4. The seal lasts until the day of redemption. — The term " redemption " is one of the broadest and most elastic in the New Testament vocabulary. A cursory glance will show us that it does not merely denote the ransom Christ once offered for our salvation, or even our experimental deliverance from the power of sin in the present life. The word covers the rescue of God's people from the last trace of sin's dominion in death and their elevation to share the glory of Jesus Christ on high. A similar comprehensiveness in the use of the word is to be found in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where St. Paul speaks in an
^ James Vaughan. * T. G. Selby, The Holy Spirit, 98.
224 GRIEVING THE SPIRIT
ascending series of "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." If redemption points chiefly to Christ's work on the cross, we should expect it to be put before righteousness and sanctification ; but because it is the wider term, Paul puts it last, and makes it include not only rescue from the moral per- versity bred into human character by sin, but from every pain, abasement, and physical debility that has followed in its train.
The seal is not to be broken until the proper authorities and witnesses are present, and all the purpose of such sealing has been answered. Christians are sealed unto the day of redemption, unto that day when redemption shall be perfected in glory. This sealing is both retrospective and prospective. It looks back to Calvary and onward to heaven. The day when the terms of our spiritual purchase were agreed to, when the Divine compact was settled, when the seal was affixed, was the day when the Saviour said, " It is finished." We come into part enjoyment of this redemption on earth. In heaven all the terms of the agreement will be fully manifested and enjoyed. "Ye are sealed unto the day of re- demption." Whatever may be the trials and difficulties through which we have to pass, however much we may be tossed on the heavinc^ ocean of life, let us not abate our courage or lose our heart, for we are reserved unto the day of redemption. Let us not think that we are the children of fate, the mere toys of blind circumstances, the playthings of tyrannical and unreasoning force ; for we are reserved unto the day of redemption. Yes, God, the loving and all- wise God, has mysterious methods of reservation. He may reserve in poverty, in trial, in sickness drear, in sore bereavement, in heart anguish, in soul throbbings of fearful measure, when waves and billows toss and groan and sweep with fury. Still God reserves ; and sometimes thus reserves that the crest on the seal may be all the brighter.
^ When Daguerre was working at his sun pictures his great difficulty was to make them permanent. The light came and imprinted the image, but when the tablet was drawn from the camera, the image had vanished. He discovered, however, the chemical power which turned the evanescent into the permanent. And the day is coming when the image of Christ will be stamped so indelibly by the Spirit upon the mind of man that it can never fade.
EPHESIANS IV. 30 225
^ What is the one decisive sign by which we may know whether we have received the Holy Ghost ? Is it to be a mere sentiment, an impression upon the mind, a religious hope ; or is it to be something more decisive, emphatic, and incontrovertible ? Do you ask a question ? I am prepared with a reply. What is the one decisive sign that a man has received the Holy Ghost ? Let me approach that question through two others. Have you received the poetic spirit ? How do you prove it ? Not by prose, but by poetry. Have you received the heroic spirit ? How do you prove it? Not by cowardice, not by craven-heartedness, but by adventure, by freely encountering peril in all its thousand forms and possibilities of visitation. Have you received the Holy Spirit? The decisive sign is love of holiness — not power of theological debate, not only contending for the faith once delivered to the saints, not only outwardly irreproachable character, but love of holiness — not reputation, but reality ; a heart that pants after the holiness of God — life concentrated into one burning prayer to be sanctified, body, soul, and spirit — life a sacrifice on God's altar — that is what I mean by saying that holiness is the one decisive test of our having received the Holy Ghost.^
Ah Lord, we all have pierced Thee: wilt Thou be
Wroth with us all to slay us all ? Nay, Lord, be this thing far from Thee and me:
By whom should we arise, for we are small, By whom if not by Thee ?
Lord, if of us who pierced Thee Thou spare one,
Spare yet one more to love Thy Face, And yet another of poor souls undone. Another, and another — God of grace. Let mercy overrun.^
* Joseph Parker. 'Christina G. Eossetti, Poems, 137.
EPH.-COL. — 15
The Fruit of the Light.
*aj
Literature.
Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Cliilclren, vi. 376.
Findlay (G. G.), The Einstle to the Ephesiaiis (Expositor's Bible), 321.