The apostle has been referring to the great hope set before us in the gospel, which, as he regards it, is this, that "mortality might be swallowed up of life." That is the object of the Divine working in the believer, and of its final realization he has this "earnest," or pledge of assurance, God has given us already the "earnest of the Spirit," who is the power that alone can work out such a sublime result as our final triumph over the flesh and sin, and meetness to take our place and part in a spiritual and heavenly state. "It is because the Spirit dwells in us by faith while we are here that we are to be raised hereafter. The body thus possessing a principle of life is as a seed planted in the ground to be raised again in God's good time" (comp. the sentence in 2 Corinthians 1:22 and Romans 8:1-11). Observe that the Holy Spirit is presented to us under many aspects and figures; no one representation of his Divine mission can exhaust his relations to us. We must see his work on one side after another, and be willing to learn from all She figures under which it is presented.

I. WHAT IS MEANT BY AN "EARNEST"? It is something offered as a pledge and assurance that what is promised shall surely be given. But it has been well pointed out that an "earnest" materially differs from a "pledge." A pledge is something different in kind, given as assurance for something else, as may be illustrated by the sacraments; but an earnest is a part of the thing to be given, as when a purchase is made and a portion of the money is paid down at once. The idea of the "earnest" may be seen in the "firstfruits," which are a beginning of, and assure the character of, the coming harvest.

II. WHAT IS THE SPIRIT AS "EARNEST" TO US NOW? St. Paul's one point here is that it is an assurance of the final victory of the higher life over the lower. We have indeed that higher life now, in its initial and rudimentary stages, in having the Spirit dwelling in us.

III. WHAT FUTURE IS PLEDGED IN OUR HAVING THE SPIRIT NOW? Precisely a future in which the spiritual life shall be victorious and supreme, and our vehicle of a body simply within the use of the Spirit. That is full redemption, glory, and heaven. - R.T.

These words penetrate deep into the secrets of God. To Paul everything is the Divine working. Life is to him no mere blind whirl of accidental forces, but the slow operation of the great Workman. And he believes that the clear perception of the Divine purpose will be a charm against all sorrow, doubt, despondency, or fear.

I. GOD'S PURPOSE IN ALL HIS WORKING.

1. What is that "self-same thing"? The apostle has been speaking about the instinctive reluctance that even good men feel at the prospect of "putting off the earthly house of this tabernacle." He distinguishes between three different conditions in which the human spirit may be — dwelling in the earthly body, stripped of that, and "clothed with the house which is from heaven"; and this last and highest state is the very thing for which God has wrought us — i.e., the highest aim of the Divine love in all its dealings with us is not merely a blessed spiritual life, but the completion of our humanity in a perfect spirit dwelling in a glorified body.

2. That glorified body is described in our context.

II. THE SLOW PROCESS OF THE DIVINE WORKMAN.

1. The apostle employs a term which conveys the idea of continuous and effortful work, as if against resistance. Like some sculptor with a hard bit of marble, or some metallurgist with rough ore, so the loving, patient, Divine Artificer labours long and earnestly with somewhat obstinate material, by manifold touches, here a little and there a little, and not discouraged when He comes upon a black vein in the white marble, nor when the hard stone turns the edge of His chisels. Learn, then —(1) That God cannot make you fit for heaven all at a jump, or by a simple act of will. He can make a world so, not a saint. He cannot say, and He does not say, "Let there be holiness," and it comes. Not so can God make man meet for the "inheritance of the saints in light." And it takes Him all His energies, for all a lifetime, to prepare His child for what He wants to make of him.(2) That God cannot give a man that glorified body of which I have been speaking unless the man's spirit is Christlike. By the necessities of the case it is confined to the purified, because it corresponds to their inward spiritual being. It is only a perfect spirit that can dwell in a perfect body. Some shall rise to glory and immortality, some to shame and everlasting contempt. If we are to stand at the last with the body of our humiliation changed into a body of glory, we must begin by being changed in the spirit of our mind.

