Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Ephesians 1:13-14 | Date: June 8, 2014 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

A couple of personal notes before we begin. First of all, some of you will have noticed this morning that I was refusing to shake hands with you. That was out of concern for you. I was concerned that this puffed-up eye that you see here was pink eye, but I was assured by our physician in residence that it is not. So now I am shaking hands. He assured me that I’m safe, and I think I can even greet you with a holy kiss if you would like. But those of you whose hand I refused to shake, I hope you don’t go away and say I was snubbing you. No, I was really concerned for you, actually.

On a more personal note, 35 years ago today, Kim and I said, “I do.” 35 years. It seems like a blur. 35 years—it’s awful. It just can’t be that long. It just can’t have been that many years. We wonder about it. We also marvel looking back. It’s just like a blur now, too. Fully a third of that was just consumed with intense suffering. But I’m thankful, thankful for a wife who was very stable through all of that, faithful and helpful. And more than that, I’m thankful—we’re both thankful—that both of our children, even though Gina’s gone, we’re thankful that both of our children are safe in Christ. I don’t know what else a parent could want. I didn’t intend for this, I’m sorry.

On another personal note, 35 years ago today was my wife’s 21st birthday. Now for those of you who have trouble with the math, I mean, she’s 39. And I have assured her 35 times now—well, plus a few in between—that I was the best birthday present she ever got. She hasn’t objected to that yet. At least not to my hearing, anyway.

Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. And then when you find Ephesians 1, keep a marker there and turn back to John chapter 7. John chapter 7. And I’d like to read just a few verses there first. John 7 beginning with verse 37:

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive. For as yet, the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

And now Ephesians chapter 1. We have read already through this hymn that we’ve been working our way through, verses 3 through 14. Let’s look again at verses 13 and 14, which will be our focus today:

In Him, that is in Christ, you also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

One more time.

In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.

Let’s look to the Lord in prayer.

Our Father, as the Apostle Paul has said here, and as our hearts affirm as we read through it, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. How we thank you for the fullness of blessing, the fullness of provision that you’ve given to us in Christ. It would have been enough had you just given us a chance. It would have been enough if you had just forgiven us. It would have been enough if you had just determined to save us forever. All of that. But you’ve given us more. You’ve made us your sons. You’ve revealed this whole plan to us that we might just revel in it. You’ve given us your Son in whom and in whose blood we have redemption. We have this great prospect of an inheritance. You have blessed us truly in every way. Now as we come to look at further blessings that you have given to us in Christ, we pray that you would give our minds and our hearts to hear, to understand, so that we may revel further in the grace that you’ve lavished upon us in Christ, and that we may praise you for it. In Jesus’ name we ask, amen.

You’ll recall that the theme of this passage is the riches of God’s grace, and Paul starts out with that in verse three: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us.” We bless Him because He blessed us. Now in the New International Version, you have it translated at the beginning of verse 3 as “praise to Him.” That’s because when God blesses us, he does things for us. When we bless God, we say good things about him. And so the New International Version, very appropriately, has translated “praise.” Praise to God because he has blessed us.

And then you remember how the Apostle Paul goes through in these next verses to outline the greatness of the blessings that we have been given in Christ. And there’s something like three stanzas to this hymn. This may not be an ancient hymn as such, but it appears to be at least the remainders or a reflection of an ancient hymn that they had. There are three stanzas to it, and they work progressively.

Blessings From God The Father

We have the blessings from God the Father. And then we have itemized for us the blessings from God the Son.

Blessings From God The Son

And then finally, verses 13 and 14, which we’ll see today, the blessings that are given us from God the Holy Spirit.

Blessings From God The Holy Spirit

Thank you, brother. And there’s also something of a historical progression in this. In the first stanza, blessings from God the Father, the focus is on blessings that he has given us in the past. The second stanza, blessings from God the Son, the focus is blessings that he gave us in the past in Christ and yet have a present realization in our own experience. And then in the third stanza, the blessings from the Holy Spirit, the focus is on blessings that we have in the present, but with an eye to the future.

And then at the end of each of these three stanzas, we have a similar refrain. The end of the first stanza: “to the praise of his glorious grace.” The end of the second stanza: “to the praise of his glory.” And then the end of the third stanza, the same at the end of verse 14: “to the praise of his glory.”

We have here in verses 3-14 what is the longest sentence in the entire New Testament. In our English versions, we have it broken down for easier reading into several sentences, but in the original, it is one long continuous sentence where Paul itemizes these for us. In an overview of these that we’ve seen: God chose us, He predestined us, He adopted us, He redeemed us, He has forgiven us, He has illumined us, and now, verses 13 and 14, He has sealed us with His Holy Spirit.

