“The Earnest Of Our Inheritance.” May 2009

“That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after the ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the “earnest of our inheritance” until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1: 12-14.

My sincere exhortation to pastors, bible teachers, group leaders, and altar workers who are now reading these writings online, is that you study with me, line by line, as we walk through this very important lesson. Over the years very little, if anything at all, has been said about the “earnest of our inheritance” in bible studies, workshops and seminars. And the reason might surprise you, even though it should not as we shall see very shortly. Some years ago, my former presiding bishop was invited to be the guest speaker at a convention in Washington, DC, hosted by a group of Christian business men. The bishop began by saying; “You have spoken in tongues and prophesied; you have healed the sick and cast out devils; you have exercised the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom, but for goodness sake, will somebody tell me, “Where do we go from here?” The house fell silent and needless to say the bishop was never invited back to any of their meetings or conventions. Why?

            Let us examine the full extent of the Christian experience across the full spectrum of Christian doctrines. There is a non-pentecostal group who will confess Jesus Christ as Savior. The next step is to be trained for service as a missionary in foreign fields or on the home front. To this particular group, in the classroom and on the road training is paramount. The full extent of their Christian theology is to work hard in winning others to Christ, be a strong and faithful witness, feed the hungry, give shelter to the homeless, die and go to heaven.

            The Pentecostal groups take it much further than that! Among Pentecostals (into which I was raised and operated as one of their ministers) much more is required. Repentance is followed by water baptism, followed by receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Holy Spirit to many.) This fete is accomplished to many only by “laying on of hands” and the candidate must end up speaking in tongues which is the sign of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. In some groups the process is based on “tarrying” around the altar until the candidate speaks in an unknown tongue. Among some Pentecostal groups this marks the end of all pre-requisites, and all that is left is true and faithful service, either until death or until the Rapture of the church.

            Other Pentecostal groups insist on moving further into acquiring the “gifts of the Spirit” and their meetings are filled with speaking in tongues, prophecies on a personal level or to the Body collectively. This group believes in possessing what is called “The Nine Gifts Of The Spirit” as found in 1 Corinthians 12. Some leaders have the ability to call individuals out from the crowd and tell them what God is saying, or what healing they need, or what devils need to be cast out. We call all of this “The Gift Realm.” Can we call this the realm of perfection? Absolutely not! Over the years of walking in this realm, I have met many sweet and devoted people who live in the realm of gifts, and in spite of these gifts were unstable in their lives. Many were always hearing from “the Father” and drifting from one group to another. (Not trying to speak disparagingly of any person or group.) Moving from one city to another, because Father said so, and one is left to look on with sheer amazement. So the word Pentecostal can mean many different things to many different people. This is what makes it so difficult to draw lines of demarcation, and institute rigid rules across the board. In fact this is why the church has missed so many people in her effort to build up local memberships. We are told that no two snow flakes are alike, so are people because God has made it so. Thus, our Creator in his divine wisdom has elected to deal with each person on a “personal basis.” But as far as “mainstream” Christianity goes teaching that salvation comes in stages is almost never heard or taught, because as we said before, upon receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, believers are taught to believe that they received the whole, complete package, and all that is left is for them to remain faithful in worship and service to the end. Very few that I personally know, do teach salvation, first of our spirit, then our soul, and finally, our body.

            What can be called a tragedy is that people arrive in this realm of gifts and believe that they have received all that God has destined for them, and in reality, these are the hardest folks to try and teach present truths to. Once again! WHY? Because upon receiving a Holy Ghost experience, they sing and dance in the Spirit, they bring forth a word of prophecy, they lay hands for healing and go home feeling fulfilled. Hey brother! Do you want more from God? More of what? Can’t you see that I have it all? My! My! What a delusion? The purpose of this lesson is not to try and prove who are right and who are wrong. It is not to speak down to a brother or a sister in saying that they have very little or none of what God has promised. Our purpose in this study is to follow exactly what the Bible says to us, letter by letter, word by word. Many of us have been short changed by our leaders and our peers in the gospel. Not because they willfully wanted to short-change us, or willfully wanted to without truths from us.