2. Consider the three-fold processes which, in the Divine working, terminate in this great issue.(1) God has wrought us for it in the very act of making us what we are. Human nature is an insoluble enigma if this world is its only field. Amidst all the mysterious waste of creation, there is no more profligate expenditure of powers than that which is involved in giving a man such faculties and capacities if this be the only field on which they are to be exercised. All other creatures fit their circumstances; nothing in them is bigger than their environment. They find in life a field for every power. But we have an infinitude of faculty lying half dormant in each of us which finds no work at all in this present world. What is the use of us if there is nothing except this poor present? God, or whoever made us, has made a mistake; and, strangely enough, if we were not made, but evolved, evolution has worked out faculties which have no correspondence with the things around them. Life, and man, is an insoluble enigma except on the hypothesis that this is a nursery-ground, and that the little plants will be pricked out some day, and planted where they are meant to grow.(2) Another field of the Divine operation to this end is in what we roughly call "providences." What is the meaning of all this discipline through which we are passed if there is nothing to be disciplined for? What is the good of an apprenticeship if there is no journeyman's life to come after it, where the powers that have been slowly acquired shall be nobly exercised upon broader fields? Life is an insoluble riddle unless the purpose of it lie yonder, and unless all this patient training of our sorrows and our gladnesses is equally meant for training us for the perfect life of a perfect soul, moving a perfect body in a perfect universe. And who can think of life as anything but a wretched fragment unless he knows that all which begins here runs upwards into the room above, and there finds its explanation and its completion?(3) So in all the work and mystery of our redemption this is the goal that God has in view. It was not worth Christ's while to come and die if nothing more was to come of it than the imperfect reception of His blessings and gifts which the noblest Christian life in this world presents. The meaning and purpose of the Cross, the meaning and purpose of all the patient dealings of His whispering Spirit, is that we shall be like our Divine Lord in spirit first, and in body afterwards.

3. And everything about the experiences of a true Christian spirit is charged with a prophecy of immortality. The very desires which God's good Spirit works in a believing soul are themselves confirmations of their own fulfilment.

III. THE CERTAINTY AND THE CONFIDENCE.

1. "He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God." Then we may be sure that, as far as He is concerned, the work will not be suspended nor vain. This Workman has infinite resources, an unchanging purpose, and infinite long-suffering. In the quarries of Egypt you will find gigantic stones, half-dressed, and intended to have been transported to some great temple. But there they lie, the work incomplete, and they never carried to their place. There are no half-polished stones in God's quarries. They are all finished where they lie, and then borne across the sea, like Hiram's from Lebanon, to the temple on the hill.

2. But it is a certainty that you can thwart. It is an operation that you can counter-work. Oh! do not let all God's work on you come to naught, but yield yourselves to it. Rejoice in the confidence that He is moulding your character, cheerfully welcome the providences, painful as they may be, by which He prepares you for heaven.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

There are five steps in orderly succession whereby we are wrought, made fit, for the kingdom of God.

I. The first of these is the DIVINE CALL, by which we are excited and urged to seek salvation.

II. The second step in the preparation of the soul for heaven is DIVINE ILLUMINATION.

III. The spiritual illumination of the inner man is followed by REPENTANCE.

IV. And this conducts us to the fourth step in the process of religion — namely, FAITH IN CHRIST.

V. The final step in the method of salvation is the SANCTIFICATION OF THE SOUL.

(J. A. Sartorius.)

I. THE WORK OF PREPARATION.

1. It is almost universally admitted that some preparation is essential. Whenever death is announced, you will hear the worst-instructed say, "I hope, poor man! he was prepared."(1) Men need something to be done for them.(a) God declares that we are enemies to Him. We need, therefore, that some ambassador should come to us with terms of peace, and reconcile us to God.(b) We are debtors also to our Creator — debtors to His law. Some mediator, then, must come in to pay the debt for us, for we cannot pay it, neither can we be exempted from it.(c) In addition to this, we are all criminals — condemned already; in fear of execution unless some one come in between us and punishment. Say, then, has this been done for you? Many of you can answer, "Blessed be God, I have been reconciled to Him through the death of His Son; my debts to God are paid; I have looked to Christ, my Substitute, and I am no longer condemned" (Romans 8:1). Come, let us rejoice in this, that He hath wrought us for this self-same thing.(2) Something must be wrought in us.(a) We are all dead in trespasses and sins. Shall dead men sit at the feasts of the eternal God? Only the Jiving children can inherit the promises of the living God, for He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.(b) By nature we are all worldly. We "mind earthly things"; the world's maxims govern us, its fears alarm us, its hopes and ambitions excite us. But we cannot go to heaven as worldly men, for there would be nothing there to gratify us. The joys and glories of heaven are all spiritual.(c) We are unholy by nature; but in heaven they are "without fault before the throne of God." No sin is tolerated there. What a change, then, must come over the carnal man to make him holy? What can wash him white but the blood of Christ? That a great change must be wrought in us even ungodly men will confess, since the Scriptural idea of heaven has never been agreeable to unconverted men. When Mahomet would charm the world into the belief that he was the prophet of God, the heaven he pictured was a heaven of unbridled sensualism. Could a wicked man enter into heaven, he would be wretched there. There is no heaven for him who has not been prepared for it by a work of grace in his soul.

2. If we have such a preparation, we must have it on this side of our death. As the tree falleth, so it must lie. While the nature is soft it is susceptible of impression, stamp what seal you may upon it; once let it grow cold and hard, you can do so no more; it is proof against any change. We have no intimation in the Word of God that any soul dying in unbelief will afterwards be converted. "He that is holy, let him be holy still; he that is filthy, let him be filthy still." Moreover, we ought to know, for it is possible for a man to know whether he is thoroughly prepared. Jesus Christ has not left us in such a dubious ease that we always need to be inquiring, "Am I His, or am I not?" He tells us that "he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved." If we have obeyed these commands we shall be saved, for our God keepeth His word. We need not harbour endless questionings.