All of these blessings—and this is very important to what’s being sung here in this hymn—all of these blessings are the enjoyment of all of God’s people. None of these is reserved for some spiritual elite. But what we have here is an outline of how God has blessed us all in Christ and how all of his people are lavished with grace upon grace upon grace in Jesus Christ.

So we come then to verses 13 and 14. And when Paul refers to the Holy Spirit here as the “promised Holy Spirit,” he briefly reminds us of a theme that is a long-standing theme in the Scriptures, both the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament, there was this great hope of the coming age. And the coming age of the Messiah would be marked by many blessings: resurrection, righteousness, safety of God’s people, and things like that. But one of the leading blessings of that age to come was the outpouring of God’s spirit upon his people. The Messianic age was to be an age marked by the abundant work of the Spirit of God.

We have this reflected in many of the prophets in the Old Testament—in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Joel. Various of the prophets emphasize this at great lengths: that God will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, and that this age to come in Christ, this age of the Messiah, would be marked by the blessed work of the Spirit of God powerfully working in all of his people. So this is the age of the Spirit, then, in Christ. The age of the Spirit has come in him in its fullest; its greater dimension will come later, but we do have this age as distinctly marked as the age of the Spirit.

And again, what’s so significant about this is that the Apostle Paul is emphasizing here that all of God’s people enjoy the Spirit’s presence and ministry. And this lies at the heart of the ancient promise. There is much theological debate among good theologians trying to sort out the distinctions. What exactly is the work of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament as compared to the work of the Spirit of God in the New Testament? Broad generalizations are easy, but when we get down to the particulars, it’s very difficult.

But at the very least, we can say that in the Old Testament, the work of the Spirit of God has a character that’s distinctly different from the work of the Spirit of God in the New Covenant, in that his work in the Old Testament times was selective, it was task-oriented, and it was temporary. And so this great hope arose and the promise was given that in the age to come, the Spirit would be poured out in fullness upon God’s people and upon all of them. And it wouldn’t be a selective few who were empowered by the Spirit of God to do this or that for the covenant community, but all of God’s people throughout the covenant community would be empowered by God’s Spirit at work in them and through them to accomplish his purpose.

So the Spirit of God would come in fullness. The promised Spirit now has come in this capacity, and He’ll not only administer among God’s people, but He will minister in and through all of God’s people in a powerful kind of way. This is why I began with John chapter 7, where Jesus says in those cryptic words, “He that believes on me, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of water, rivers of living water.” What in the world is that all about? And then John adds that interpretive comment afterwards in verse 39: “This he spoke concerning the Spirit, which has not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

We have that kind of sentiment echoed several times in the New Testament as well. Paul says this is what marks us out as the children of God: that we’ve been given his spirit. This is the identifying mark of all that are in this new covenant: that we’ve been given his spirit. Or he used the metaphor that he uses in 1 Corinthians 12: we’ve all been baptized with this spirit into one body. That brings us back to John the Baptist and the promise that he gave. All through the Old Testament times, we’re told the Spirit will come, the Spirit will come. John the Baptist bursts on the scene and says, “The Messiah is here, and although I baptize you with water, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

And then we find, of course, that echoed in Jesus’ words—John 7 that we’ve read, also in John 14 to 16, where Jesus speaks at length of the ministry of the Spirit whom he will send to be our comforter, and even speaks in terms of, “It’s better for you that I go, because if I don’t go, he can’t come.” He comes as Jesus’ replacement, and in a great sense, we’re better off now with what we have in the working of the Spirit of God in all of his people than we would be with Jesus himself here ministering among us. Paul picks up that metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12; we’ve all been baptized with this spirit into one body. And again, the point is this universal indwelling of the spirit of God to work among all of God’s people so that none of his people will ultimately break the covenant and leave, but he will keep them as his own, working in them and through them powerfully.

Paul highlights this for us here as one of the great blessings to all Christians, one that we have in common, and he highlights that when he says in verse 13: “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” Whoever has believed—that’s what Jesus said in John 7—whoever has believed in Jesus savingly has received this gift of the Spirit of God working in us.