            Some of our leaders were like veterans of past wars who fought with vigor and resilience, but they could only share out of what they had. Peter said, “Such as I have, give I thee.” Acts 3: 6. Even a family doctor can only treat a patient out of the knowledge he or she has. Let us pull the curtains back a little and see what the imparting of the Holy Spirit in the first place is all about. Many believe that the Holy Spirit is given to us to empower us for service, and they quote Acts 1: 8. “And ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me, etc.”  Their assertions are correct but only allude to the outer fringes of the entire package. Let us look at the scripture text being used in this study from a couple of other translations.

            J. B. Phillips translation puts it this way: “And after you gave your confidence to him you were, so to speak, stamped with the promised Holy Spirit as a guarantee of purchase, until the day when God completes the redemption of what he has paid for as his own; and that will again be to the praise of his glory.” The N. E. B. (New English Bible) renders the passage thus: “And you too, when you had heard the message of truth, the good news of your salvation, and had believed it, became incorporate in Christ and received the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; and that Spirit is the pledge that we shall enter upon our heritage, when God has redeemed what is his own, to his praise of his glory.”

            There are a few commanding components in our scripture text that are of paramount importance to us, if we are to fully understand what God has done in us, and for us, and to what extent has he committed himself to us, to finished the process. Do you think that God would have tied himself in knots to us, in a contract that he cannot renege on? It is amazing to think that God (the all omnipotent One) creates the law, then decides to put himself under that law, making himself duty bound by his own law to fulfill his promise to us.

            Paul indicated to the Ephesians that after they believed, they were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the “earnest” of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession. There are three words before us at this juncture that we need to examine very carefully. First, the Holy Spirit of promise, second the earnest, next, until. The word promise is much like a promissory note that points to a future settlement. The word until also points to the future! Hold my seat for me, until I return. Loan me ten dollars until pay day. So the gift of the Holy Spirit was much like a promissory note given to us by God himself, pointing to a future and complete transaction that has to do with our over all redemption. I have pointed out many times in the past that salvation has two major components; namely, the buying back and the bringing back. So then, promise and until both mean the same thing; they both point to the future. But how will we know when the future has arrived? What big event will herald the coming of that day, when the future will be the future no more? The scripture text says, “until the redemption of the purchased possession” which will be the point when the buying back and the bringing back will have been completed and redemption is complete.

            Let us look at the word earnest for a moment, because it tells a great story. Indeed, it holds massive truths that will open our eyes and cause our feet to dance with joy. It will show how God placed himself in a binding contract with us, thus obligating himself to follow through in his plan of redemption that will bring us the redemption that many at this point in time believe they already have. Our scripture text says that the Holy Spirit that was given to us when we first believe was the earnest of our inheritance. The word earnest in Strong’s Concordance is # 728 and is the Greek word ar-hrab-ohn and it means a pledge; part of the purchase money or property given in advance as security for the rest.

            Unger’s Bible Dictionary has this to say: “The noun earnest occurs three times in the New Testament, and the meaning of the passages appears to be that the Holy Spirit is in the heart as an earnest money given for a guarantee of a future possession, the pledge of complete salvation. The Holy Spirit is both a foretaste and a pledge of future blessedness. Paul was well familiar with this concept for he wrote in 2 Cor. 1: 21-22, “Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” And again in chapter 5 verse 5 we read: Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.”

            The earnest is called a pledge, a token payment, a down payment, or even a “seed” payment. It all adds up to the same thing in the long run. The earnest is NOT the full package, and it is not the final settlement in any transaction between two or more parties. Indeed, it is a pledge and it serves to place the pledge giver into a binding agreement with another person or persons, with the intent that at some future date, the transaction will be completed by the paying of the full balance due. We know from scripture that God began the purchase process at Calvary where Jesus took our sins in his body on that tree.

            Paul mentioned in 1 Cor.6,19 that “ye are not your own.” He then went on to clarify the issue in the very next verse. “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Listen to Jesus for a moment! “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” Matt.13,44.   Didn’t Jesus empty himself of Deity, became like an ordinary man so he could die in the process of buying us back unto God as a peculiar treasure? And just where is that treasure hidden? “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” 2 Cor.4, 7.