3. Mast how many put off all thoughts of being prepared to diet They are prepared for almost anything except the one thing needful. "Prepare to meet your God."

II. THE AUTHOR OF THIS PREPARATION FOR DEATH. Who made Adam fit for Paradise but God? And who must make us fit for the better Paradise above but God? That we cannot do it ourselves is evident. We are dead in trespasses and sins. Can the dead start from the grave of their own accord? The dead shall surely rise, but because God raises them. Conversion, which prepares us for heaven, is a new creation. The original creation was the work of God, and the new creation must likewise be of God. Think of what fitness for heaven is! To be fit for heaven a man must be perfect. Go, you who think you can prepare yourselves, be perfect for a day. Man's work is never perfect. God alone is perfect, and He alone is the Perfecter.

III. THE SEAL OF THIS PREPARATION. "The earnest of the Spirit." Masters frequently pay during the week a part of the wages which will be due on Saturday night. God gives His Holy Spirit, as it were, to be a part of the reward which He intends to give to His people when, like hirelings, they have fulfilled their duty. So God gives us His Holy Spirit to be in our hearts as an earnest of heaven. Have you received the Holy Spirit? Do you reply, "How may I know?" Wherever the Holy Spirit is, He works certain graces in the soul, such as repentance, patience, forgiveness, holy courage, joy, etc. This gift, moreover, will be conspicuously evidenced by a living faith in Christ.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. WHAT "THIS SELF-SAME THING" IS FOR WHICH WE ARE "WROUGHT." Studying the context, we find it to be a certain state of mind in regard to many things. We must go back to chap. 2 Corinthians 4. to understand this fully. And I think it must be allowed that it is a very great and heroic attitude. He who can take up the language of a passage like this, and honestly adopt it as the description of the state and feeling of his mind, is a -very king, and must be among the happiest of men. We have around us here and now the world — God-denying and anti-Christian — which was around the Apostle Paul. It is not changed! The apostle seems to have lived in a tough house, and yet a house that, after years of toil and hardship, became worn out and frail. If it was a great thing for him to triumph over bodily suffering, and to face death, must it not be a great thing for afflicted and suffering people to do the same now? And is it not a great thing, in these times, to be able to look to that "beyond" in faith and confidence, to cast anchor of thought and faith, as well as of desire and hope, in another life? While atheism spreads blackness over the universe, while materialism drags men down to the dust, while heartless philosophies and flippant literatures tell us "it does not matter" — in times like these it is a great thing to stand on the old watch-tower, and to look by faith clearly beyond the visible into the invisible, declaring, "Yes, I see it. I know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle," etc.

II. IT IS WHOLLY THE RESULT OF A DIVINE PROCESS. It is not a natural development. If it were so, the apostle might have said, "He who created us, when we were born, for this self-same thing is God"; or, "He who gave us life, and gave us power to mould and renew our own nature till we rise into all goodness, is God." But his words take another line. "He who hath wrought us" — created us anew in Christ Jesus — "wrought us," as the block of marble is wrought into the shape of the fair figure. So are we "wrought" by God. His work is marvellous. He must have wrought a great work in Stephen before he could stand up fearlessly, with an angel face, amid the shower of deathdealing stones. He works always along main lines, amid infinite variety of circumstance, but always with a view to the "self-same thing," and therefore in some degree along the same road to reach it; and this is the road (Romans 8:29, 30).

III. ALL THIS IS MADE SURE TO US, NOT ONLY IN DIVINE PROMISE, BUT BY "THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT." That is to say, this "self-same thing" means not merely a hope that something good and great is coming by and by, but that it is in part matter of experience now. There are estates in this world which you can enter by crossing a river, or going over a chain of hills. You are then in the estate, and if you know the proprietor, and he accounts you his friend, you have some feeling of safety as you travel on over moor and moss, through gloomy forest and dark defile; but if you are going to the mansion — that is twenty or thirty miles distant, perhaps, and many adventures may come to you by the way. Still, if you walk well, and walk right on — not stopping for every dog that barks, or sheltering from every shower that falls, but pressing always on — why, then, just about sunset, perhaps, the western sky all gold, sweet evening breathing peace over the earth, you will see the towers of the castle whither you are going. And the landscape will begin to soften and glow; the grass is greener now; the trees are more select; the road — how smooth it is, compared with some of the first miles you trod! And then you pass the great iron gate, and lo! yonder in the doorway is your friend who has sent for you, and who is lord of all the way by which you have come. Such is our heavenly way. Every step of it is on King's ground. We are in heaven when we begin to live to heaven's King. But it is a wide estate, and looking, and longing, and praying as they travel; and this is "the earnest of the Spirit" this is the witness in the man himself that he has "passed from death unto life," and that he shall win the life immortal at length.

