Promise speaks of the future, not the present. Does that sound squishy? For Paul this was not unworldly and for us it does not have to be. Paul, in fact, mentions the future in terms of the present. We are “now” sealed with this Spirit of promise. This is what the letter to the Ephesians is all about. It describes how God is working in this world today and with what outlook. Outlook and farsightedness can only be cultivated in the here and now.

“… In Him also are you who hear the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation – in Him also are you who believe, sealed with the Spirit of promise, the holy one (which is a deposit of our lot until the redemption of the one assigned to us) to the praise of His glory.”
Eph 1:13-14

This spirit of promise is a down payment until the fulfillment (deposit until the redemption). This down payment – a visual language – already contains something that will later be fully fulfilled. It’s something of a foretaste. Now this spirit of promise is also something with which we have been sealed. This is how Paul writes it.

This sealing is not something we did ourselves, but it was done to us. It is not in my effort, but in God’s promise. It cannot be taken away from us. We receive this sealing and this promise as a gift. God gives, He gives. Paul writes it this way so that we may rely on His promises without distraction, even though today it is obvious and continues to be the case that not everything has been fulfilled.

We have wealth through this, but this wealth is spiritual, and it is still kept for the future. Already the apostle had written that we have been blessed “with every spiritual blessing in the midst of those who are above in Christ”(Eph. 1:3). Accordingly, the spiritual blessing is a characteristic of our time. At the same time, we were sealed with the Spirit of Promise. This speaks of the future that lies ahead. Thus, from God’s work, we are kept for a future complete fulfillment. So today and tomorrow are both included in the Word of God and there is confidence in that.

Today we live

We have nothing else in this world but the present moment. Neither can we change the past, nor predict the future. We don’t even know what’s going to happen the next minute.

How does it feel to live in the here and now? We know nothing else. Sometimes it can be hard when hardships and pains, shortcomings and other things are concretely present, when challenges are overflowing and there seems to be no ray of hope. Paul does not write in a woolly way, or in a detached way. The apostle is sober. He writes to people in this world, but with an outlook and with a confidence.

Those who come to faith are not promised wealth or health. It is not that I believe, and therefore God makes the payoff in health, well-being or prosperity. It’s not bartering with God, and I’m not buying anything with my faith. In the reality of the here and now, my faith is spiritual wealth, but usually no more than that. Spiritual, that is, intangible.

This is the reality: we remain mortal, we experience illnesses like any other human being, we are not different from other people as believers in anything, except in the expectation and confidence, as well as the experienced grace of God. Expectation can inspire our here and now. God’s promises can give us the confidence in deep darkness to simply take the next step. His word is like a light on our path and like a lamp for our foot (Ps 119:105).

As believers, we are not different from other people in anything except the expectation and confidence and the experienced grace of God.

There is a preaching that drifts away from this spiritual richness. Spiritual wealth alone can be hard when real need pressures us. Therefore, there are teachings and opinions that replace the spiritual richness and promise. This proclamation exists in several ways. It is always a matter of a mania for feasibility, which can come to light, for example, as a gospel of prosperity or as a belief in miracles.

The Mirage of a Prosperity Gospel

The prosperity gospel is understood as the proclamation that promises wealth to everyone if they only believe (and usually transfer enough money to the pastor). It is a false doctrine, but it seems attractive to many because the need is real.

Sometimes it is proclaimed that a Christian will succeed if he only believes and asks God. It is concluded that because God is for us, everything is given to us in this world. Neither failure nor lack may then take place. Those who believe, it is believed, will be blessed in this world. For some, it involves just praying clearly for the things you would like to have, and God will grant that. If you want a big car, ask for the right make, model and color right away.

However, this view has nothing to do with faith. It’s more of a mind trick to fall for. Inevitably, books like “The Power of Positive Thinking” come to mind, but the same thoughts resonate in other esoteric and pseudo-Christian worldviews. It is always about promises of salvation, without any support from reality.

In a critical account, Hugo Stamm writes “As in our everyday lives, efficiency, success, and egocentrism are the central values in positive thinking”(Hugo Stamm, The Power of Positive Thinking. Tagesanzeiger 27.04.2006). Wikipedia mentions a whole series of studies that have been dedicated to this phenomenon(Wikipedia: Positive thinking). Not everything is as rosy as it is presented. When a healthy, positive and grateful attitude towards life is replaced by “false promises of salvation”, “autosuggestion” and “compulsive fading out of reality”, soon man suffers.

So it doesn’t help to point to an all-powerful God who says “Ask and it will be given to you” (Matt. 7:7). Quoting a text out of context is always problematic. We cannot misuse the Bible so selfishly. It is a religious odyssey.