Being purchased by the precious blood of Jesus Christ has never been in doubt among those who follow Jesus and have the infilling of the Spirit. What has been lost, is the idea that there has to be a completion of the process, or as Paul puts it to the Ehphesians, “the redemption of the purchased possession.”

            Our past teachings of the “Pentecostal Experience” has been so final and clear cut, that no room has been left for even the faint possibility that there is more for us to receive and experience, and that God has actually obligated himself to this task, and has personally placed himself into a binding contract with us, and since he is a God that cannot lie or deny himself, he has no choice but to come forward and complete the process. I don’t know who, including myself will remain in this body when God completes the process. But since Paul indicated that we shall not all sleep, but we all shall be changed, there is no way that any of us shall miss this big event.

            What assurance do we have to underscore these sayings? “God is not man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” Numbers 23, 19. “In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” Titus 1,2. My opinion or yours have no effect on what God has pledged to do in his own time. Paul said; “If we believe not, he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.” 2 Tim. 2, 13. The clamor of man, the rage of man, the indifference of man, or any other human elements cannot sway God’s will and thwart his ultimate intentions for his creation. Let us take a little time to demonstrate how the “earnest” money works in a real life situation. Let us assume that I am in the market for a house, and the current inflation and down turn in house prices make it the ideal time to buy, so I hit the road, house hunting.

            I begin to drive through an up-scale neighborhood, with shade trees on either side of the streets, and beautifully manicured lawns. Along Tranquil Lane I come to number 1500. The “for sale” sign has the name and telephone number of the agent, Joe Smith Real Estate Company. I pull out my cell phone and call the number. I tell Mr. Smith that I am outside 1500 Tranquil Lane and has a keen interest in the property, and I would like to come over and talk about buying it. Before Long, I enter the office of Mr. Smith and extend my hand for a handshake. Delighted to meet you, I am Rev. Kennedy and this is my wife Judy. Come in, come in, and have a seat says Mr. Smith. I reiterate my interest in the property at 1500 Tranquil Lane. Mr. Smith pulls the card and begins to read off the several features of the property.

            It is 2,900 square feet in size, it has 4 bedrooms, 3 ½ baths, a kitchen with dinning area, plus a complete dinning room, a rec room, family room, a finished basement, 2-car garage on ½ an acre of land. The asking price is $350,000 but is negotiable. After this initial meeting with the real estate agent, I get up to shake hands with Mr. Smith saying, “I am satisfied that this is the house for me. So please hold on to it for me, and I will be back within a week or two to take the deal to the next level.” Mr. Smith replies: “Rev. Kennedy, I am glad that you love the house. In fact, if I were in the market for a house, I would buy it myself. But being a reverend, I would certainly love for you to buy it. However, I am in this business to make money, so I cannot “hold” the property for you as much as I would love to. If someone walks in right behind you with cash and ready to deal, I will have to let it go. So, I tell you what! Why don’t you leave a deposit on the property that will at least enable me to start the process.

            Gee, Mr. Smith! I wasn’t prepared to do any spending today. Rev. Kennedy, don’t you have your check book with you? Yes, but that’s about all I have at the moment. I tell you what! Write me a check for $500 and in the mean time I will draw up a tentative contract for you to sign. I will clip your check on to the contract, and begin the process on your behalf. At closing, your $500 check will figure in as part of your down payment. Here is the clincher my fried! Not only is that $500 my earnest money; but in signing a temporary contract and issuing a $500 check, I am saying to the seller that I have entered into a binding contract and do promise to complete the transaction at a later date when I will become sole owner of the property.

            Now, suppose in a week or two I call up Mr. Smith and tell him that I have changed my mind, so I will be happy if he will simply mail my $500 check back to me. Mr. Smith will say to me; “Rev. Kennedy, you sign a contract in good faith to buy the property and sealed it with your check for $500. You are now legally obligated to follow through, and the seller has every right to hold you to the agreement you signed in good faith. The seller can sue you for breach of contract, and can claim that since you signed the agreement to buy the property many offers came and had to be turned down on the basis of your promise.” Can you see my situation? You may not want to believe this, but God has placed himself in much the same situation and it is to the praise of his glory.