(A. Raleigh, D. D.)

It is a very comforting thing to be able to see the work of God in our own hearts. We have not to search long for the foul handiwork of Satan within us. The apostle found indications of the Divine work in a groan. Believers may trace the finger of God in their holy joys, yet just as surely is the Holy Spirit present in their sorrows and groanings which cannot be uttered. So long as it is the work of God, it is comparatively a small matter whether our hearts' utterance be song or sigh.

I. GOD'S WORK IS SEEN IN CREATING IN US DESIRES AFTER BEING "CLOTHED UPON WITH OUR HOUSE WHICH IS FROM HEAVEN."

1. The Christian is the most contented man in the world, but he is the least contented with the world. He is like a traveller, perfectly satisfied with the inn as an inn, but his desires are ever towards home. He is like a sailor, well content with the good ship for what it is, but he longs for harbour.

2. What is it that makes the Christian long for heaven?(1) A desire for the unseen. The carnal mind is satisfied with what the eyes can see, etc., but the Christian has a spirit within him which the senses cannot gratify.(2) A yearning after, holiness. He who is born again of incorruptible seed finds his worst trouble to be sin. What bliss to be without the tendency or possibility to sin!(3) A sighing after rest, which we cannot, find here.(4) A thirst for communion with God. Here we do enjoy fellowship with God, but it is remote and dark.

3. This desire is above ordinary nature. All flesh is grass, and the grass loves to strike its root deep into the earth; it has no tendrils with which to clasp the stars. Man by nature would be content

to abide on earth for ever.

4. While they are contrary to the old nature, such aspirations prove the existence of the new nature. You may be quite sure thai you have the nature of God in you if you are pining after God.

5. Note the means by which the Holy Spirit quickens these desires within our spirits.(1) They are infused in us by regeneration, which begets in us a spiritual nature, and the spiritual nature brings with it its own longings — viz., after perfection and God.(2) They are further assisted by instruction. The more the Holy Ghost teaches us of the world to come, the more we long for it.(3) They are further increased by sanctified afflictions. Thorns in our nest make us take to our wings; the embittering of this cup makes us earnestly desire to drink of the new wine of the kingdom.(4) They are increased by the sweets as well as the bitters. Communion with Christ sharpens the edge of our desire for heaven. And so does elevation of soul. The more we are sanctified and conformed unto Jesus, the more we long for the world to come.

II. THE FITNESS FOR HEAVEN WHICH IS WROUGHT IN US.

1. Who fits us.(1) God the Father, by adopting us into His family, by justifying us through Christ, by preserving us by His power.(2) God the Son, by blotting out our iniquities, by transferring to us His righteousness, by taking us into union with Himself.(3) The Holy Spirit, by giving us food for the new nature, instruction, etc.

2. In what this fitness consists.(1) In the possession of a spiritual nature. The unregenerate would not by any possibility be able to enjoy the bliss of heaven. They would be quite out of their element. A bee in a garden is at home, and gathers honey from all the flowers; but admit a swine, and it sees no beauty in lilies and roses, and therefore it proceeds to root, and tear, and spoil in all directions.(2) In a holy nature. If a man has no delight in God he has no fitness for heaven.(3) In love to the saints. Those who do not love the people of God on earth would find their company very irksome for ever.(4) In joy in service.(5) In conformity to Christ. Much of heaven consists in this.

3. The unfitness of unrenewed souls for heaven may be illustrated by the incapacity of certain persons for elevated thoughts and intellectual pursuits. Alphonse Karr tells a story of a servant-man who asked his master to be allowed to leave his cottage and sleep over the stable. What was the matter with his cottage? "Why, sir, the nightingales all around make such a "jug, jug, jug" at night that I cannot bear them." A man with a musical ear would be charmed with the nightingales' song, but here was a man without a musical soul, who found the sweetest notes a nuisance.

III. THE LORD HAS GRACIOUSLY GIVEN TO US AN EARNEST OF GLORY. An earnest is unlike a pledge, which has to be returned when the matter which it ensures is obtained; it is a part of the thing itself. So the Holy Spirit is a part of heaven. His work in the soul is the bud of heaven.

1. His very dwelling in our soul is the earnest of heaven. If God Himself condescends to make these bodies His temples, is not this akin to heaven's honours?

2. When He brings to us the joys of hope, this is an earnest. While singing some glowing hymn our spirit shakes off all her doubts and fears, and anticipates her everlasting heritage.

3. When we enjoy the full assurance of faith, and read our title clear to mansions in the skies; when faith knows whom she has believed, and is persuaded that He is able to keep that which she has committed to Him — this is an earnest of heaven.

4. Heaven is the place of victory, and when the Holy Spirit enables us to overcome sin we enjoy an earnest of the triumph of heaven.

