"God's spiritual blessings for believers are based not only on the sovereign election of the Father (vv. 3-6) and the redemptive work of the Son (vv. 7-12), but also on the seal of the Holy Spirit."30
1:13 In contrast to the Jews who were the first to hope in Christ (v. 12), Gentiles also had come to salvation when Paul wrote this epistle. The vehicle God uses to bring his elect to faith is the message of truth, namely the gospel message, the good news of salvation. When the Gentiles heard it, they listened to it and believed it. This resulted in their salvation and their sealing by the Holy Spirit.31The AV translation implies that the sequence is hearing, believing, and then sealing. However the sealing takes place at the same time as believing (cf. Acts 19:2). It is not a second or later work of grace.
When these Gentiles believed, God sealed them in Christ. This provided a guarantee of their eternal security.32Seals at the time Paul wrote indicated security (Matt. 27:66; Eph. 4:30), authentication and approval (John 6:27), genuineness (John 3:33), and ownership (2 Cor. 1:22; Rev. 7:2; 9:4). God seals the believer by giving him or her the indwelling Holy Spirit who keeps the Christian in Christ. The Lord Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would permanently indwell believers (Luke 24:49; John 14:16; 15:26; 16:13; Acts 1:5). That is evidently why Paul referred to Him as the "Holy Spirit of promise"(NASB).
The Spirit seals all believers, not just Gentile believers. Though Paul addressed Gentile believers in particular in this verse, "you also"shows that what he said of them was also true of Jewish believers (cf. v. 11). All the blessings spoken of go to both Jewish and Gentile believers.
1:14 The Holy Spirit's indwelling presence is a pledge of all that God will give us as His children. This pledge is not just a promise but the first part of our inheritance, the down payment so to speak. The fact that we possess Him now assures us that the rest of our salvation will inevitably follow. An engagement ring is this kind of pledge.
"The inheritance here is unmistakably heaven. It is an inheritance which goes to those who have believed. As in the Old Testament there are two kinds of inheritance in the New. All Christians are heirs of God, but not all are heirs of the kingdom and joint-heirs with Christ. The content of the inheritance here is life in heaven with God."33
The redemption in view here (Gr. apolytrosin) is a different aspect of our salvation than the redemption mentioned in verse 7. Here it is not release from sin's guilt (v. 7), but release from sin's presence (cf. Rom. 8:23; Phil. 3:20-21). In verse 7 justification is in view, but here glorification is, the final aspect of our redemption. We experience redemption in three stages: we have been redeemed in Christ (1:7), we are being redeemed as the Spirit makes us more like Christ (Rom. 8:1-4), and we shall be redeemed when Christ returns and we become like Him. God's possession is the believer whom He has chosen (vv. 3-6), redeemed (vv. 7-12), and sealed (vv. 13-14) "to the praise of His glory"(cf. vv. 6, 12, 18).
The spiritual blessings Paul identified in verses 3-14 are election, predestination, adoption, grace, redemption, forgiveness, knowledge, sealing, and inheritance. The recurrence of the phrase "in Christ"and equivalent expressions emphasizes that all these blessings come with our union with our Savior (vv. 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13 [twice]). Likewise the repetition of "His will"and its equivalents emphasizes that the sovereign God is responsible for all these blessings (vv. 5, 9, 11). These verses (3-14) contain a compact statement of the believer's spiritual riches. The passage is similar to a bank statement because it lists every Christian's spiritual assets.
"We have been listening to an overture of the hallelujahs of the blest, and it closes, as it began, on the note of the praise of God's glory, the highest of all themes. . . . False and true theology may be discriminated by a simple criterion. Do they magnify God or man?"34
