The Earnest of Our Inheritance (Ephesians 1:14)

Eph. 1:14. Who is the earnest of our inheritance, to the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

Before this the Apostle spoke separately about the Jews and separately about the Gentiles. Now he unites both in speech through the unity of the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is given equally to both and makes them of one kind. We, he says, received the Spirit as an inheritance; you were sealed by Him through the calling. Both we and you have become anointed by the Holy One—Christians. The anointing of the Spirit is the distinctive mark of Christians, a preeminence which nothing in the world can give, save faith in the Lord Jesus Christ through His Holy Sacraments. But this does not exhaust all that the Lord is pleased to bestow on His faithful. This is still only an earnest; what then will follow?

The Apostle extends his gaze into the future and sees in the gift of the Spirit only a first instalment toward the receiving of the full eternal inheritance. As in ordinary transactions an earnest means that the bargain has been struck, the purchase decided, and the earnest given as assurance that all the remainder will also be paid, so too God, having been pleased to enter with us into a Covenant, with the promise of eternal blessedness to those faithful to the Covenant, by giving the Holy Spirit to those who believe in Christ gives only an earnest as assurance that He will also give the whole promised inheritance, or grant eternal blessedness. For we believe in Christ for this very reason, and cleave to Him and sacrifice everything for Him, in order to have in Him eternal life. St. Chrysostom says: “Although one should believe Him as God (that He will give eternal life), the Apostle does not press this very strongly, but conducts the enquiry as if about a man. As in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. 6:18) he says: ‘that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation,’ so here too he presents what has already been given as proof of the fulfilment of the promise concerning future blessings. Therefore he calls the Holy Spirit the earnest of our salvation. The earnest is the surety for everything. He purchased our salvation for us and for now has given only the earnest. Why did He not grant everything at once? Because we on our part have not yet fulfilled everything. We have believed—this is only the beginning—and He gave the earnest (that is, the beginning). But when we show our faith in works, He will then grant us everything.”

This same truth is confirmed in the moral ordering of the Christian life. For the Spirit of God pours out love, in which faith receives its living activity; and the labours of love implant the feeling of God’s goodwill, from which is born the well-grounded hope of all-encompassing eternal blessedness (Heb. 11:1). On the other hand, the Spirit of God brings into the soul a peace which nothing else can give and which is the true beginning and foretaste of eternal blessedness. St. Chrysostom continues: “Those who have partaken of the grace of the Holy Spirit know, without a doubt, that it is the earnest of our inheritance. Such was Paul, who even here already had a foretaste of what is there (in heaven)—who strove and desired to depart this world, and groaned, for he had already transferred his whole mind there and gazed with different eyes. Whoever does not justify faith by works, excludes himself from the words (of promise). If we all partook of the Spirit as we ought to partake, we would already see heaven and our future state there.”

“To the redemption of the purchased possession.” In these words one may see an explanation of the preceding thought about the Spirit as the earnest of the inheritance. The words themselves are obscure. Let us compare them with the Greek in order to draw out the appropriate meaning. “Possession” suggests the thought of what God has purposed to bestow on believers, what He intends to give them in Christ, wherewith to fill them with blessedness. The Greek word signifies care, protection, solicitude for someone, that all may be well with him. “By ‘possession’” — περιποιησιν — “the Apostle designates God’s care and solicitude for us” (Theophylact). Modern Greeks use this word to mean hospitality—doing everything so that the guest may remain entirely satisfied with all. What is the future blessedness if not the unending banquet of the Lord with His faithful? There He will satisfy them in all things, fill them, gladden them, and fill them with blessedness. Taking the word in this sense, let us now apply to it the first—“redemption.” In Greek this is απολυτρωσις, which signifies payment, recompense, and thereby “redemption.” One pays for a slave and thereby redeems him from slavery. So too the Lord redeemed us, paying our debts for us. Let us take here its proper meaning: payment. Εις απολυτρωσιν περιποιησεως — to the redemption of the possession—will then mean: as assurance that everything which God has purposed to bestow on the faithful and to fill them with blessedness in the future will be delivered to them, repaid—understanding: if they faithfully labour in the work to which they are called and with which they are armed by the powers of grace. Nothing will be lost in vain; all will be repaid.

There is something worth labouring for: all will be repaid. And how great that repayment will be, judge by the earnest. If the earnest is such, what then will be the very good whose reception the earnest assures? Theodoret writes: “By this the Apostle showed the greatness of what is awaited. For if the grace that was given, by which miracles were wrought, the dead raised, lepers cleansed, demons cast out, and other like things done—if this constituted only an earnest, it is plain that the faithful will obtain a far greater grace.” Blessed Jerome makes the same point: “From the earnest one judges the worth of what is purchased. If the earnest of the inheritance is such, what then is the inheritance itself?”