5. When through the Spirit we enjoy fellowship with Christ, and with one another, we have a foretaste of the fellowship of heaven.Conclusion: If these things be so, believers —

1. Be thankful. Remember these things are not your own productions; they have been planted in your soul by another hand, and watered by a superior power.

2. Be reverent. When a scholar knows that all he has learned has been taught him by his master, he looks up from his master's feet into his master's face with respectful esteem.

3. Be confident. If the good thing had been wrought by ourselves we might be sure that it would fail before long. Nothing of mortal man was ever perfect. But, if He that hath begun the good work be God, there is no fear that He will forsake or leave His work undone.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. IN GOD'S ECONOMY THIS LIFE IS A PROCESS OF DISENTANGLING FROM ITS OWN CONDITIONS. Mortal life is a getting loose.

1. Note the imagery of the context. We mortals are as dwellers in a tent. This tent is being gradually "loosened down." The same word was used by our Lord of the stones of the temple at Jerusalem, and indicates a gradual destruction, stone after stone. So in striking a tent. Paul has a like figure in Philippians, where he desires to "depart," or, literally, "to break camp." This gradual loosening, this detachment, is a familiar fact of our life. We are breaking up, and God hath wrought us for this very thing. One of the most puzzling things about the world is that such superhuman ingenuity, such perfect finish of workmanship, will crumble to dust. How exquisite is the structure of a bee or of a butterfly, and yet how short-lived they are.

2. These are familiar facts. What is our attitude toward them?(1) The average man ignores them. He strikes out the tabernacle from the text, and substitutes a building. He lives and plans as if both he and the world were eternal. The earlier stages of life are occupied with amassing instead of throwing off. The love and intimacy of the family circle are taking the boy deeper into themselves. Then his social nature is throwing out tendrils and attaching itself to school and college friends. Then comes social and business or professional life. The bonds multiply; more and more the man is getting wrapped round and tied up. Domestic life encircles him. Business becomes engrossing. So the world winds round him, coil after coil. If the house of his earthly habitation is a tent, it is a substantial tent, or so it seems. It has stood a good many hard blasts. The man himself, too, has been all along growing. All is increase, enlargement of range.(2) But as time goes on you notice a change. The man has reached his altitude. The cords on the rear of the tent begin to slacken. A father or a mother dies. Brothers and sisters form homes for themselves, and their interests and his diverge. The old circle of kindred begins to break up. It goes on quietly, like the undermining of a bank. And as time goes on the connections with his own generation gradually break. The push of younger, fresher life crowds him back or on one side. Some day he realises that almost all his old comrades are gone. The break is heading towards the centres of life. He has lost some ambition. He is not so ready for the undertakings which make a drain on nerve and strength. He gives up more easily than of yore. And so the final stage sets in; physical wreck, mental feebleness, complete withdrawal from the busy world. Let it go on its way. He cares no longer. The tent, with its loosened cords, flaps and strains, then collapses. The earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved; and yet He that wrought us for this very thing is God. God meant this.

3. This is a very sad picture if this is all. Nay, it is an insult to common sense to ask us to believe that this wondrous frame of nature and of man are made merely to be destroyed. God did not make us for death, but for life. If He has appointed a tent for our sojourn, He has reared a building for our dwelling. Moses, in Psalm 90., voices the truth. There is nothing eternal but God. There is no warrant of man's eternity but God. There is no eternal home for man but in God.

II. And so we turn to the other side of our text. GOD HAS MADE US FOR THE TENT, BUT HE HAS ALSO MADE US FOR THE BUILDING.

1. The important point is that we should see these two things as part of one economy — the tent and the building as related to each other. Even if sin had never entered the world, I doubt whether this human life and body would have been any more than a temporary stage of existence through which men would have passed into a purely spiritual life. Because I find that this is according to the analogy of God's working elsewhere. God's plans unfold. They do not flash into consummation. They involve progressive stages. The line of His purpose runs out to eternity, but it runs through time.

2. Thought has tended too much to the violent separation of the mortal life from the eternal life — has tended to set them in contrast and opposition instead of in harmony. For instance, we draw the line sharply between life and death; and yet many a scientist will tell you that death is the beginning of life, and Christ and Paul tell you that in unmistakable terms. And what we want clearly to apprehend is that this mortal, transitory tent-life has a definite relation to the permanent spiritual life of the future; that it serves a purpose of preparation and development toward that life; that it furnishes a soil in which the seeds of the spiritual life are sown; and that, therefore, instead of being despised and neglected because it is temporary and destined to dissolution, it is to be cultivated as the effective ministrant of the eternal life. "He that wrought us for this very thing is God."

