<p>1:22- see on 2 Cor. 3:3.</p><p><i>Who also sealed us and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts- </i>&quot;Also&quot; doesn't have to mean that the statement following is an additional truth to preceding one. Literally &quot;and...&quot;, this &quot;and... and&quot; structure can be used as it is in several Eastern European languages to express a series of parallel truths or descriptions of the same reality. As noted on :21, Paul has in view the gift of the Holy Spirit after baptism- a transforming power within the human heart. Any claim that the Spirit only worked through miraculous signs is made null and void by this specific statement that we have been given the Spirit in our hearts. After we believe, we are &quot;sealed with the promised Holy Spirit&quot; (Eph. 1:13; 4:30). The promised Holy Spirit is surely a reference to the Comforter, a force which would be <i>within</i> the believer to make the Lord Jesus as real as if He were physically with us. The same gift of the Spirit is promised to all who would be baptized in Acts 2:39. The sealing is therefore &quot;in our hearts&quot;. Perhaps this is why the 'sealing' of the faithful in Rev. 7:3 was &quot;in their foreheads&quot;- in their minds. This internal, psychological experience is the foretaste, the guarantee, of our future total transformation at the last day. 2 Cor. 5:4,5 present this &quot;down payment&quot; as the precursor to the literal transformation of the body at the Lord's return: &quot;...that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing the ending of our mortality by immortality is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee&quot;. Eph. 1:13,14 speak of this same gift coming after belief: &quot;In whom you also believed, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, and were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is a guarantee s.w. &quot;down payment&quot; of our inheritance, of the final redemption of God's own possession, for the praise of His glory&quot;.</p>