Ephesians 1:14

14. The earnest See note, 2 Corinthians 1:20. The blessed Spirit is a first instalment, a small portion, of our inheritance already given us to assure us that it will be finally bestowed in fulness.

Our inheritance Not God’s, or Christ’s inheritance of the elect, but the elects’ inheritance of the final reconciliation in Christ. See note on Ephesians 1:11. This pledge looks to the completed redemption (see Ephesians 1:7) of the purchased possession, namely, the possession purchased through his blood, (Ephesians 1:7,) which possession takes place at and in the reconciliation of Ephesians 1:10 and Colossians 1:20.

Paul showed in the previous paragraph a picture of the final reconciliation in Christ, the glorious head, and of the blessedness of an election through faith to that inheritance. He now prays that the minds of those addressed may be raised to a full conception of that blissful consummation, and then gives a second picture of Christ in his glorious redeeming headship. The three transcendent passages (Ephesians 1:10; Ephesians 1:19-23, and Colossians 1:14-19) should be read together as correspondent parts of the same sublime portraiture.