3. We have in nature a great many illustrations and analogies of this. Take, e.g., the soil. Existence underground, in the dark, is a low form of life, and yet the seed must be cast into the ground, and remain there for a time, before the beauty and fruitfulness and nourishment of the fruit or grain can become facts. And that stage ministers directly to the higher form of life. So in animal life. What a delicate and beautiful structure is the egg of the fowl! It is made, as we all see, to be broken, and an egg-shell is a synonym for something worthless. And yet there have been lodged in that frail and temporary thing forces which minister to life. So the worm rolls himself up in the cocoon, but within the cocoon the purple and golden glories of the butterfly are silently elaborating themselves. Even so it is God's intent that the immortal, the spiritual life should be taking shape under the forms of the mortal life — that in the tent man should be shaping for the eternal building.

4. This feature of our mortal life is intended to show itself early. The average human life, as we have seen, tends to become more and more enveloped in the wrappings of this world, and to consider nothing else; and many practically reason that attention to the interests of the next world may be deferred until the process of detachment from the things of time has fairly and consciously set in. On the contrary, the life should be shaped for eternity from the beginning. The ministry of the soil begins with the very first stage of the seed-life. The world to come does not appeal merely to manhood and old age. It is the child that is most inquisitive about the sky, to whom the stars are a wonder. Why not the same fact in spiritual life? Why should not heavenly aspirations characterise childhood? Why should not the child-life be touched and quickened by contact with heaven? Within and under the life of society, the life of business, the domestic life, an eternal, spiritual manhood may be outlining itself.

5. When men have undertaken to shut themselves out as much as possible from the contact of this life, they have not seen that He that hath wrought us for this very thing is God.

6. For years, as the traveller on the Rhine came in sight of Cologne, the first object which greeted his eye was the unsightly mass of scaffolding around the cathedral spires. It is all gone now, and the twin spires soar heavenward from their base, and cut the horizon with their clean, sharp lines of stone. Yet the scaffolds were necessary to the building. Whether this life is to be more than scaffolding depends on the man who lives — depends on whether or not he mistakes scaffolding for building. If the cocoon is all that the worm comes to, poor worm! Worthless cocoon! If business, politics, social life, fame, are all the man comes to, poor man! The tent will fall. Shall you be left uncovered? Beware, beware of these same wrappings. They are folding you in closely. Detachment may mean for you victory and immortality. God hath wrought you for the eternal building in the heavens no less than for the frail, perishing tent on earth.

(M. R. Vincent, D. D.)

I. WHAT IS GIVEN BY WAY OF EARNEST.

II. THE NATURE OF AN EARNEST.

1. An earnest supposeth a bargain and contract. The right to eternal life cometh to believers in a way of covenant; they resign themselves to God by faith, and God bindeth Himself to give them forgiveness of sins.

2. Earnest is given when there is some delay of the thing bargained for. As soon as we enter into covenant with God we have a right; but our blessedness is deferred, not for want of love in God, but partly that in the meantime we may exercise our faith and love (Philippians 3:21; Romans 8:23), and partly that the heirs of salvation may glorify Him here upon earth (Matthew 5:16; 1 Peter 2:12).

3. An earnest is part of the whole bargain, though but a little part. So the saving gifts, graces, and comforts of the Spirit are a small beginning, ors part of that glory which shall then be revealed. Grace is begun glory, and they differ as an infant and a man. Regeneration is an immortal seed, a beginning of eternal life.

4. Earnest is given for the security of the party that receiveth it, not for him that giveth it. There is no danger of breaking on God's part; but God "was willing more abundantly to show to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel"; because of our frequent doubts and fears in the midst of our troubles and trials, we need this confirmation.

5. It is not taken away till all be consummated, and therein an earnest differeth from a pawn or pledge. A pledge is something left with us, to be restored or taken away from us; but an earnest is filled up with the whole sum. So God giveth part to assure us of obtaining the whole in due season (Philippians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:9).

III. THE USE AND END OF AN EARNEST IS —

1. To raise our confidence of the certainty of these things. There is some place for doubts and fears, till we be in full possession, from weakness of grace and greatness of trials.

2. To quicken our earnest desires and illustrious diligence. The firstfruits are to show how good, as well as earnest how sure.

3. To bind us not to depart from these hopes.

(T. Manton, D. D.)

Corinthians, PaulAchaia, CorinthBliss, Deposit, Earnest, Foretaste, Formed, Guarantee, Guaranteeing, Payment, Pledge, Prepared, Purpose, Selfsame, Self-same, Spirit, View, Witness, Wrought1. That in his assured hope of immortal glory,
9. and in expectation of it, he labors to keep a good conscience;
12. not that he may boast of himself,
14. but as one that, having received life from Christ,
17. endeavors to live as a new creature to Christ only,
18. and by his ministry of reconciliation, to reconcile others also in Christ to God.