It is through false promises of salvation that we leave a sober and joyful direction in life. Faith means trust. Living out of trust in God and His Christ is different from placing an order with the universe, should you be able to do so. Trust in God carries through, not projection. We see this clearly when we learn how Jesus dealt with difficult life situations:

Jesus said in faith: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by! However, not as I will, but as You will!” (Mt 26,39). Jesus made His need known, but ultimately left everything in His Father’s hands. Not fatalism, but trust in God. True faith always sees God as greater than the reality currently experienced by oneself. Therefore, anyone who is led away from this trust in God by a certain proclamation will be led onto black ice.

Miracle belief

I have already seen another mania for feasibility in diseases. Nothing is as seductive as a promise of a cure when you are really sick. The point is not that God can actually heal. What is more important is the question of whether everyone is cured with certainty today. Is it the standard today for believers to be healed? Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Healing is not the reward when I believe, when I trust in God. Because that’s not the point at all.

I had a sister who had cancer. In the church where she went in and out, she was told that if she only believed, she would be healed. She had firmly believed it. Prayers, anointings, healing services and that amount of literature on the subject marked her daily life. Nevertheless, it is no longer there today. She did not survive the disease. False teachings give false hope, with disastrous consequences for life and faith.

For my sister, the resurrection is next, as it is for all others who have fallen asleep (1Th 4:13-18). There is confidence in that, because we have only a temporary place to stay here.

The need in this world is not always met with healing – until now. However, we should not hide healing. Because today there are cures through conventional medicine, as well as through lifestyle changes and much more. There are also spontaneous healings. Undoubtedly, the courage to live is also quite crucial for a cure. However, there is no rule that everyone who believes will be healed.

The world is not black and white, as if it is “only God’s healing or no healing”. That’s just not the way it is. Man already has great healing powers within himself – even if these are limited by our mortality. And in fact, God can also heal. However, for the present time we have no commitment for this. Today we are blessed with every spiritual blessing (Eph 1:3). This is not palpable and tangible in body and life in the world.

Today we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. This is not palpable.

Those who propagate healing for all refer mainly to the Gospels. Hadn’t Jesus healed many people? Then shouldn’t that also apply to us? There is a seduction in such assertions, because the statements miss the point of the text.

Even in Jesus’ time, not everyone was healed. The healings in those days were “signs and wonders” that testified that He was the Messiah and the promised Messianic Kingdom had come near in Him. It was a testimony that identified Jesus as the coming Messiah (Mt 11:2-6 Mt 4:17). The signs and wonders of the Gospels were samples of the future time, but not the future time itself. The writer of Hebrews called it: “the powers of the age to come” (Heb 6:5).

Not everyone was healed in those days, and Paul once had to leave Trophimus sick in Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20) and recommended that Timothy take some wine occasionally because he was unwell in many cases (1 Timothy 5:23). Paul himself also had a “splinter for the flesh” that would not go away, even though he prayed for it more often (2 Cor. 12:7-8). This all sounds so very different from a “miracle faith for everyone who believes enough”. Because – hand on heart – who believes enough?

What Paul was allowed to recognize

After Paul had prayed several times that he might be freed from this suffering, he realized something completely different. He describes it as follows:

“So that I would not rise up because of the extraordinariness of the revelations, a splinter for the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan, to strike me with fists so that I would not rise up. Half of this I pleaded with the Lord three times that he might desist from me. But He assured me, “My grace is sufficient for you; for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Very gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in the infirmities in me, that the power of Christ may tent upon me.”
2Cor 12:7-9

Here we can learn something. It may not match our own experience, but Paul describes his personal experience for us as an example. This he realized: grace should be enough for him. This is central. Weakness needs grace. Strength needs no mercy. If the power of Christ should be made clear, then weakness is a good background for it.

Paul, however, was not a masochist. He did not exalt suffering in false piety. The suffering was concrete, he prayed 3x and then realized that grace is greater. He did not pressure God with endless prayers. He simply made his wish known, but then – when the solution failed to materialize – let go. The grace is greater. It goes on. He did not want to persist in his desires, but to give room to the power of the Christ in His life. That is something completely different. This is something very special.

To the Philippians Paul wrote:

“Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I want to emphasize: Rejoice! Let your liness be known to all people: The Lord is near! Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything let your petitions be made known before God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Then the peace of God, which is superior to all sense of thought, will keep your hearts and minds as in a stronghold in Christ Jesus.”
Phil 4:4-7

Do not worry about anything! This is not unworldly wishful thinking, but a clear recommendation. Paul counted on the reality of God, even if all his (or all our) desires are not fulfilled. We should make everything known to God “in prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving.” The promise is not that everything will be fulfilled to us, but it means that the peace of God, which is superior to all thinking, will keep our hearts and minds as in a fortress in Christ Jesus. The Experience the peace of God. The is the promise when we pray like this. This is spiritual wealth. And this wealth is secure.

The field of tension

So we are in this field of tension between current sensation and experience on the one hand and the promises of God on the other.

