The Text

_Ver. 5. _Now He that has wrought us for the self-same thing is GOD, who has also given us the earnest of the Spirit.

The current of the four former verses running thus steadily along in this channel; the stream in this verse continues still the same.

There is one word in this verse; [[〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], For this self-same thing, God has wrought us] which serves as a clue of thread drawn through the windings of the former verses to show us, that one and the same individual glory has been carried on all along, and still is in this verse also. So then we see where we are.

What this self-same thing should be, ask the first verse and it will tell you, it is that house eternal in the heavens, a building of God, prepared by him against the time that this earthly house is dissolved. Ask the second verse, it is the same house we groan to be clothed upon with, when the other is pulled down. Ask the fourth verse, and more plainly: It is that life, which succeeds this mortal life the soul now lives in this body, and swallows up all the infirmities thereof. And then here it follows, Even for this self-same thing, etc. So then, if the glory of the separate soul be the subject of any of these verses, then of all, and so of this verse also.

And to be sure it cannot be that extraordinary way of entrance into glory, by such a sudden change, both of soul and body into glory, at once, without dissolution should be the self-same thing here aimed at. For it was not the lot of any of those Primitive Christians (of whom the Holy Ghost here speaks this) [He has wrought us for this thing] that they should be in that manner changed, and so enter into glory: but the contrary. For they all, and all saints since for these 1600 years, have put off their tabernacles by death, as Peter did, and speaks of himself (2 Peter 1:14), and therefore the Scripture (or Holy Ghost) foreseeing, as the phrase is (Galatians 3:8), this change would be their fate, would not have uttered this of them, [God has wrought us for this] whom he knew God had not designed for that purpose.

Neither is it that those groaning desires spoken of in the foregoing verses, 2, 3, 4, is [that self-same thing] here (as some would), for indeed as Musculus well: If the Apostle had said, He that has wrought this thing in us, etc., that expression might have carried it to such a sense: But he says, He that wrought us for the self-same thing: And so it is not that desire of glory in us is spoken of: But us, our selves and souls as wrought for that glory.

If it be asked, what is the special proper scope of these words, as touching this glory of the soul? The answer in general, it is to give the rational part of this point, or demonstrative reasons to evidence to believers, that indeed God has thus ordained and prepared such a glory before the resurrection. And it is as if the Apostle had said, Look into your own souls, and consider God's dealings with you hitherto, namely,

First, the operation of his hands. For what other is the meaning or mystery (says he) of all that God is daily so at work at with you, in this life? What else is the end of all the workings of grace in you, and of God that is the worker? This is his very design, He that has wrought us (that is, our souls) for this very thing is God.

Besides the evidence that work gives, there is also over and above the earnest of the Spirit given to your souls now while in your bodies, in joy, full of glories of the same kind (as earnests are) of what fullness of glory they are both capable of then, and shall be filled with, when severed from your bodies, Who has [also] given us [the earnest] of the Spirit.