2 Corinthians 5:5

     1115   God, purpose of
     1513   Trinity, mission of
     3203   Holy Spirit, and assurance
     3287   Holy Spirit, sealing of
     4966   present, the
     5329   guarantee
     7028   church, life of
     8105   assurance, basis of
     8214   confidence, basis of

2 Corinthians 5:1-5

     4010   creation, renewal
     5063   spirit, nature of
     9110   after-life
     9137   immortality, NT

2 Corinthians 5:1-10

     5339   home

2 Corinthians 5:2-5

     4018   life, spiritual

2 Corinthians 5:4-5

     5110   Paul, teaching of
     8441   goals

2 Corinthians 5:5-8

     5914   optimism

August 1. "For we must all Appear Before the Judgment Seat of Christ; that Every one May Receive the Things done in his Body, According to that He Hath Done" (ii Cor. v. 10).
"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done" (II Cor. v. 10). It will not always be the day of toil and trial. Some day, we shall hear our names announced before the universe, and the record read of things that we had long forgotten. How our hearts will thrill, and our heads will bow, as we shall hear our own names called, and then the Master shall recount the triumph and the services which we had …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

The Work and Armour of the Children of the Day
'Let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet the hope of salvation.'--1 THESS. v. 8. This letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest book of the New Testament. It was probably written within something like twenty years of the Crucifixion; long, therefore, before any of the Gospels were in existence. It is, therefore, exceedingly interesting and instructive to notice how this whole context is saturated with allusions to our Lord's teaching, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Great Reconciliation
"God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." 2 COR. V. 19. Such considerations as we have had before us, are of far more than theoretical interest. They are of all questions the most practical. Sin is not a curious object which we examine from an aloof and external standpoint. However we regard it, to whatever view of its nature we are led, it is, alas, a fact within and not merely outside our experience. And so we are at length brought to this most personal and most urgent inquiry, …
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

Tent and Building
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.'--2 COR. v. 1. Knowledge and ignorance, doubt and certitude, are remarkably blended in these words. The Apostle knows what many men are not certain of; the Apostle doubts as to what all men now are certain of. 'If our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved'--there is surely no if about that. But we must remember that the first Christians, …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Love that Constrains
'The love of Christ constraineth us.'--2 COR. v. 14. It is a dangerous thing to be unlike other people. It is still more dangerous to be better than other people. The world has a little heap of depreciatory terms which it flings, age after age, at all men who have a higher standard and nobler aims than their fellows. A favourite term is 'mad.' So, long ago they said, 'The prophet is a fool; the spiritual man is mad,' and, in His turn, Jesus was said to be 'beside Himself,' and Festus shouted from …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

Pleasing Christ
'We labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of Him.'--2 COR. v. 2. We do not usually care very much for, or very much trust, a man's own statement of the motives of his life, especially if in the statement he takes credit for lofty and noble ones. And it would be rather a dangerous experiment for the ordinary run of so-called Christian people to stand up and say what Paul says here, that the supreme design and aim towards which all their lives are directed is to please Jesus Christ. …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Entreaties of God
'Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech ... by us: we pray ... in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.'--2 COR. v. 20. These are wonderful and bold words, not so much because of what they claim for the servants as because of what they reveal of the Lord. That thought, 'as though God did beseech,' seems to me to be the one deserving of our attention now, far rather than any inferences which may be drawn from the words as to the relation of preachers of the Gospel to …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Patient Workman
'Now He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.'--2 COR. v. 5. These words penetrate deep into the secrets of God. They assume to have read the riddle of life. To Paul everything which we experience, outwardly or inwardly, is from the divine working. Life is to him no mere blind whirl, or unintelligent play of accidental forces, nor is it the unguided result of our own or of others' wills, but is the slow operation of the great Workman. Paul assumes to know the meaning of this protracted …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Old House and the New
'We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.'--2 COR. v. 8. There lie in the words of my text simply these two things; the Christian view of what death is, and the Christian temper in which to anticipate it. I. First, the Christian view of what death is. Now it is to be observed that, properly speaking, the Apostle is not here referring to the state of the dead, but to the act of dying. The language would more literally and accurately …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Sacrifice of Christ.
Preached June 23, 1850. THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again."--2 Corinthians v. 14, 15. It may be, that in reading these verses some of us have understood them in a sense foreign to that of the apostle. It may have seemed that the arguments ran thus--Because Christ …
Frederick W. Robertson—Sermons Preached at Brighton

The Believer a New Creature
We have two great truths here, which would serve us for the subject of meditation for many a day: the believer's position--he is "in Christ;" and the believer's character--he is a "new creature." Upon both of these we shall speak but briefly this morning, but may God grant that we may find instruction therein. I. First, then, let us consider THE CHRISTIAN'S POSITION--he is said to be "in Christ." There are three stages of the human soul in connection with Christ: the first is without Christ, this …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 15: 1869

The Great Assize
Beside that direct testimony, it should be remembered there is a convincing argument that so it must needs be, from the very fact that God is just as the Ruler over men. In all human governments there must he an assize held. Government cannot be conducted without its days of session and of trial, and, inasmuch as there is evidently sin and evil in this world, it might fairly be anticipated that there would be a time when God will go on circuit, and when he will call the prisoners before him, and …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872

