along with producing the earnest expectation and patient waiting for our inheritance, as well as producing the earnest desire to be “joint-heirs with Christ”). And this effectually works within us as such “until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. “
Keith
20020828 A30 S V j s bn tc