(Continued from p.245)

"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation:in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession" (God's own possession, R.V.).

The translators supply "trusted" in the above quotation to ease English ears, as the original omits the verb, which the reader is expected to fill in, to suit the context, a procedure much more common to Greek than to English. Exegetes have differed as to the proper word to supply, and have inserted, according to their several preferences:"hoped," trusted," "are." These are indeed all more or less possible, so that the inalienable right inheres to select from them, as may be judged proper, with due regard to the reasons pertinent in each case. No matter what the "selection" however, you will always find some one to oppose it, yet, thought and exercise are good and it is through these that "our profiting will appear."

Spiritual exercise is as necessary for the mind and heart as is physical exercise for the muscles; and thus Scripture is so constructed as to elicit it. For the average Christian, the world is a world of hurry and worry, and hurry and worry tend to kill both thought and thought-fulness. Our Lord has exhorted us to "labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat that endureth unto everlasting life" and the present day method of supplying "canned" spiritual food has its dangers. Our diet should be varied according to our variant need and our advancement in the school of experience.

"The word of truth, the gospel of your salvation" might well be the theme of some metrical song. Philip Melancthon, the friend of Luther, just before his departure "to be with Christ," was heard chanting:"I will not any more eat thereof until all be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." Most Scriptural truths should be the music of the heart and the heart should teach the lips its melody. In days of old, the Psalms were framed to mitre and mitre became the handmaiden of music. "Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered" was the song of Cromwell's spirit at the rising of the sun over Dunbar, heralding the victory to follow. Yet the Psalms, with all their nobility exhale themes inferior to those of our Christian today, and the words we are now considering, "the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation" might well supply the motif tor some noble Christian oratorio. "Peace on earth, good-will to man" was its wondrous prelude on the plains of Bethlehem, and the song of the fifth of Revelation is its inspiring finale. It is the "word of truth." It commands our utmost confidence. It is "the gospel of our salvation," a song of "freedom," of deliverance, and might indeed bubble up from the heart, leap to the lips and light the eye with its gladness, blending with the closing jubilation of the Psalms:"Praise God with the sound oft the trumpet; praise Him with the psaltery and the harp; praise Him with the timbrel and the dance; praise him with the stringed instruments and the organs; praise Him upon the loud cymbals; praise Him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise YE the Lord." The words, "after that ye believed" are really simply, "having believed." and do not in themselves suggest any interval of time between faith and sealing, as some have thought. The question of how soon sealing follows believing has engendered much controversy, and while the discussion of such subjects is perfectly right and profitable, the great thing for us is to be warmed and illuminated with their meaning, that they may become vital energizers of our life, that spiritual fruit may be garnered.
The initial stages of the believer's pathway, as controlled by the Spirit, are so wonderfully glorious, that we might well feel lured to retrace the way, fragrant, as it should be, with sacred memories, in order that we may rejoice together. Here New Birth and Adoption, twin brothers each, follow their forerunner, Belief. Each stage is lighted with some precious Scripture:"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" seemed once like some mighty mountain barrier, straddling the way to heaven, but now marks the place of the clear running of the fountain of water of life. "To as many as received him, to them gave He authority to become the children of God, even to those who believe on His name" (adoption) links faith with the blessed Captain of our Salvation, its Author and Originator, Who welcomes each pilgrim to the glorious army of the sanctified, the sons of God. Here the banner of faith is raised high above the marching ranks, having inscribed upon it:"We are all the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26). Then the band strikes up the glorious anthem of the Redeemed:"Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, shouting 'Abba, Father.' " The evil harpies of fear are thus evicted (Rom. 8:15) and across the shining vista of the future gleams "the glorious liberty of the Children of God." Ah, truth is indeed often stranger than fiction and, in this instance how far more glorious.

But we leave this retrospect, which supplies us the atmosphere for the thought of sealing. (Breathe deeply, brother!) Sealing indeed is involved in all that has gone before. It is first God's blessed authentication of our faith and of our sonship. In a speech delivered at the famous council in Jerusalem Peter says:"And the heart-knowing God bare them (the Gentile believers) witness, giving them the Holy Spirit" (Acts 15:7, 8). It was the seal of their faith. Authentication is the idea in "hath set to his seal that God is true" (Faith's affirmation). It marks them as truly believers, men of faith. This is supplemented by the Spirit's witness:"The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God." We, "the sanctified" (Heb. 2:11)', are all "of one" (Father). We are "God's Own" and we are set aside to Christ, the First Begotten, the Captain of our Salvation. So the Indwelling Spirit, by the very fact of His indwelling is the seal of sonship. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16). That He inhabits them affirms that they are His Own. This connects the thought of sealing with the idea of proprietorship, which is also evidently the idea in the sealing of the servants of God in the seventh of Revelation.

"Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price" is surely a delightful fact and how intimately it links us with those sacred scenes that preluded the great Act of Purchase:"Having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them unto the end (perfectly) ."Thine they were and Thou gavest them me," "And all Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine and I am glorified in them." Is it not significant then, that when the Lord thus gathered his own around Him, this blessed Sealing Spirit is promised, is the Spirit "of promise" as our Ephesian passage puts it, as if it would recall by the words lingering memories of that sacred time?

"The earnest of our inheritance" carries our story of blessing still further. "The earnest is always of the same nature as, and a part of, the inheritance. Therefore since the Holy Spirit is the "earnest," the conclusion is plain, that the inheritance is nothing less than God Himself. Heaven is to possess God and to be possessed by Him." So writes an eminent preacher, and without excluding other thoughts, this is certainly a lovely aspect of and a happy peroration for this richly fruitful verse. Centuries before one of the "children of faith" had written into a glowing context "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup… the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, I have a goodly heritage." Though he knew nothing of the truth we have to-day, the writer of the Psalm had a foretaste, an earnest, of that which was to follow. "Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and on earth there is none beside Thee," he exclaims in another place. How the words often put us Christians to shame. Are we experiencing NOW what is to be the culmination of experience in the "sweet bye and bye?" That is what is meant by "fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ." That is what the Apostle in part meant, when he said:"Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" and the warmth of that thought glows through his "Christ in you the hope of glory." Yes, Christ ministered within the heart, by the Spirit who is the earnest of full possession, when "God's own possession" is fully redeemed is the pledge of an ever expanding fortune,

"For infinite unfoldings of Jehovah's love and grace
And infinite unveilings of the beauties of His Face
And infinite disclosings of the splendor of His will,
Meet the mightiest expansions of our finite spirits still."

F. C. Grant

(To be continued. D. V.)