Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Corinthians 1:22

"who also sealed us, and gave [us] the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." — 2 Corinthians 1:22 (ASV)

Who hath also sealed us.—Better, who also sealed us. The thought thus expressed is that the gift of the Spirit, following baptism or the laying on of hands, is like the seal of the covenant which God makes with His people, attesting its validity. (Ephesians 4:30; and, for the Jewish use of seals, Jeremiah 32:10.)

And given the earnest of the Spirit.—Better, for the same reason as before, gave. The Greek word for “earnest” (arrhabôn), which occurs here for the first time and is used only by St. Paul in the New Testament (2 Corinthians 5:5; Ephesians 1:14), has a somewhat interesting history. Originally a Hebrew word, from a verb meaning “to mix,” “to change,” or “to pledge,” and used as a cognate noun with the last of these three senses, it appears simply transliterated in the Septuagint (LXX) of Genesis 38:17-18.

It seems to have been in common use among the Canaanite or Phoenician traders and was carried by them to Greece, to Carthage, to Alexandria, and to Rome.

It was used by the Greek orator Isæus, and by Plautus and Terence among the earlier Latin writers. The full form came to be considered somehow as pedantic or vulgar and was superseded in Roman law by the shortened “arrha”—the payment of a small sum given on the completion of a bargain as a pledge that the payer would fulfill the contract. It has passed into Italian as “arra,” into modern French as “les arrhes,” and into popular Scottish usage even, as “arles.”

As applied by St. Paul, it had the force of a condensed parable, such as the people of commercial cities like Corinth and Ephesus would readily understand. They were not to think that their past spiritual experience had any character of finality. Instead, it was only the pledge of yet greater gifts to come: even that knowledge of God which is eternal life (John 17:3).

The same thought is expressed, under a more Hebrew image, in the firstfruits of the Spirit in Romans 8:23. Grammatically, “the earnest of the Spirit” may be taken as an example of the genitive of apposition: “the earnest which is the Spirit.”