Now, the nature of this indwelling work of the Spirit that we read of in the New Testament is nowhere explained in great detail. And again, there’s just lots of discussion as to how exactly to identify that and characterize it. But at the very least, we have to say that this indwelling work of the Spirit is to be understood in terms of a relationship that the Holy Spirit takes up with us and in terms of enablement. A relationship and enablement. Certainly, the idea of the indwelling of the spirit is not to be understood in spatial terms. It’s not that he’s in here and didn’t used to be, and he’s not in there. He’s the omnipresent God. He’s everywhere. The idea is that of a relationship and an enablement that he comes to bring his people and to minister in those kinds of capacities.

Here, one of the specific ministries that the indwelling Spirit is said to give the people of God is that of a seal. We are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. Now, in the world of the apostles, they spoke of a seal in the same way we do. A seal would render something secure. So we seal an envelope to make sure the contents don’t fall out. Or, if you want to go back to the New Testament usage of it, you’d seal the tomb to keep people out—to keep the corpse from being tampered with. They seal the tomb to render it secure. There’s an interesting use of it in Revelation chapter 7, verses 1 through 4. The context there is the end-time judgments that are about to fall upon the earth. And he’s speaking of the salvation of the 144,000. And there the word reads: “Wait, let no judgment fall until those whom God has chosen are sealed.” The idea clearly is that of safety, protection, and preservation. And so a seal is spoken of in those terms, to render something secure.

A seal is also spoken of in that world, as well as in ours, as a mark of ownership or a mark of authenticity. A mark of ownership or a mark of authenticity. So for example, a king’s signet ring put on a wax seal of a document not only closed up the document and secured it in that sense, but identified it officially as from him. Marked it out; it’s a mark of ownership. There’s something of a reflection of this in John 6, verse 27, where Jesus says that the Father has set his seal upon his Son. In the context, there may be several things involved, but at the very least, it seems obvious that he’s speaking of the miracles and the works that he’s given Jesus to do. These identify Jesus as God’s Son, and God has set his seal on him in that sense, identifying him as belonging to God.

Now it’s interesting, I think, and it might be significant—it might only be a coincidence, but I suspect it’s significant—that the Apostle Paul uses this language of “seal” only in his letters to Ephesus and to Corinth. In both of those cities, the logging industry was huge. And as the logs would be sent downriver after the trees had been cut down, they would be marked with a seal. Sometimes it’d be a cut of an axe of a certain kind, a brand of some kind to identify the logs as belonging to the person who sent them downriver. Well, that’s the sense here. It’s a trademark. It’s a mark of ownership. And so a sign is that which confirms ownership and secures it; it secures the item for the person’s own use. It’s a mark or a sign which confirmed ownership and secured for use.

So the promised Holy Spirit, he says, is given to us in whatever other ministries he has with us. Here it is specified: He has given to us, in this capacity, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, a mark of divine ownership, a mark of authenticity. These people are mine. And the Spirit of God is given to them to mark them out as such. He is the authenticating mark that we are the children of God, and by His presence with us, we are marked out, sealed as God’s children.

I don’t think this is very far at all from something we find elsewhere in the New Testament, and that is the idea of being sanctified by the Spirit. Now in our theological usage today, when we speak of sanctification, what generally comes to mind is how to progress in practical godliness, right? And all of that is solid biblical teaching. But the usage of the term sanctification in the New Testament doesn’t tend to that at all. The usage of the term sanctification in the New Testament has to do with a setting apart or a consecrating of the Spirit of God, setting us apart to divine use. It’s like in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, we had sanctified or holy utensils set apart to divine use in the tabernacle. We had holy places. We had holy men set apart to divine use. We had holy days set apart to divine use. Holy seasons, holy years even, set apart to divine use. These things that were holy in the Old Testament were consecrated over to God, set apart as His.

And now we come to the New Testament, and we’re set apart as God’s, consecrated over to Him, taken up, as it were, by the Spirit of God, and rendered usable now in God’s service, consecrated over to Him. In that sense here, the sealing is not too far from that at all. The Spirit has come to mark us out as belonging to God. This is not far either from what we find in Romans chapter 8, where the spirit of God is described as the spirit of adoption or the spirit of sonship. He’s given as our adoption present, if you will, marking us out as belonging to God. Here are my people, and you know they’re my people because they have the spirit of God dwelling in them.

So while some traditions might like to speak of baptism as the seal of our covenant relationship with God, I think it’s pretty clear that God gives his children something much better than a religious rite as a seal of our relationship with God. That seal is nothing less than the spirit of God himself.

