After presenting the revelation of the heading up of all things in Christ, Paul speaks of our being made an inheritance in Christ in order that we may inherit God as our inheritance. In Ephesians 1:11 Paul says, “In whom also we were designated as an inheritance.” The phrase in whom refers to the heading-up Christ revealed in verse 10, indicating that we have been placed into the heading-up Christ. In ourselves, that is, according to our natural being, we are not worthy to be God’s inheritance, but in the heading-up Christ we were made God’s inheritance.
The expression in whom in verse 11 implies a sphere and an element. Christ is not only our sphere but also our element with which we are being transformed into a treasure to become God’s inheritance, His private and personal possession. We are not only God’s redeemed ones in Christ but also God’s precious inheritance produced in Christ as the sphere and with Christ as the element of life. To be in Christ is to be in Him as the divine element. Day by day Christ Himself is being wrought into us so that He can become our element. Although we ourselves are pieces of clay unworthy for God to inherit, the divine element has made us an excellent treasure to become God’s inheritance. If we live in Christ day by day, we will experience and enjoy Christ not only as the sphere in which we enjoy the dispensing of God Himself into us, but also as the divine element, the producing ingredient, with which God will make us His inheritance.
We were fallen in Adam, but through His redemption Christ brought us out of Adam into Himself as the sphere and the element. Since Christ is now the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), this sphere and element are the Spirit, the life-giving Spirit. The Spirit is our sphere and our element. In this sphere and with this element, the Triune God in Christ as the life-giving Spirit is dispensing Himself into us to transform us metabolically and to make us a particular treasure, God’s heritage, God’s inheritance. In this universe God is the only One who is precious. Now this precious God of matchless worth is working Himself into us to make us His glorious inheritance.
The Greek words rendered “were designated as an inheritance” can also be translated “have obtained an inheritance.” The Greek verb means “to choose or assign by lot.” Hence, this clause literally means that in Christ we were designated as a chosen inheritance. We were designated as an inheritance so that we may inherit God as our inheritance. On the one hand, we were made an inheritance to God. On the other hand, we inherit God Himself as our inheritance. Here we have a marvelous mutual inheritance: we have become God’s inheritance (v. 18) for God’s enjoyment, and God will be our inheritance (v. 14) for our enjoyment. We are in Him to be His inheritance and enjoyment, and He is in us to be our inheritance and our enjoyment.
It is by having God in Christ wrought into us that we are being constituted into an inheritance. We have already been placed in the heading-up Christ, but we are still in the process of being made God’s inheritance in full. In this process the natural life must be eliminated, and the divine nature must increase by being wrought into more of our being. God is the treasure, and He is working Himself as the treasure into us that we may become a treasure to Him.
In Ephesians 1:12 Paul speaks of the all-inclusive hope in Christ: “We would be to the praise of His glory who have first hoped in Christ.” The hope we have in Christ is the hope of God’s calling mentioned in verse 18. This divine hope includes (1) Christ Himself and the salvation He will bring to us when He comes back (Col. 1:27; 1 Pet. 1:5, 9); (2) the rapturous transfer from the earthly and physical realm to the heavenly and spiritual sphere, plus glorification (Rom. 8:23-25, 30; Phil. 3:21); (3) the kingly enjoyment with Christ in the millennium (Rev. 5:10; 2 Tim. 4:18); and (4) the consummate enjoyment of Christ in the New Jerusalem, with the universal and eternal blessings in the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:1-7; 22:1-5).
We, the New Testament believers, are those who have first hoped in Christ, that is, in this age. The Jews will have their hope in Christ in the next age. We have hoped in Christ before He comes back to set up His Messianic kingdom.
In 1:13-14 Paul speaks of another spiritual blessing we have in Christ: the Holy Spirit’s sealing and pledging. “In whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory.” To be sealed with the Holy Spirit is to be marked with the Holy Spirit as a living seal. We have been designated as God’s inheritance (v. 11). At the time we were saved, God put His Holy Spirit into us as a seal to mark us out, indicating that we belong to God. The Holy Spirit, who is God Himself entering into us, causes us to bear God’s image, signified by the seal, thus making us like God.
