But the One who firmly attaches us with you unto Christ and has anointed us is God, He who has also sealed us and given the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. (2 Cor. 1:21-22)
Since you are being manifested that you are a letter of Christ ministered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh. (3:3)
Who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (v. 6)
And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit. (vv. 17-18)
For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly but powerful before God for the overthrowing of strongholds, as we overthrow reasonings and every high thing rising up against the knowledge of God, and take captive every thought unto the obedience of Christ. (10:4-5)
Test yourselves whether you are in the faith; prove yourselves. Or do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are disapproved? (13:5)
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (v. 14)
First Corinthians shows us the building Spirit. The primary need for building is transformation. Therefore, 2 Corinthians goes on to show us the transforming Spirit. The Spirit in 2 Corinthians is the transforming Spirit.
Second Corinthians 1 shows that the transforming Spirit is in us as three items doing three things. First, He is the ointment to anoint us; second, He is the seal to impress us; and third, He is the pledge to guarantee to us. These three matters alone require us to have much knowledge, explanation, and experience.
The first portion in the Bible that mentions the anointing of the Spirit who dwells in us is 2 Corinthians 1. As the ointment, the Spirit anoints us and “rubs” God’s elements into us. When you apply any kind of ointment to an object, the more you apply, the more the element of the ointment is added to the object. The life-giving Spirit works within us, and the first thing He does is to rub God’s elements into us. His anointing within is His moving, and this moving is a rubbing to apply the divine elements into us.
Second, the Spirit is the seal. This is for us to have God’s image. A seal is a matter of image. If your seal is square, the impression it makes will also be square. If your seal is round, the impression it makes will also be round. As the seal in us, the life-giving Spirit not only affirms that we belong to God but also impresses God’s image into us so that we have God’s image. Let us give an example. Sometimes we meet someone in a train, in a steamboat, or in other situations. Although we do not know that person, by his or her appearance we know that this one is a brother or a sister. That appearance is the impression of the seal. This seal is living and is a reality. When we truly live in the Spirit and walk according to the Spirit, wherever we are we have a kind of image, a kind of impression, a kind of appearance, by which others can recognize that we belong to God.
Third, the Spirit is the pledge. In Greek, this word has many denotations. It may be translated as evidence, pledge, guarantee, deposit, earnest, sample, or foretaste. This Spirit as the ointment in us anoints us with God’s elements, and as the seal He impresses us with the image of God, affirming that we belong to God and have God’s image. Furthermore, as the pledge, He guarantees that all the fullness of the Godhead is our portion for our enjoyment and application. This Spirit enables us to have a foretaste of God, to enjoy God in advance.
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