The Russian translation of these words is apt here as well: “for the redemption of the possession”—without the addition of “His.” By “possession” one may understand either God’s possession or our own. God’s possession is all the faithful who live according to faith. Our possession is eternal blessedness. We think that here it is closer to understand our own possession, with this thought: the Holy Spirit has been given to us so that, labouring with His help in pleasing God, we might be able to purchase for ourselves eternal blessedness. As a poor man is given money so that, entering into commerce, he might become wealthy, so the gift of the Spirit, as a talent, is given to us so that through its proper use we might acquire all that is possible here and prepare something greater for there. What does this work consist in? In the cleansing of the heart from the passions and its adorning with all the virtues. In the reception of the Spirit in holy baptism and chrismation only the seed of the spiritual life is sown. This must be followed by the labour of conducting the Spirit into all the domains of our being, as leaven into the whole lump. This cannot happen mechanically in a free being. The work of freedom here is not to consent to evil wherever it shows itself in us, and to desire the good, in whatever part it is to be accomplished. Following upon these orientations of freedom, grace enters inward and accomplishes what freedom only seeks but cannot accomplish. Thus at last grace penetrates all of man’s nature and makes him spiritual, luminous, pure, and fit to enter into the Kingdom of glory, into which nothing impure shall enter. In whomever this has been accomplished to any degree, that person has redeemed his possession. Since he could not have attained this without the grace of the Spirit, it is evident of itself that grace is given in order that each one might redeem his possession. In this sense St. Chrysostom also says: “The perfect redemption will be accomplished in the future life, for now we live in the midst of the world, and much that is worldly enters into us, and we associate with the ungodly.”

“But when there are no more sins or human passions, when the ungodly are no longer together with the saints, then perfect redemption will come; for now only the earnest has been given. Nevertheless, even now we must withdraw from what is earthly, for our homeland is not on earth; even now we must be free from what is here, for we are still strangers.”

One may also understand here God’s possession. God’s possession is all the faithful from among Jews and Gentiles. How many are to enter into God’s possession has been foreordained from on high. The Apostles, filled with the Spirit, went throughout the world and gathered those worthy to enter into it. Every believer was sealed with the Spirit and entered into God’s possession with this sign. What happened then and continues to happen to this day is the same as when some master purposes to gather a flock of sheep: his agents go about and purchase them, placing the master’s seal on each purchased sheep. When the number is complete, the purchasing comes to an end: the flock is deemed full, in accordance with the master’s intention. So it is also with respect to the gracious Kingdom of Christ. It is His possession—and consists, according to His word, of sheep. The Apostles were sent to make the purchase; after them, their successors continue the same work. When all is complete—when those also of whom the Lord said: “them also I must bring…” (Jn. 10:16) have been brought, and the spiritual flock is full according to the foreordained purpose—then the end of all things will come. The purpose of the present order of things will be fulfilled. And all of this is accomplished by the grace of the Holy Spirit, who abides on earth in the Church—and He abides for the redemption of God’s possession.

“To the praise of His glory.” The Apostle began with the blessing of God, but, not content with that, repeated three more times that all that is done for us is done to stir us up to the praise of God (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14). This is the one thing we are able to render to God for His unspeakable mercies; and this is what God requires of us. It flows naturally from the heart when the heart comes to feel the blessings of God through tasting them, or through making them genuinely its own. Let us therefore glorify, give thanks to, and praise the most merciful God. Let us not prove insensible. For God is jealous for His glory (Nah. 1:2).

“St. Chrysostom draws from this frequent repetition about the praise of God an assurance of the unshakeable firmness of our hopes and the certainty of the fulfilment of the promises. He says: ‘To the praise of His glory’—why does he constantly repeat this? In order to fully convince those who hear. If He had redeemed us for our own sake, as it were—so the Apostle seems to say—our redemption would not yet be beyond doubt. But if He did this for His own sake, that is, to show His goodness, then this already serves as a foundation, or as it were a guarantee, that what is promised will come to pass exactly as promised. We see that among the Israelites too such expressions are often found: ‘deal with me for Your name’s sake’ (Ps. 108:21). In another place God Himself says: ‘For My own sake I will do it’ (Isa. 48:11). And Moses cries: ‘Do for us for Your name’s sake,’ if for no other reason. Thus he most effectively convinces and encourages those who hear, teaching them that God, for the sake of His own goodness, will fulfil all that He promises. Yet let us not give ourselves over to carelessness on account of this. Certainly He does all things for His own sake; but He also requires corresponding actions from us. If He says that ‘those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed’ (1 Sam. 2:30), we must understand that something is also required on our part. The praise of His glory consists in saving enemies; but these enemies, once they have become friends, must also remain friends; if, however, they return again to their former enmity, then all will be useless and vain for them. There is no second bath of regeneration; no second bringing in; but there is ‘a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fiery indignation that will devour the adversaries’ (Heb. 10:27). This precisely awaits us as well if we, who always warred against Him and were deemed worthy of forgiveness, even after that do not cease to war against Him, to be intoxicated by lusts, and to become worse than before.”

With this the holy Apostle concludes his survey of the whole economy of our salvation and of all the blessings bestowed upon us from on high in Christ Jesus, our Lord. He began from the counsel of God in eternity without beginning and passed through to the indication of the inexpressible inheritance in eternity without end. And all of this he has encompassed in a single passage, concisely but expressively, fully, all-embracingly.