Good Monday Morning to this week 30 of 2019<\/p>\n
This week I “stumbled” over the Greek word and masculine noun arrab\u00f3n (ar-hrab-ohn).<\/p>\n
Interlinear Hebrew for 1. Cor. 1:22 :
\nThe (One) also having sealed us and having given the\u00a0pledge (arrab\u00f3n) of the Spirit(Pneumatos) in the hearts of us.<\/p>\n
An earnest, earnest-money, a pledge,\u00a0 a large part of the payment, given in advance as a security that the whole will be paid afterwards.<\/p>\n
An installment; a\u00a0deposit,\u00a0<\/i>down-payment,\u00a0 which\u00a0guarantees<\/i>\u00a0the balance the\u00a0full<\/i>\u00a0purchase-price.<\/p>\n
This phrase is twice used by Paul in another Epistle (2 Cor 1:22, 5:5). The metaphor is taken from bargains, in which, when a pledge has been given and accepted, the whole is confirmed, and\u00a0no room is left for a change of mind. Calvin<\/p>\n
The Spirit living in us governing us to the extent that we yield control. Paul uses the arrab\u00f3n, the deposit, down-payment of what is to come. God’s seal of ownership over us, the already depostit that guarantees the full reality in the not yet of what is still to come.
\nA. Venter<\/p>\n
The \u2018earnest,\u2019 is a small portion of purchase-money, or wages, or contract-money, which is given at the making of a bargain, as an assurance that the whole amount will be paid in due time. And, says the Apostle, this seal is also an earnest. It not only makes certain God\u2019s ownership and guarantees the security of those on whom it is impressed, but it also points onwards to the future, and at once guarantees that, and to a large extent reveals the nature of it. MacLaren<\/p>\n
This divine seal is the earnest (a token of what is to come – a pledge), inasmuch as itself is part of the whole. You have but to take the faith, the love, the obedience, the communion of the highest moments of the Christian life on earth, and free them from all their limitations, subtract from them all their imperfections, multiply them to their superlative possibility, and endow them with a continual power of growth, and stretch them out to absolute eternity, and you get heaven. The earnest is of a piece with the inheritance. M. Poole If God having once given this earnest, should not also give the rest of the inheritance! Leigh<\/p>\n A seal was used for different purposes: to mark a person’s property, to secure his treasures, or to authenticate a deed. In the first sense, the Spirit distinguishes believers as the peculiar people of God; in the second, he guards them as his precious jewels; in the third, he confirms or ratifies their title to salvation.\u00a0 An earnest is a part given as a security for the future possession of the whole. The Holy Spirit is the earnest of the heavenly inheritance, because he begins that holiness in the soul which will be perfected in heaven, and imparts those joys which are foretastes of its blessedness.\u00a0 Calvin<\/p>\n All the results of the sealing of the soul are manifestly incomplete and tend towards completeness.\u00a0Is this imperfect Christianity of ours, our little faith so soon shattered, our little love so quickly disproved, our faltering resolutions, our lame performances, our earthward connectedness, these things all that Jesus agony was for. Manifestly, here is but a segment of the circle, in heaven is the perfect round; and the imperfections, so far as life is concerned, cry aloud for a region where it’s possible for us to be made as He has wanted, complete again. MacLaren<\/p>\n He has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything he has promised us. 1. Cor. 1:22<\/p>\n Wishing a blessed week as you live in the “now”, often the “not-yet” yet draw from His Spirit grounded in the assurance of this “arrab\u00f3n”,\u00a0 deposit, down-payment, earnest and guarantee already given as gift for us!<\/p>\n Blessings<\/p>\n Philemon<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good Monday Morning to this week 30 of 2019 This week I “stumbled” over the Greek word and masculine noun arrab\u00f3n (ar-hrab-ohn). Interlinear Hebrew for 1. Cor. 1:22 : The (One) also having sealed us and having given the\u00a0pledge (arrab\u00f3n) of the Spirit(Pneumatos) in the hearts of us. An earnest, earnest-money, a pledge,\u00a0 a large … <\/p>\n
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\nHere is a gift offered for us all, a gift which our feebleness sorely needs, a gift for every timid nature, for every weak will, for every man, woman, and child. An\u00a0offer of a reinforcement as real, so you and I may have in our hearts the Spirit of God, the spirit of strength, the spirit of love and of a sound mind, the spirit of adoption, the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, to enlighten our darkness, to bind our hearts to Him, to quicken and energise our souls, to make the weakest among us strong. Matthew Henry<\/p>\n