The sealing of the Spirit is the moving of the Spirit within us, and it is spreading throughout our being, daily saturating our mind, emotion, and will. We have been sealed with the sealing Spirit who saturates us, permeates us, and is mingled with us, making Him and us one constitution. Moreover, the more we are sealed, the more we bear the image of God and look like God. Through the Spirit’s sealing, we express God.
The Greek word for pledge in verse 14 means “foretaste, guarantee, that is, token payment, a partial payment in advance, guaranteeing the full payment.” Since we are God’s inheritance, the Holy Spirit is a seal upon us. Since God is our inheritance, the Holy Spirit is a pledge to us of this inheritance. God gives His Holy Spirit to us not only as a guarantee of our inheritance, securing our heritage, but also as a foretaste of what we will inherit of God, affording us a taste beforehand of the full inheritance. In ancient times the Greek word for pledge was used in the purchasing of land. The seller gave the purchaser some soil as a sample from the land. Hence, a pledge, according to ancient Greek usage, is also a sample. The Holy Spirit is the sample of what we will inherit of God in full.
The pledging of the Spirit is given for our enjoyment. If the Spirit were only the sealing, we might become bored with the experience of the Spirit, but we are not tired or bored of the Spirit because the Spirit is also pledging within us. Some believers do not have a very large appetite for Christ, because they do not care for the pledging of the Spirit. If we say, “Lord Jesus, You are so sweet,” the sense of the Spirit’s pledging will increase within us. The more the Spirit pledges in us, the more enjoyment of Christ we have. This enjoyment enlarges our appetite for Christ. The more we taste of the Lord, the greater is our appetite for Him, and the more appetite we have, the more we taste Him. By means of this glorious cycle, we daily participate in God until in eternity God will become our full enjoyment, and we will have the full taste of Him.
We enjoy first the Holy Spirit’s sealing and then His pledging. The Holy Spirit’s sealing indicates that we are God’s inheritance, whereas His pledging in us indicates that God will be our inheritance. The Holy Spirit is the seal of God, a mark placed on us to indicate that we are God’s possession and God’s inheritance, belonging to God. At the same time, the Holy Spirit is the pledge in us to guarantee to us that God is our possession and our inheritance.
The Holy Spirit’s sealing and pledging are not once-for-all matters. The Holy Spirit’s sealing and pledging have begun, are continuing, and will continue to go on in us until the redemption of our body. Every day the Holy Spirit is sealing us, increasingly making us God’s inheritance; He is pledging in us, gradually making God our inheritance. The Spirit’s sealing and pledging will fully transform us.
On the day when we were saved, we hardly looked like God; hence, we hardly looked like God’s inheritance. Yet the intensified sealing work of the Holy Spirit within us will increasingly cause us to look like God; as a result, we will truly look like God’s inheritance. At the same time, the Holy Spirit is pledging in us, making God our inheritance and giving us the full assurance that God can never remove Himself from our being, for He as the Spirit has been pledged into our being. The Spirit’s sealing and pledging will fully transform us into a treasure to God and will ultimately make us God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
The Spirit’s dispensing in His sealing and pledging issues in the redemption of our body. In Ephesians 1:13-14 Paul tells us that in Christ we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise unto the redemption of the acquired possession. Here the expression unto the redemption of the acquired possession gives the purpose of the sealing in verse 13. The seal of the Holy Spirit is living, and it works within us to permeate and transform us with God’s divine element until we are mature in God’s life and eventually fully redeemed, even in our body.
Redemption in verse 14 refers to the redemption of our body (Rom. 8:23), that is, the transfiguration of our body of humiliation into a glorious body (Phil. 3:21). The Holy Spirit today is a guarantee, a foretaste, and a sample of our divine inheritance, until our body is transfigured in glory, at which time we will inherit God in full. The span of God’s blessings bestowed on us covers all the crucial points from God’s selection in eternity past (Eph. 1:4) to the redemption of our body for eternity future. All these blessings are not earthly but divine and heavenly. May we all learn to experience and enjoy Christ as the sphere and the means of all the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.