Substitution
Note the doctrine; the use of it; the enjoyment of it. I. First, THE DOCTRINE. There are three persons mentioned here. "He (that is God) hath made him (that is Christ) who knew no sin, to be sin for us (sinners) that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Before we can understand the plan of salvation, it is necessary for us to know something about the three persons, and, certainly, unless we understand them in some measure, salvation is to us impossible. 1. Here is first, GOD. Let every …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857

Christ --Our Substitute
Little however, did I think I should live to see this kind of stuff taught in pulpits; I had no idea that there would come out a divinity, which would bring down God's moral government from he solemn aspect in which Scripture reveals it, to a namby-pamby sentimentalism, which adores a Deity destitute of every masculline virtue. But we never know to-day what may occur to-morrow. We have lived to see a certain sort of men--thank God they are not Baptists--though I am sorry to say there are a great …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 6: 1860

A Solemn Embassy
"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."--2 Corinthians 5:20. THERE has long been war between man and his Maker. Our federal head, Adam, threw down the gauntlet in the garden of Eden. The trumpet was heard to ring through the glades of Paradise, the trumpet which broke the silence of peace and disturbed the song of praise. From that day forward until now there has been no truce, no treaty between God and …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 62: 1916

"But if the Spirit of Him that Raised up Jesus from the Dead Dwell in You, He that Raised up Christ from the Dead Shall Also
Rom. viii. 11.--"But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." It is true the soul is incomparably better than the body, and he is only worthy the name of a man and of a Christian who prefers this more excellent part, and employs his study and time about it, and regards his body only for the noble guest that lodges within it, and therefore it is one of the …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Life of Mr. Hugh Binning.
There being a great demand for the several books that are printed under Mr. Binning's name, it was judged proper to undertake a new and correct impression of them in one volume. This being done, the publishers were much concerned to have the life of such an useful and eminent minister of Christ written, in justice to his memory, and his great services in the work of the gospel, that it might go along with this impression. We living now at so great distance from the time wherein he made a figure in …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Of Meditating on the Future Life.
The three divisions of this chapter,--I. The principal use of the cross is, that it in various ways accustoms us to despise the present, and excites us to aspire to the future life, sec. 1, 2. II. In withdrawing from the present life we must neither shun it nor feel hatred for it; but desiring the future life, gladly quit the present at the command of our sovereign Master, see. 3, 4. III. Our infirmity in dreading death described. The correction and safe remedy, sec. 6. 1. WHATEVER be the kind of …
Archpriest John Iliytch Sergieff—On the Christian Life

Death and Judgement.
TO THE AUTHOR OF THE GUARDIAN. Sir, THE inclosed is a faithful translation from an old author, which if it deserves your notice, let the reader guess whether he was a Heathen or a Christian. I am, Your most humble Servant. "I cannot, my friends, forbear letting you know what I think of death; for, methinks, I view and understand it much better, the nearer I approach to it. 1 am convinced that your fathers, those illustrious persons whom 1 so much loved and honoured, do not cease to live, though they …
Joseph Addison—The Evidences of the Christian Religion, with Additional Discourses

The Inwardness of Prayer
The Inwardness of Prayer It is difficult and even formidable thing to write on prayer, and one fears to touch the Ark. Perhaps no one ought to undertake it unless he has spent more toil in the practice of prayer than on its principle. But perhaps also the effort to look into its principle may be graciously regarded by Him who ever liveth to make intercession as itself a prayer to know better how to pray. All progress in prayer is an answer to prayer--our own or another's. And all true prayer …
P. T. Forsyth—The Soul of Prayer

The Work of Regeneration.
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new."--2 Cor. v. 17. In our former article we contended that regeneration is a real act of God in which man is absolutely passive and unable, according to the ancient confession of the Church. Let us now reverently examine this matter more closely; not to penetrate into things too high for us, but to cut off error and to clear the consciousness. Regeneration is not sacramentally effected …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

But this Being the Case, How to this Opinion that Should not be Contrary...
2. But this being the case, how to this opinion that should not be contrary which the Apostle says, "For we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, that each may receive according to the things he hath done by the body, [2710] whether good or bad;" [2711] this, thou signifiest, thou dost not well see. For this apostolic sentence doth before death admonish to be done, that which may profit after death; not then, first, when there is to be now a receiving of that which a person shall have …
St. Augustine—On Care to Be Had for the Dead.

In the Work of the Redemption of Man, not Only the Mercy, but Also the Justice, of God is Displayed.
In the work of the Redemption of man, not only the mercy, but also the justice, of God is displayed. 15. Man therefore was lawfully delivered up, but mercifully set free. Yet mercy was shown in such a way that a kind of justice was not lacking even in his liberation, since, as was most fitting for man's recovery, it was part of the mercy of the liberator to employ justice rather than power against man's enemy. For what could man, the slave of sin, fast bound by the devil, do of himself to recover …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

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