1. “Apostle” is a Greek word, and means “sent forth.” We see here that Christ sends the apostle, through the will of God.

ARGUMENT 3
THE LETTER SEALED
13. “ In which you also, having heard the Word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. ” Paul (2 Corinthians 3:3) tells us that we are God’s letters,
“written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.” Hence, we see that regeneration transforms us into God’s letters, to be read by this wicked world, who will not read the Bible. Hence God’s plan is to save the world through his saints. When a letter is written, the seeing becomes indispensable, in order to secure the contents against theft, as Satan is a great rogue, and is certain to steal out the letter and the money. Hence, you see by these beautiful similes that regeneration writes the letter, and sanctification seals it. When the letter is written, and sent out into this thievish world unsealed, it will not long retain its contents. Some thieving demon will surely spoliate it soon or late, leaving nothing but the old, empty envelope.
The ordinary Church member of the present day has nothing but an old, dirty envelope, carrying it round, a laughing-stock for devils, tickled over his silly delusion, thinking he has a letter of introduction to heaven, when he has nothing but an old, empty envelope. Now, reader, be sure that the Holy Ghost writes you a good letter in regeneration, and then seals it in sanctification.

15. “ Therefore I, hearing the faith with you in the Lord Jesus, and the Divine love toward all the saints,

16. “ Do not cease giving thanks in your behalf, making mention of you in my prayers. ” The globe of salvation contains two hemispheres; i.e., faith, which is the human side; and love, the Divine. Faith is the only human condition of salvation; it is the only hand competent to receive the things of God, repentance on the part of the sinner, to put him on believing ground for justification by faith, while entire consecration is the sine qua non indispensable to put the Christian on believing ground, where he can be sanctified by faith. The sinner can not exercise faith for pardon unless he is on believing ground, which is the utter and eternal abnegation of all his sins; while it is equally true that no Christian can be sanctified by faith till he gets on believing ground, which is a radical and unequivocal consecration of all to God for time and eternity. “Love” here is agape, divine love, in contradistinction to philia, human love, which is peculiar to fallen humanity, and destitute of saving grace. The rich man had it in hell; so he wanted to send a missionary to his brothers, to keep them out of that awful doom. This love is the Divine nature (1 John 4:16), and is only native in the heart of God, transmitted to us by the Holy Ghost by regeneration. (Romans 5:5.) Hence this love is exotic in the human heart, while the philia is indigenous. Popular religion stops with this human love, which is utterly destitute of salvation, and lets the people fall into hell like Dives. It is utterly impossible for any one to possess this Divine love till the Holy Ghost pours it out in the heart.

18. “ The eyes of your heart having been enlightened. ” Man is a Trinity, consisting of spirit, soul, or heart, all of which are synonymous, and used interchangeably in common parlance. The rank and file of the preachers at the present day are dichotomists; i.e., advocates of the two natures in humanity, confounding and identifying spirit and mind, and consequently preaching mentalities for spiritualities, and utterly heretical so far as gospel truth is concerned. The Bible everywhere teaches trichotomy; i.e., the three natures of humanity, spirit, mind, and body. The spirit is the man himself, consisting of the conscience, the will, and the affections. The conscience survived the fall, and still rings out the voice of God in the soul. The will is the king of humanity, adroitly manipulated by Satan for the damnation of the sinner, but completely wrested out of his hands, and turned over to God by the Holy Ghost in regeneration. Still, a world survives in the profound regions of the affections till utterly eradicated and expurgated by the cleansing blood, applied through the Holy Ghost in the second work of grace; i.e., entire sanctification.
The heart has all the senses; i.e., sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, like the body. But though a dead man have all these organs, he is utterly destitute of sensation. So it is with the heart of the sinner till quickened into life by the Holy Spirit. The human soul in the fall was utterly bereft of life. Hence total depravity applies only to the spiritual nature; the mental and physical suffering only partial depravity. Hence the wholesale delusion of the dualistic theology, which winks at the pure spirituality of humanity, substituting intellectualism, thus building up pompous Churches on the mental and physical elements, intermitting the spiritual, and thus letting the souls of their people slip through their fingers into hell. The Christian religion is not materialism nor intellectualism, but pure spirituality, inwrought by the Holy Ghost.
19,20,21. “ Placing Him on his right hand in the heavenlies above all the government, authority, power, and lordship, and every name named not only in this age, but in that which is to come. ” The Greek aion, erroneously translated “world,” means age. Hence, we see that this is not the last age of this world, but it is to be followed by the glorious millennium, and afterward by the illimitable heavenly ages, sweeping on through all eternity.