Earnest of the Spirit

From Anstey’s Doctrinal Definitions:

Earnest is an old English word denoting a down payment made for something that a person intends to take possession of in the future. It was often used in connection with real estate. In the Bible, it is used to denote the Spirit’s presence in the believer as a guarantee of his portion in Christ in the coming day of glorification, and also that which enables him to enjoy his portion in Christ before he reaches heaven (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5²²Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. (2 Corinthians 1:22)
⁵Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 5:5); Eph. 1:14¹⁴Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:14)).

H. P. Barker illustrated “the earnest of the Spirit” as follows: “It is like this. I am going on a voyage overseas, and I promise to take my boy, a lad of twelve, with me. For his enjoyment on board the ship I buy him a telescope—not a mere toy, but a serviceable instrument. The gift is an assurance to him on my part that I intend to take him on the voyage. But it is more than that. When the voyage is nearly ended, word goes round the ship that land is in sight. I can see nothing, but my boy with his telescope to his eye, says that he can see the hills quite clearly. Soon I can trace the outlines of the hills, but my boy exclaims, ‘I can see the trees and some houses.’ These things a little while later can be just discerned by unaided sight, but the lad sings out, ‘Father, I can see people down on the wharf.’ The telescope gives him a clearer vision of the land to which he is going. It enables him to get glimpses of it before he arrives. That is what the Holy Spirit as the Earnest does for us. He gives us keener spiritual vision; He brings us within the arena of present enjoyment of the great things that constitute our eternal inheritance; He enables us to, as it were, breathe the atmosphere of heaven, and to gain acquaintance with what is there before we get there” (Holy Spirit Here Today, p. 73).

G. Cutting had a good illustration that emphasizes the Spirit’s working in the believer as the Earnest, giving the believer present enjoyment of what is his to come. He pictured a farmer buying some sheep at a market and entrusting to his man to take them safely home. “Turn them into enclosure by the barn, John. And cut a few armfuls of that sweet clover from the field behind the house, and put it into the enclosure for the sheep to feed on this evening. Tomorrow, we will turn them out into the field itself.” This describes our situation exactly. We are sheep that have been purchased and entrusted to the care of the Holy Spirit who will conduct us home to heaven. In the glorious by-and-by, for which we wait, we are going to be turned into that heavenly field of clover, so to speak. In the meanwhile, the Spirit as the Earnest of our inheritance gives us tastes of the “sweet clover” of things to come for our present enjoyment.