The Gospel, as Good News, both understood the suffering of this world and formulated a response to it. For the writers of the Bible, God’s promise is as real as the world in which we live. More than that, this world is God’s world, and we can confidently rely on Him to always have the last word.

However, not everything is resolved and redeemed today. Our own redemption is also yet to come (Rom 8:23). There is a real tension. This is something we should think about if we want to understand the confidence with which we may live in the here and now.

The sufferings of the present time

In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul speaks at length about the sufferings of this world. He does not preach feasibility mania with false promises of salvation. There is a future ahead of us. There is a promise in this. It is a passage from Romans 8. To the church in Rome he writes:

“For I reckon that the sufferings of the present period are not worthy of the glory that is about to be revealed in us.
Rom 8:18

A clear contrast: suffering now – glory in the future.

Paul means that even our greatest hardship is more than outweighed by the future that awaits us. Now it is not as if we are simply put off to an uncertain future or a woolly understanding of the hereafter. Paul always portrays each prospect as moving us forward in the here and now. It anchors the outlook in the current situation. He lets us participate in God’s work across time. It enlarges our field of vision and makes our time appear as part of God’s time. Trusting in His work, Paul also recognizes the longing of creation now, a longing for redemption and liberation.

“For the foreshadowing of creation awaits the unveiling of the sons of God.”
Rom 8:19

Creation waits

It is not the foreshadowing of the church, but it is the foreshadowing of creation itself. It is all-embracing. It affects the whole world.

This is the statement: The sufferings of the present term concern those of the whole creation. The creation suffers. Creation longs for a way out, just as we ourselves long for liberation.

Paul, who wrote about human suffering, broadens the horizon here to include the whole world. It becomes a total understanding in which nothing is excluded and God has the last word. The world becomes a stage on which God can unfold His salvation. On this stage is the whole creation in travail and distress, and we, as a congregation, are also on the stage. In a picture comparison, the play has not yet been completed. We are only part of the story, but the story continues to be unfinished.

What happens now? The foreshadowing of creation awaits the unveiling of the sons of God – the unveiling of the church of Jesus Christ. Only then does it continue. It will be the prelude to liberation, a next act in the performance in which we all participate. The whole creation suffers and waits until it continues, until the sons of God are revealed.

However, this can be a liberating view because God is present in everything. We do not have to pray God down from heaven as if He were not here. Far from it. This world is all His world, and we live our lives because He carries us (Acts 17:24-29). He is near to us (Phil 4:4-7).

But perhaps someone might object that this view is not liberating at all, because God “controls everything”. I can imagine that not everyone can cope with this easily. A God who has everything in his hands? Does that mean I have nothing more to say myself? And yet the suffering exists now? The question of theodicy resonates here, and has already been discussed in more detail in another post. For Paul, however, it is a matter of jurisdiction. We are not responsible for the world, but God Himself is responsible. It is not we who direct this great play, but God Himself who sets the course.

Paul describes it as follows:

“For creation was subordinated to vanity (not voluntarily, but for the sake of the subordinate)”
Rom 8:20

The state that creation is in is not voluntary. Creation was subjected to impermanence. That was “for the sake of the subfolder”. Or in other words, God Himself subjected the creation to impermanence. With this statement, we get a tremendous insight into the suffering of the world and what lies behind it. God Himself is behind it. Not in the infliction of suffering, but in view of the inevitable transience. Impermanence itself is already suffering, and it is the cause of much more suffering in this world.

God Himself has subjected creation to impermanence.

If we look at the situation again as a stage play, He has determined the stage set as well as the story that unfolds on stage. It is a game in several acts. Paul puts us in the theater for a moment and we watch the play with some distance, what is happening dramatically before our eyes. We are part of what is happening, but in faith we may also look at it with some distance. Confidence always builds on greater understanding. Perhaps we theater-goers came to the play, received a printed outline of the story in our hands and we could already get an idea of the possible course of events and even the end of the play.

“Confidence” has a goal in mind. Paul lets us glimpse the goal. It puts us in the position of the outside observer. He makes us look at the world from God’s position. This way we gain an overview, an insight and an outlook.

Promise builds on promise. Commitments can only be kept by those who are capable of keeping them. In the biblical understanding, that is God. He keeps his word. As we read in Ephesians that we have been sealed with the “Spirit of promise”, then behind this is a God who is also able to fulfill the promises. This sounds like a circular argument, but promise always builds on promise. In the context of the letter to the Ephesians, the apostle had written the following immediately before this promise:

“In Him the lot has also fallen upon us who are predestined, according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we may be to the praise of His glory, who have a former expectation in Christ. In Him also are you who hear the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation – in Him also are you who believe, sealed with the Spirit of promise, the Holy…”
Eph 1:11-14

It is about predestination, about a purpose of God, about the counsel of His will and the expectation that comes from it. All this characterizes this “spirit of promise” with which we have been sealed. Confidence and promise come from the promise and from the knowledge of God’s love (Eph 1:5), wherein He accomplishes all things. All this is done in view of one goal, namely, “to complete the all in all” (Eph. 1:22-23).