Now, in verse 14, he follows up with another designation for the Holy Spirit, which really takes us further in the same direction. We are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, “who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.” He is the guarantee of our inheritance. Or, depending on the translation you have, the “earnest” of our inheritance, or the “down payment” guaranteeing our inheritance. The earnest, the down payment.

Now this word “earnest,” or “down payment,” or “guarantee,” depending on how you have it translated in your version, is a familiar concept to us. It’s not unique to them. We don’t use the word a lot, but we do know what earnest money is. It’s a down payment that you make when you’re buying a home. You put down earnest money to show that you’re in earnest; you’re going to buy this thing. It’s a pledge, and it’s a partial payment of the rest to come. I’m going to buy this home, and I’ve placed my money down as my pledge that I will give the rest. An earnest, or this deposit, is an advance transaction which confirms an agreement and promises full payment. Let me say it again. An earnest is an advance transaction that confirms an agreement and promises full payment. Confirms an agreement and promises full payment.

Now let’s unpack that a little bit. I understand that, by the way, in modern Greek this word “earnest” is used with reference to a wedding ring, a pledge of the marriage that will come. But here you see it’s more than just a pledge. It’s a down payment, a first installment, a partial payment of what will come. And here, he says, this is what the Holy Spirit has come to be for us as a first installment and a pledge of a full blessing that will come.

Now, what does all of that mean for us? How does this fit into the eternal purpose that Paul is describing here? Well, at the very least, it speaks of God’s safekeeping of his people for himself. His safekeeping of every Christian. We’re sealed, we’re marked out as his, and we’re kept. Now, I don’t want to come across as hateful or angry, even angry with our Arminian brothers—our Arminian brothers who are genuinely brothers, I want to count them as brothers and I love them—but I’m sure glad I’m not an Arminian. The idea that, well, depending on which type you speak of, you sin, you lose your salvation; you sin again, you lose your salvation again; or if it’s the kind that it’s just those “big ones” that make you lose the salvation; or if it’s the kind where it’s only that one big one that makes you lose your salvation forever. I’ve got to say, I’m glad God did better than that. I am glad that God—as my dad used to put it this way, I love it—God gave us salvation, not probation. He didn’t come to us and say, “All right, I’ll have you unless or until…” He comes to us right at the starting line and says, “You’re mine forever.”

Paul is speaking of that here in this. There are several ways he speaks about that, but here he speaks of it in terms of the sealing work of the Spirit. In both of these figures here, the seal and the down payment, there’s a forward look to them. Can I say it this way? There’s an eschatological look to these things. Both the seal and the earnest, or the down payment, they have a forward look to them. The very promise of the Spirit itself was an eschatological promise. That will be in the day to come, in the age to come, in the age of the Messiah; that will be the age of the outpouring of the Spirit of God. That will be the age of resurrection. And the glory of being in Christ is that something of that age has been pulled forward into the experience of the life of every Christian. That resurrection has already occurred. Oh, certainly there is a resurrection yet to come, but the resurrection has already occurred. We’ve been brought to life in Christ. The age of the Spirit has already come. Certainly there’s more to come, but the age of the Spirit has already come, and something of that day has been brought forward into this day.

And so there’s a sense in which the work of the Spirit is premature. Early? We’re waiting for that age to come, and here we are living in this present evil world. And yet, we’ve been brought into the share, into the blessings of that age to come in Christ. And in this respect, he says, this is the work of the Spirit of God. He’s the down payment, sealing us for the full payment yet to come.

Well, let’s ask the question this way. Paul says we are sealed. Sealed for what? Now, before we read in this verse, turn over a page or two; look at Ephesians chapter four, and look at verse 30, where he uses the word again: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” That’s an interesting expression, isn’t it? I thought redemption was something Jesus did for us on the cross, isn’t it? And yet here he’s speaking of redemption as something future: “the day of redemption.” Well, clearly he’s speaking of the fullness of realized redemption in the coming of Christ, right? When the fullness of blessing that has been promised is given. And so here he says in chapter four in verse 30, we’ve been sealed to that day, sealed to reach that moment when the fullness of redemptive blessings will be given to us.

Now we have the same thing here in chapter 1, verses 13 and 14: “In him you also when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and believed in him were sealed with this promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until…” Now, if you have my version, ESV, it reads, “until we acquire possession of it.” Or I really prefer the others, and that is, “until the redemption of the purchased possession,” which is fascinating language. That’s the way the King James renders it. It’s something closer to that, I think, in the NIV as well. “Until the redemption of the purchased possession.”

