DAILY DEVOTION: EPHESIANS 1:4

By Stan Brown

Ephesians 1:14  who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

As Paul closes this section on the fantastic blessings of God in our lives, he does so with the complete assurance that our inheritance in God and God's inheritance in us is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.  You see, just as John writes about abiding (we in Him and He in us), Paul speaks of both our inheritance and God’s possession (you and me).  It is all pledged with the down payment of the Holy Spirit.  The word translated pledge is only used two other times in the New Testament and both refer to the fact that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance.  In II Cor. 1:22, both the word sealed (that is used in Eph. 1:13) and the word pledge or earnest are used as he writes who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. In II Cor 5:5 he writes, now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.  Hoehner describes it as, “a little bit of heaven in believers’ lives with a guarantee of much more yet to come”. 
 
Paul first stresses that everything he has mentioned in this passage (Eph. 1:3-14) and more (Paul didn’t have enough space to mention everything in this section) are guaranteed to us by the down payment of the Holy Spirit.  We have received redemption through His blood.  We have received forgiveness of our sins.  When we believed we were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.  He is the One who makes the promise and assures the promise.  God, Himself is our promise.
 
Not only does the Holy Spirit promise that we have an inheritance, He is given as the promise of the redemption of God’s possession, that is you and me, that is those who have believed.  We are God’s possession.  Peter speaks of us as God’s possession, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;  (1Pet 2:9).  The prophet Malachi writes, “They will be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him (Mal. 3:17).” We as God’s own possession look forward to the time when we will have complete release from the presence of sin in our lives. 
 
Paul ends the section on the sealing of the Holy Spirit with a doxology to the praise of His glory just as he did the section on the redemptive work of the Son (vv. 7-12), and the sovereign work of the Father (vv. 3-6).  God has declared that our ultimate redemption will be to the praise of His glory.   Isaiah wrote the same thought as he declares, “The people whom I formed for Myself. Will declare My praise (Is. 43:21).  We are right now to the praise of His glory.  We must declare His praise.