Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: December 9th

THE HOLY SPIRIT OF PROMISE

The Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of God’s own possession. - Ephesians 1:14

"The Holy Spirit of promise," given to all who believe, is here declared to dwell in and to seal believers as the "earnest" of their "inheritance"; whilst, on the other hand, that sealing is declared to last until - or, as seems more probably the rendering of the preposition here, to be done with a view unto - the full redemption of God’s purchased " possession." So that the two halves of the thought are intentionally brought together in these words. And about both of them - God’s possession of us and our possession of God - it is asserted or implied, that they are partially realized here, and are to be realized more fully in the future.

An "earnest" is a portion of the estate which is paid over to the purchaser on the completion of the purchase, as the token that all is his and that it will all come into his hands in due time. Like that part of a man’s wages given to him in advance when he is engaged; like the shilling put into the hand of a recruit; like the half-crown given to the farm-servant at the hiring-fair; like the bit of turf that in some old ceremonials used to be solemnly presented to the sovereign on his investiture, - it is a portion of the whole possession, the same in kind, but a very tiny portion, which yet carries with it the acknowledgment of ownership and the assurance of full possession.

So the " Spirit of God is the earnest of the inheritance," a small portion of it granted to us to-day, and the pledge that all shall be granted in the future. And the same idea of present imperfection is suggested in the corresponding clause, which speaks about God’s entire purchase (for there is an emphasis in the Greek word in the original), His possession as also a thing of the future.

We possess God in the measure in which we know Him, love Him, and have communion and sympathy with Him. These things - knowledge, love, communion, sympathy - make a very real and a very precious possession of God; and he who has God thus has Him as truly, though not as perfectly, as the angels in heaven that burn before His throne.

But though that is true, there is yet another aspect of this possession of God. The Holy Spirit of promise comes to every man that believes in Jesus Christ, and enters into his heart and becomes his. That is the truest way in which man possesses God. The greatest gift that my faith brings down to me from heaven is the gift of an indwelling Spirit - of an indwelling God. For the Spirit of God is God. He that has God in his heart by the dwelling there, in mystic reality, of the Divine Spirit possesses Him as truly as he possesses love or memory, imagination or hope.

There can be nothing deeper, nothing greater, nothing more real in the manner of possession, than the possession which every one of us may have of an indwelling God for our life and our peace. It passes all human analogy. Love gives us the ownership, most really and most sweetly, of the hearts that we love. But, after all the yearning desires for union, and experience of oneness in sympathy, the awful wall of partition between spirits remains; and life may, and death must, separate - but he that has God’s Divine Spirit with him has God for the life of his life and the soul of his soul. And we possess Him when, by faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God dwells in our hearts.