So again, redemption is spoken of in an eschatological sense. It’s still to come. The fullness of redemptive blessings are still to come. But yet, we are already God’s purchased possession. And his purchased possession, his redeemed possession, awaits redemption in the day of redemption still to come. And all of that to say, this is that to which we have been sealed. Or to use the other metaphor, we have already been given a down payment of that which is to come.

So the apostle is telling us that Christians are ones who have been sealed by the Spirit for the full outworking of the redemptive blessings purchased by Christ in his work. So the idea is that of, at least, preservation. Preservation. I want you to see a little bit more here. Notice the wording of it carefully. He’s not saying merely that we are sealed until the day of redemption. He says that we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the deposit, the down payment, guaranteeing our inheritance until the fullness of it comes. He’s the down payment of that inheritance yet to come. That is, he’s the first installment, part of the full payment given already. A pledge of more to come, yes, but more than a pledge, it’s a partial payment of what is to come.

This is something like what we find in Paul in Romans 8, verse 23, where he uses another metaphor. He speaks of the Holy Spirit as the “first fruits” of the Spirit. Now, you remember the first fruits in the old covenant. The first fruit was the first sampling of the harvest that was brought in and offered to the Lord. It was a sampling, but a first installment of a full harvest that is to come. And he speaks of the giving of the Spirit of God to us in just those terms. This is the first payment, the first installment of a great harvest of blessing that is yet to come.

In other words, the outcome—put it plainly—the outcome of this great redemptive plan of God for us is not left in doubt. In fact, God has already made partial payment, a first installment of those blessings that will come in full later on. The Apostle Paul, I don’t think he could hardly make his point more clear. He just piles up the terminology here. Look through it again. We are “sealed” with an “earnest” “inheritance” “until the redemption.” He could hardly make his point more clear.

And so the emphasis here is not only that of preservation, but it’s that of glorification as well. We will reach the final goal, and the Spirit of God has been given as the first payment of exactly that. Again, you’ve got to be happy. You’ve got to be happy that God didn’t put you on probation. At whatever point it would have been, when would you have blown it? Here we learn that the Spirit of God has been given to preserve us just from that and to keep us from falling away so that there will not be any covenant breakers, so that the Spirit of God is given us to take control and to preserve and to cause us to persevere all the way to the end. Sealed, preserved, marked out as God’s own people, set apart for His special use and His special care, His special attention. These people are mine, and I’m taking them as mine, and I’m sending the Spirit of God to be with them for exactly that reason.

And in the broader context, then, of this chapter, verses 3 through 14, God has included us in this eternal purpose. And what he emphasizes at the end here is that he is not about to leave the success of that saving purpose in doubt. And he’s not about to leave the success of that saving purpose in our weak hands. He has taken this up as a cause of his own and has sent his spirit to seal us as the first payment of an inheritance that will be received in full when Christ comes.

Just an amazing thing. You’ve heard me say this before: an amazing thing. You’ll never find a race like the Christian race anywhere else in the whole world where the judge comes up to you right at the starting line and shows you the trophy and shows you your name inscribed on the whole thing, lets you touch it, and then says, “Go out there and win. You’re going to win. You’re going out there and run. You’re going to win this thing. I’ve made sure of it.” That’s what the Bible calls grace.

And this is what they are singing here: that God has this eternal purpose. He has chosen us. He’s predestined a glorious end to ensure the outcome. He has sent his Son who has given his blood as a redemptive price for our sin, granting us forgiveness. He’s told us of all of this. And now he has sent us his spirit, sealing us and ensuring that the fullness of blessing will come.

Well, if the emphasis then is on preservation, and implied in all of that is glorification, then we have to say something more. We can’t stop with just the ideas of preservation, but as our seal and as our earnest, this teaches us something else, and that is the matter of assurance as well as preservation. Now these two things are closely related, but they are very distinct. Preservation is the objective side of it. Assurance is the subjective side. It is one thing to know that God saves forever. It is another thing to know that he has saved me forever.

The Apostle Paul is telling us here that the Spirit of God has been given to us to work in this capacity as our seal, as the initial payment, guaranteeing the fullness to come. Paul takes this up in the book of Romans in several different places, again, where he speaks of the Holy Spirit as the spirit of sonship, the spirit of adoption—that he has come specifically as the spirit of God to minister a sense of sonship to us.

