THE ANOINTING, THE SEALING AND THE EARNEST
[p. 192] THE ANOINTING, THE SEALING AND THE EARNEST
It is most important that we should understand the positive character of what has been preached to us as made good in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. If we were content to have things in Christ, and to let every other man drop out of sight, there would be glory to God by us. God would establish us in Christ, or, as it might read, firmly attach us to Christ, or connect us firmly with Him. And this is a collective or corporate matter, set forth in the words “us with you”. This is a work of God which is common to Paul and all those who can be said to be in Christ. There is not only the preaching, and all the positive blessedness of what is preached, but a mighty work of God forming an unbreakable bond between Christ and a company of persons in this world who have become the subjects of divine favour. The whole matter is presented here as of God; there is no admixture of any other element. This is all the more striking when we think of the next sentence, “To spare you I have not yet come to Corinth”. He speaks of what is true on the line of divine operations; this is what God is doing; Paul does not raise any question about it being understood on their part, or known in its experimental power. Exercises on that line would follow the reading of the epistle, no doubt, but he states here the great and blessed reality of what God has done. Scripture has largely this character, and saints are able to take it up according to the measure of their spiritual exercise. So that the question arises as to how much it means to us? We may be sure these statements meant much more to Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus than they did to the saints generally at Corinth, or perhaps to ourselves, but they come [p. 193] before us again and again so that they may acquire a much greater meaning to us than they have had before.
The firmly attaching to Christ may be illustrated by what happened when He was here. The gospels show us a number of men and women who were not loose hangers-on; there were sometimes crowds of people who professed faith in Him, but they were not firmly attached to Him; they drifted off and walked no more with Him when certain features of the truth came out. Some loved glory from men rather than glory from God. But there were some of whom the Lord could say, “Those thou hast given me I have guarded, and not one of them has perished” (John 17: 12). Not one whom God has firmly attached to Christ will ever be detached from Him. There might be some amongst them at Corinth who had never been thus attached, as there are many in the christian profession generally, but Paul has in mind here what God had done. He is occupied with the positive, and for the moment with that only.
“And has anointed us”. I think this refers to the public position in which they were set up as the assembly of God in Corinth. There was idolatry there, and great schools of philosophy, and there was a synagogue, but there was something far greater than all these. There was the assembly of God as an anointed company. It was not that they had anointed men amongst them to carry on the service of God, but the whole company was anointed. Every brother and sister has part in the anointed vessel; there is no lack of competency. For that is the thought of the anointing; it confers a competency which is of God. One longs that this should come much more into evidence. And all have responsibility as to this, for the service can never be beyond the general state without becoming more or less artificial. Power in the meetings cannot be expected to go beyond the general state and condition, so that we must be in the power of the anointing in our households and in everyday life if we want to be in the power of the [p. 194] anointing in the meetings. The anointing gives depth, and that is what is wanted in the meetings, not length. The longer we are, without depth the shallower the stream becomes. Whereas in Zion Jehovah becomes glorious, “a place of rivers, of broad streams”, as Isaiah said (chap 33: 21).
The anointing gets a great filling out of meaning as we trace the ingredients in Exodus 30. It is “a perfume of perfumery after the work of the perfumer”. “Upon man’s flesh shall it not be poured”. Things anointed become holy. None of it is to be put on any strange thing.
“Who also has sealed us”. The Son of man gives food which abides unto life eternal, “for him has the Father sealed, even God”. (John 6: 27). He carried the Father’s mark. An angel ascends from the sunrising having the seal of the living God to seal the bondmen of our God upon their foreheads (Revelation 7: 2, 3). In Christ we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, “the promise of the Father, which ... ye have heard of me” (Acts 1: 4). The Spirit is specially connected with the Father. The exalted Jesus received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit and poured out that which the people beheld and heard. I take it that the seal is to appear, which would be conveyed in the bondmen being sealed upon their foreheads. In the light of this how impossible to think of an invisible church!
“And given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts”. The Spirit is an actual part of our eternal portion. God has wrought us for an eternal condition of glory, and the Spirit will be part of it. There will be no other power to enter upon what is in Christ even in eternity.