Now he that has wrought us for this very thing [is] God, who also has given to us the earnest of the Spirit.
Paul has just spoken about groaning in a frail body and longing for a home from heaven. Here he answers the obvious question: how can anyone be sure of such a hope? The verse gives two answers. God has already prepared us for it, and He has already given us a first taste of it.
The hope does not rest on the strength of our longing. It rests on who did the preparing:
This hope rested on more than a desire stirred up by a view of the glory. God had formed Christians for this very thing. Anyone who is a Christian was formed for this, and for nothing else. It was God Himself who had formed him for this — this glory, in which Christ, the last Adam, is at the right hand of God. What happy confidence in the grace and the mighty work of God! Here the hope does not rest on a work done for us. It is the blessed knowledge that God has prepared us for this. We are His workmanship.
The wording matters. God did not prepare something on our behalf. The object of the verb is us.
"He who has prepared us for this very thing is God." Here God did not prepare something for us; He prepared us. That is a remarkable expression of His grace, linking us with His unfailing purpose in Christ.
The phrase points back to what Paul has just described: the mortal swallowed up by life. God began this work, so the outcome is not in doubt.
God, who cannot fail, does not begin a work and then leave it unfinished. He prepared us for this very thing: the swallowing up of the mortal by the life which triumphs for ever, the same portion as Christ. The One who did this is God. Indeed only He would have thought of it, and only He could have done it.
One writer ties this preparing to a work the Spirit has already done inside the believer.
He has already "prepared us" for this very thing. This refers to that spiritual work done in us and with us by the Holy Spirit. God by His Spirit has been the Potter, and we have been the clay... God will one day make our mortal bodies alive. He has already done such a work in our souls, and this present work looks ahead to what He will yet do in our bodies.
The older word "earnest" — the ESV has "guarantee" — is a business term. It means money paid down to secure a deal.
When someone sells a property, the buyer pays part of the price down as earnest-money to complete the bargain. In the same way, God graciously gives us the indwelling Spirit as the earnest of our inheritance. This assures us that we will have all He has promised. He also binds Himself (if we may put it that way) to carry out His own faithful word, for the earnest-money is both a promise and a pledge.
A deposit is part of the sum itself, not a separate token. So the Spirit is not just a receipt for future glory.
But there is more in the word translated "earnest." God has given us the Holy Spirit as a pledge. He will one day put us in possession of the inheritance He keeps in heaven for us. But more, He is the installment of that inheritance, the means by which we may already enter into its reality and joy.
Kelly also sets this gift apart from other ways the Spirit is described:
This is not the "anointing," which has a wider meaning, and it is not the "sealing" either. It is the aspect of the Spirit given to us that relates to Christ's coming again, and to our entering on the inheritance with Him.
The pledge is God's. So nothing in this life can undo it.
He is the Pledge on God's part that we shall be in the heavenly glory with and like Christ... Nothing that happens on earth, not our weakness, not even death itself, can alter the purpose of God by a hair's breadth or delay it by an instant. Because of that we are always confident (verse 6).
- Prepared. God did not just do something for us. He prepared us for this outcome. We are His workmanship, and He does not leave a work unfinished.
- For what. God shaped us for one outcome: the mortal swallowed up by life — the same glory as Christ, and nothing less.
- Given. The Spirit is the earnest — the deposit paid down, which both promises the full sum and binds God to His own word.
- Tasted. A deposit is part of the sum, so the Spirit is not just a receipt for glory but the means of entering its joy now, in weakness.
- Confident. The work is God's and the pledge is God's. No event, no weakness, not even death can delay it. That is why the next verse says we are always confident.
Therefore [we are] always confident, and know that while present in the body we are absent from the Lord,
Paul has just said that God shaped believers for glory and gave the Spirit as a down payment. That is why he can speak of courage now, and of a life still spent away from the Lord.
The confidence does not come from staring into the future. It rests on what believers already have. One writer traces the connecting word back to the verse before. (Older translations read "Therefore we are always confident," and the writers quoted here keep that wording.)
The word "therefore" is not linked, as you take it, with this glorious future state, as if that made him confident. It is linked with what he already had while in the body. "He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. Therefore we are always confident," and so on. Now you cannot fail to see how immensely important this is to the whole question. It was what Paul had already as God's workmanship, which made him so courageous at all times.
Paul writes "we," not "I." He describes what belongs to every believer — and he says it with death and judgment in plain view.
"Therefore we are always confident." Think of such language! Think of it as the apostle's words describing our portion, and in full view of both death and judgment! "We are always confident." … But he did enjoy it deeply. What is more, he puts it as the common enjoyment of all Christians. It is not just a question of his own personal feelings. It is about what God gave him to share now with God's people as God's people.
What backs such certainty? Two facts outside himself:
Where it is a question of the word of God, or the work of the Lord Jesus, the believer is entitled to have the fullest confidence. So the apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5, in full view of all the perils of death which daily confronted him, does not hesitate to say "We are always confident," and to repeat it, "We are confident."
Being "at home in the body" is no compliment to our present situation. It means living away from the One our hearts belong to.
So we are courageous at all times, whatever God's way with us may be meanwhile. And we know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. This world is not our rest; it is polluted. He is not here but risen and in glory, and our hearts are with Him where He is, and we look for Him to be like Him as well as with Him.
Readers have pulled this clause in two directions. Some make the distance itself the reason for confidence. Others treat it as the one thing that spoils it. Commentators differ here, and Kelly rejects both readings:
This is not the ground of our confidence, as Calvin strangely misread it. Nor is it an exception to it, as Roman Catholics and Rationalists have thought. It goes along with our good cheer as part of what we know as Christians. And it explains why we are ready in mind to leave the body when called, and to go home with the Lord.
The verse sets up a straight swap. Death does not break the pairing; it flips it — and the trade is in our favour.
Here we are absent from the Lord, there we shall be present with Him. Here at home in the body, there at home with the Lord. Even here our spirits enjoy communion with Him, in spite of this sinful world and the poor sinful bodies we live in. How much more in that safe place, where it will flow on unhindered, in an unbroken stream.
Certainty about the future does not slacken effort.
Understanding this rightly will not lead to loose living, or to being at ease and complacent. It leads instead to spiritual energy. As the apostle said, "We are always confident … we make it our aim to please Him." In every way, as he presses on, the true soul seeks to please the One who suffered for him. He wore the crown of thorns, but He now wears the crown of glory and honour.
- Cause. The courage is a conclusion, not a mood. It follows from what God has already done. He shaped us for glory and gave the Spirit as the pledge.
- Gift. God gives this confidence; we do not earn it. Paul writes "we," so it belongs to all believers, and he says it with death and judgment in full view.
- Distance. The same knowledge that steadies us also unsettles us. At home in the body means away from the Lord. He is risen and in glory, and this world is not our rest.
- Exchange. The two states are a straight trade. Home here means away from Him. Away from the body means at home with Him, with communion flowing on unhindered.
- Result. Certainty produces energy, not ease: always confident, therefore always aiming to please Him.