The 'earnest' is always of the same nature as, and a part of the
'inheritance.' Therefore, since the Holy Spirit is the earnest, the
conclusion is plain, that the inheritance is nothing less than God
Himself. Heaven is to possess God, and to be possessed by Him. That is
the highest conception that we can form of that future life. And it is
sorely to be lamented that subsidiary conceptions, which are all useful
in their subordinate places, have, by popular Christianity, been far too
much elevated into being the central blessedness of that future heaven.
It is all right that we should cast the things which it is 'impossible
for men to utter' into the shape of symbols which may a little relieve
the necessary inarticulateness; but golden streets, and crystal
pavements, and white robes, and golden palms, and all such
representations, are but the dimmest shadows of that which they intend
to express, and do often, as is the vice of all symbols, obscure. We can
only conceive of a condition of which we have had no experience, by the
two ways of symbolism and of negation. We can say, 'There shall be no
night there; there shall be no curse there; they need no candle, neither
light of the sun; they rest not day nor night; there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away.' But all these negations, like
their sister symbols, are but surface work, and we have to go deeper
than all of them.
But to possess God, and to be possessed by Him, and in either case
fully, perfectly in degree, progressively in measure, eternal in
duration, is the Heaven of heaven.
If that is the true conception of the inheritance, then it follows
indubitably that such a Heaven is not for everybody. God would fain have
us all for His there, as He would fain have each of us here and now, but
it may not be. There are creatures which live beneath stones, and if you
turn their coverings up, and let light fall on them, it kills them. And
there are men who have refused to belong to God here, and refused to
claim their portion in Him, and such cannot possess that true Heaven
which is God Himself. Then, if its possession is not a mere matter of
divine volition, giving a man what he is not capable of receiving, it
plainly follows that the preparation must begin now and here by the
incomplete possession of which my text is discoursing. And the way of
such preparation is plain. The context says: 'In whom, after that ye
believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.' Faith in
Jesus Christ, and trust in Him and His work as my forgiveness, my
acceptance, my changed nature and heart--is the condition of being
'sealed' with that Spirit whose sealing of us is the condition of our
love, our surrender, and mutual indwelling, which are our possession of
God and being possessed by Him, and are the condition of our future
complete possession of the 'inheritance.' We must begin with faith in
Christ. Then comes the sealing, then comes the earnest, then comes the
growing redemption, and in due time shall come the fulness of the
possession. 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ' if thou wouldst have the
earnest, whilst thou dost tabernacle in tents in the wilderness of Time,
and if thou wouldst have the inheritance when thou crossest the flood
into the goodly land.