p. 162 | The Sealing by Jos. Clarke

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 9, 1866

The Sealing.

By Jos. Clarke

“For him hath God the Father sealed.” John vi, 27.

THESE are the words of Jesus Christ respecting himself; and an inquiry suggests itself here: To what does he refer as the sealing? Was it some mark of God's acceptance, publicly promulgated, or not? We answer that we cannot decide with confidence; but it seems just to suppose that it was some token of God's acceptance, which his (Christ's) hearers understood. What could it be? Perhaps the manifestations of the power of God at Jesus' baptism, the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and the voice of God asserting this to be his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased, was the sealing he referred to. One of the meanings of the word sealing, is ratification; and, certainly, it looks clear, that this testimony of God was what decided John the Baptist's mind that Jesus was the Messiah; and the same testimony is perhaps referred to, by Christ, in John vi, 37; and it was this which empowered him, as a delegate of Jehovah, to enter upon his mission as a public teacher sent of God.

This sealing, being public, and amounting to an endorsement, by Jehovah, of the character and mission of his Son, may we not conjecture that Enoch had the testimony that he pleased God, given to him in the same public form and manner, previous to his translation? And, reasoning by analogy, may we not suppose that Revelation vii, 3, will be fulfilled in a similar form and manner?

JOS. CLARKE.