            What if I tell you that God has no intention of calling up Mr. Smith, saying, “I have changed my mind; those people are too reckless, unholy, unfaithful, and disobedient for me to bother with. What about the Spirit of promise that he has already sealed us with? What about his Son who died on a cruel cross? Is he going to undo all of this with a wave of his hand? The answer is a resounding NO. Paul said: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Phil.1, 6. So there is no turning back for the die has already been cast, the pledge has already been made, and the execution of God’s master plan is already been set in motion.

            Romans 8, 23 tells us that we who have the firstfruits (earnest) of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Remember the redemption of the purchased possession? Yes! The redemption of our body! The word redemption in this verse is not the same as redemption in Heb.9, 15, 22. The Greek word for redemption in Heb.9,15 is loo-tro-sis and it means ransom—paying the price of sin in our place. But redemption in Rom.8,23 is the Greek word ap-ol-oo-tro-sis and it means riddance, ramsom in full, and the loosing away of this body. It is in this light that we read the following: “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Heb.9, 28.

            Many times, and even just recently I heard a preacher on the radio expounding on this verse and calling it the second coming of Christ. Not one bit so! In this scenario he is coming only to those who are looking for him, and for what? To bring full salvation! What full salvation? The letter was written to people who were already saved by the general interpretation of the word. I like how J. B. Phillips renders this verse. “It is certain that Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many and after that, to those who look for him, he will appear a second time, not this time to deal with sin (we know he already dealt with the sin question) but to bring to full salvation those who eagerly await him.”  When Jesus stood in a certain man’s house, he said today is salvation come to this house, because he was the full embodiment of God’s salvation. He brought salvation down to earth the first time, and it by necessity that he must once again bring salvation down to man again.

            What is he appearing for the second time? I want you never to forget this! You pastors and bible teachers in foreign lands who are writing and asking for help with your bible teaching, put this truth in your spirit. Foster it and nourish it so that it will enable you to more fully understand the salvation that you are attempting to share with the world. So once again! Why is Christ appearing the second time? To complete the redemption of the purchased possession which will be to the praise of his glory. These are two separate acts as we alluded to before! The buying back happened already and the price was paid in full. We are no more our own, but we are slaves to him who bought us with his own blood. However, the bringing back has been a gradual process as we go from glory to glory as by the Spirit of God.

            The main point to remember in all of this is that upon imparting to us the Spirit of promise, which is the “pledge” the “down payment” the “earnest” money, God himself has entered into a binding contract with us, promising us that at the appointed time, he will return and redeem the purchased possession. Hallelujah! We bless your name Jesus! Please bear in mind this truth also! It does not matter how many of us die or how many of us remain alive. Whether we are asleep or awake, we shall have our part in this great and monumental event, when the purchased possession shall be totally redeemed. This is when we shall experience our ap-ol-oo-tro-sis, the loosing away of our body, when all restrictions will be removed and indeed we will mark the true meaning of what it means to be born again, for then, we shall move like the wind. The sound can be heard, but its direction and other features cannot be determined.

            It is no wonder that Paul includes us in groaning and travailing with the rest of creation, as we wait for our apolootrosis, the loosing away of our bodily restrictions. In fact this is what creation is on tip toe, waiting to see, which indeed, will be a glorious sight of the sons of God coming into their own. Listen to this glorious account in scripture! “For our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” Phil.3, 20-21.

            Paul said, you know what, if this earthly tabernacle, this body of mine be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. But you know what else? We in this tabernacle are groaning, not to be unclothed so that we be found naked, or become disembodied spirits. Rather, we wish to be clothed UPON with our house which is from above, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. 2 Cor.5,1-4. We sing, we dance, we preach and teach, we evangelize and bring many to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but as my friend asked in Washington D.C., will somebody please tell me where do we go from here? We watch by the graveside as they lower our loved ones in the grave. In spite of all the days of worship and joy together, we walk away with tears running down our cheeks. Even the “unsaved” looking on must be asking, Is this all that there is to it? Have we seen the end of our salvation? Is this the high point in all that God has called us into and has promised to them that love him? “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” Heb.11, 39-40. Are you resting assured as you stand upon God’s promises that no matter what or how marks the way, you will come into what He has in store for you? O yes, He can! And yes, He will!

Royce O. Kennedy

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