God’s expectation

Let’s hold our breath for a moment and let the words resonate. Paul describes the nature of the world with all its suffering and speaks of a God who has deliberately orchestrated the current status. Let’s not think too small here. Let’s think beyond the present moment. Let us think like God, Who overlooks all time, who stages a play with different acts. God has a “purpose of the eons”(Eph. 3:11), wherein He comes to the end. There is not only the present moment, but there is a time sequence. There is a plan and a prospect, because the play has not yet been completed. The last word will not be spoken today.

“For creation was made subservient to vanity … in the expectation that creation itself will also be freed from the slavery of corruption to the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
Rom 8:20-21

There is an expectation for all creation. This is God’s expectation. According to this expectation, the creation shall be freed from the slavery of corruption one day to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Instead of slavery, there is freedom. Instead of impermanence, there is glory. How we would describe it today can be exchanged. Paul links our experience and outlook to that of the entire world, from the perspective of God’s liberating grace.

“For we know that the whole creation groans and travails with us until now. But not they alone, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we ourselves also groan within ourselves, awaiting the Sonship, the release of our bodies.”
Rom 8:22-23

Our expectation

God has an expectation. Now we should also have an expectation. God will not let you and me fall, nor will the whole world. We were saved on God’s expectation. We are the vanguard, so to speak. However, there is more to it than that. God is always about the whole. We must learn to appreciate this expectation, understand it and integrate it into our lives.

“For it was upon this expectation that we were saved. But expectation that is glimpsed is not expectation; for that which someone glimpses – does he still expect it? But if we expect what we do not see, we wait for it with perseverance.”
Rom 8:24-25

The essence of a living expectation is precisely that it has not yet been fulfilled. We can only expect what we do not see. However, if we trust that our lives are sustained by God (and this applies to the whole world), we can learn perseverance through this. However, when the need is high, this perseverance is not exactly easy. Therefore, Paul continues in Romans and writes:

“But in the same way the Spirit also helps up our weakness; for what we ought to pray for (in accordance with what must be) we do not know; but the Spirit Himself uses Himself for us with unspoken groanings.”
Rom 8:26

Once again, we end up with God’s Spirit here. This one helps us in our weakness. After all, we don’t know what’s really important. We can’t even estimate the next minute. Therefore, God’s Spirit helps us in our weakness. The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groans.

God’s promise and God’s empathy are what we are blessed with. Isn’t that a big difference from these teachings that try to create their own future with psycho-tricks? And isn’t this a huge difference from the teachings that claim we must simply “appropriate” (English: “to claim”) what we recognize as “God’s blessing to us”. A rather dubious assessment is perhaps the result. Paul is much more sober in this respect. He clearly says that we do not know. We are dependent on God, and He works in us with His Spirit(Rom 8:27).

We have no idea what is really important. Therefore, God’s Spirit helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us with unspoken groans.

The prayer of Paul

What Paul writes about the Spirit of promise now receives further elaboration in Ephesians, chapter 1. Paul thinks Christocentrically. The Gospel is Christocentric. The Good News is not a miracle cure for the needs of this world. The Good News, however, gives a preview of the time that God makes all things well. Today we have great wealth, but it is to be understood spiritually. We should never let it be replaced with a mania for feasibility, with a prosperity gospel, or with a belief in miracles.

So that believers may understand this spiritual richness in the context of God’s nature and action, Paul prays:

“That’s why,
that I also – since I hear of the good of faith coming to you in the Lord Jesus (also that for all the saints),
that I do not cease to give thanks for you and mention you in my prayers,
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
give you spiritual wisdom and spiritual revelation for the knowledge of Himself
(after the eyes of your heart have been enlightened),

so that you know
which is the expectation good of His calling,
what the riches of the glory of His lot in the midst of the saints,
which is the all-surpassing greatness of His power (for us who believe),
according to the efficacy of the power of His strength, which worked in Christ,
When He raised Him from the dead
and seated Him at His right hand in the midst of the heavenly ones,
Highly exalted above every princely power and authority,
Power and domination,
also about every name that is called not only in this eon but also in the one to come.

He subordinates everything to Him, at His feet;
and He gives Him as head over all to the called out church,
which is His body, the completion of that,
who completes the universe in everything.”
Eph 1:15-23

Deepening

• Where does our wealth lie today?
• What power is there in a promise?
• What is the outlook for this world?
• Are we in God’s hands? What does this show in?
• In Ephesians 1:23, Paul writes that we are “the completion of Him who completes the all in all.” What can this promise?