September 21

He hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. - 2 Corinthians 5:5.

AN earnest is a portion of payment, and, therefore, is very distinguishable from a pledge. A pledge is something returnable at the completion of the agreement; but an earnest remains, and goes on as a part of the bargain. Now, this is very instructive, and shows us what a Christian possesses in the agency and influence of the Holy Spirit; and the presence of these not only indicates a heaven, with regard to him, that is to come, but that he has something which partakes of that heaven: he has a part of it already; he has “the earnest of the Spirit.” “We may consider heaven three ways. And in each of these we may see that he who has the Spirit of God has the earnest of it. It is a state of perfect knowledge.

The Christian has now the earnest of it in the illumination of the Spirit. The eyes of his understanding are opened, and he begins now to view things as he will view them hereafter in the irradiation of eternity when he enters the inheritance of the saints in light. Heaven is a state of perfect purity, and the Christian has the earnest of it in the sanctification of the Spirit. The Spirit has made him a partaker of God’s own holiness. He has delivered him from the dominion and love of sin, he has renewed him in the spirit of his mind, and he has produced in him those principles which enable him to say, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” Heaven is also a state of perfect enjoyment. It is joy, -“a fulness of joy.” It consists of “pleasures that are for evermore.”

Well, the Christian has the earnest of all this joy, of all those pleasures in what the Scriptures call “the joy of the Holy Ghost.” Christians are already blessed. “Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance. In thy name shall they rejoice all the day, and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted.” “There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God;” but, says the apostle, “We which have believed do enter into rest.” They will, therefore, “enter into peace;” but now they have “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.” They will, in heaven, dwell in his praise, and be still praising him; but now, even now, they are living, and are realizing the same blessed enjoyments, and can say, with David, “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

Thus heaven, with regard to them, is not an unknown state. They have an acquaintance with it already; and they know more of it from their own experience than from all the sermons they ever heard, than from all the books they ever read in their lives. Heaven to them is not a future distant good only; it is a present indulgence. Heaven has entered them before they have entered heaven. They have everlasting life; they are “made partakers” of a glory that is to be revealed; and therefore, in the language of the apostle to the Hebrews, they are said to have already “come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”