Again, it is one thing—or to make it more personal—it would have been one thing to know that James A. Zaspel was my father. It’s quite another thing to know him as my father in the home. It’s one thing to know that he’s a father; it’s another thing to sense my sonship and his care for me. It’s one thing to have told your children that you are the father. It’s another thing to make them feel it. Paul says the Spirit of God—this is Romans chapter 8—the Spirit of God has been sent for exactly that purpose: to shed abroad a sense of God’s fatherly love in our hearts, so that instinctively now we cry, “Abba, Father,” that there’s this instinctive sense that I belong to God as his child.

The Apostle Paul here in Ephesians 1 is not content to tell us the objective side only, but he wants to tell us of the subjective side also. In fact, I think we should say God is not content simply to save us forever, but he wants very much for us to know that he has saved us forever. And so he has not only sealed us with his Spirit, but he has sent the Holy Spirit to minister to us this sense of assurance, so that we may rejoice in the knowledge of this grace that he’s lavished on us.

And how does he say all of that here? How is that emphasized here? Well, he tells us that he ministers that sense of assurance to us by giving us a foretaste of heaven. By giving us a foretaste of heaven. The Holy Spirit has come not just objectively to seal us and to set us apart as belonging to God. He has come as the first installment of the inheritance to come. Now you may not be accustomed—we may not be accustomed—to speaking of the Spirit of God in these terms, but I think it’d be helpful for us if we did: that this is the foretaste. This is just the beginning of a fullness of blessing that God intends for us in the end.

Heaven might be something that’s difficult to talk about because you’ve not been there, but then in a sense we have. What is heaven? Fellowship with God? We have that. What is heaven? A world of experiencing God’s love for us? We have that. Is heaven the time when we will be with God in his presence, freed from sin? We have that in measure. We have that. He is telling us here that the Spirit of God has been given as a down payment, a first installment of what is to come in full later on.

So that if the question arises to a genuine believer, “Will you make it to heaven?” the instinctive response is, “Of course, I already have a foot in the door. I’ve already begun to experience something of what then I will experience in its fullness.” The Spirit of God has come not only objectively to set us apart as God’s forever, but he has come as the first installment of that great blessing that will come in full later on. This, of course, brings us into the discussion of the great joy of the Christian life and what it is to belong to Christ and to know the joy of the Spirit of God ministering a sense of our sonship. All of this, you can see, is not just objective truth. It’s experiential truth as well. God is not content simply with making us His children—isn’t that amazing? God is not content simply to forgive us. He’s not content simply to make us His children. But He wants us to know and to feel that we are His children, and so He has sent His Spirit to make us know that. His Spirit ministers with our spirit, testifies with our spirit that we are His children.

Now one more question. Why do you think God has done all of this? Or we could ask it this way: why has he done so much? Or why has he made it so easy? Done all the work himself and left nothing for us. Why does he tell us up front that he’s done all of this for us and will do all of this for us and will keep us to the end? Why does God tell us all that?

Well, the first answer has to be: so that we’ll enjoy it. And that certainly is part of this: to give us the enjoyment of knowing that we belong to God. It is for our sakes. Notice one more time, as we’ve seen through these verses—one more time—God’s ultimate purpose in all of this, the end of verse 14: “to the praise of His glory.” That is to say, God has displayed something of the unsearchable riches of Christ to us so that we would enjoy it and so that we would worship Him. So that we would find our highest joy and satisfaction in God and praise Him for it. So that we would revel in His grace and praise Him. That’s it.

And you know what? It worked. It has been the experience of Christians ever since the first, that we just revel in the grace of God. We love to talk about it. We spend time alone meditating on it, thinking on it, reading the book to remind us about it again. We come together, we love to talk about it, we love to hear it talked about, we love to sing about it. And we love to echo the refrain: “to the praise of His glory.” Look what God has done for me. And for all eternity, we’ll continue to sing it. And this will be the song: “To the praise of His glory, look what God has done for me.” And there won’t be any of us singing, “Look what I’ve done.” None of us will be singing, “Boy, I was strong, and I’m glad I had the sense to do this and I had the strength to do that.” Every one of us will be saying, “Look what he’s done, to the praise of his glory.”

I’ve often thought that if in the end somehow God could play back the movie of our rescue, at the end of the movie, when he runs the credits, there must be one name: the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Father, what a good God you are. You’ve lavished us with your grace. You have given us freely everything we could have ever needed, could ever have wanted. We praise you for the fullness of blessing that we receive in Christ Jesus and how we look forward to that great day when he will come again. This great salvation that we have already begun to taste will then be experienced in full. We thank you for your spirit who has been given to us to preserve us to that end and to give us a sense of it ahead of time. Make us, Lord, through understanding of these things, better worshipers. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.