glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spirit's sealing to full assurance It is NOW 12:25 PM Tuesday afternoon. I went and got cash and then went and got Mexican coffee. On the way home I stopped at a near by thrift store to look at their used books. I found these used books to ADD to my poor man's library. "David Copperfield" a novel by Charles Dickens "Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady" biography by Sylvia Jukes Morris "The First And Second Discourses" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau ""An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" by John Locke "Titan: The Life of John D. Rockeffeller, Sr." biography by Ron Chernow (I already have this book; I bought the book to donate to our local library used book store.) "Mainstreams of Modern Art" by John Canaday Now I am back inside my small cozy house. Yesterday we got in the mail our Winter taxes bill from the city of Holland. If we do not pay our taxes the government can take our house by force of arms. That is life in America. We can have this house paid for, but in reality we do not own it. Earlier when I wrote about what I read last night I forgot to mention I read online a famous exposition of the Epistle to the Ephesians by the 17th century English Puritan Paul Baynes. This famous Puritan work has been reprinted and can be purchased from Reformation Heritage Books if you have forty dollars floating free in your hermit hut. I wish I had $40.00 dollars to buy this Puritan classic. I am though thankful I can read this exposition on the apostle Paul's epistle to the Ephesians online anytime the Spirit moves me. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL23358793M/An_entire_commentary_upon_the_whole_Epistle_of_St._Paul_to_the_Ephesians Yesterday Dr. Beeke mentioned Paul Baynes when discussing the sealing work of the Holy Spirit. "In exegeting Ephesians 1:13-14, Baynes attempts to bring harmony between the Reformed and Puritan views by uniting the Spirit's roles as indweller and seal. He distinguishes being sealed by the Spirit (which all believers possess) and being made conscious of the graces of the Spirit experience). He relates the consciousness of the Spirit's sealing to full assurance of faith, picturing the Christian's growth in assurance as stages. "Childhood" lacks full assurance, "middle age" has some measure of assurance, and "old age" usually possesses much assurance (cf. Beeke, "Quest for Full Assurance", pp. 202-203." pg. 77 quoted from the article "Paul Baynes" in the book "Meet the Puritans" by Joel R. Beeke & Randall J. Pederson. "In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" Ephesians 1:13. "II. As Christ was sealed and fitted for us, so we are sealed and fitted for Christ. There is a privy seal in predestination. This is known only to God himself: 'The Lord knoweth who are his,' 2 Tim. ii.19. And this knowledge of God of us is carried secret, as a river under ground, until his calling of and separating us from the rest of men, when first by his Spirit he convinceth us of what we are in ourselves, and of our cursed condition, and thereby layeth us low by sorrow and humiliation for sin as the greatest evil. And then a pardon is more to us than a crown; then we will wait for mercy and continue so, and beg for mercy, and that upon Christ's own condition, by denying and renouncing anything of our own; then Christ is Christ unto us. Indeed, after this, it pleaseth Christ by his Spirit to open 'a door of hope,' and give some hints of mercy; and to let in some beams of love, and withal to raise up the soul by a spirit of faith, to close with particular mercy opened and offered by the Spirit, whereby the soul sealeth to the truth of the promise: John iii. 33, 'He that believeth hath set to his seal that God is true.' It is strange that God should stoop so low as to receive, as it were, confirmation by our belief, but thus God condescends in the phrase of Scripture, as we are said to help God: 'Curse ye Meroz, because they came not to help the Lord,' &c., Judges v. 23. God stoops to be helped by us, and to have his truth, and power, and goodness ratified and confirmed by us. When we believe the promise of God in Christ-though it be by the help of the Spirit-we seal God's truth. And then God honoureth that sealing of ours by the sealing of his Spirit: 'After you believed you were sealed,' saith the apostle, Eph. i. 13; that is, the gracious love of Christ was further confirmed to them. . ." Richard Sibbes pg. 433,434 "The Fountain Sealed" volume 5 "The Works of Richard Sibbes" It is 1:30 PM I need to close to eat lunch. 1:32 p.m. - 2011-12-06 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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