He further says that we have through the Spirit an earnest, or pledge, that this condition, which is set forth as the chief object of desire, will finally be reached, and we shall be clothed with our house from Heaven. But what is the Holy Spirit in our hearts an earnest or pledge of? What does it signify that we have a measure of the Holy Spirit here? Is it a proof or assurance that we have immortal souls that will live when the body is dead? No, but that we shall be redeemed and made immortal. See Eph. 1:13, 14: “In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” And in Rom. 8:11, Paul again says: “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” These are the glorious promises of which the Holy Spirit in our hearts is a pledge and assurance: that these mortal bodies shall be quickened from the dead, even as Christ was raised up, and that we shall share in the inheritance, when the purchased possession shall be redeemed. It looks not to any intermediate state, but to the ultimate reward. And finally, Paul forever bars his teaching against the entrance of the conscious state dogma, by saying that when we are clothed upon with our house from Heaven, mortality is swallowed up of life. How can mortality be swallowed up of life? It can be only by having a principle of life come upon it which shall overpower and absorb it. Mortality can be swallowed up only by immortality or eternal life. Is this the passing of the soul from the mortal body at the hour of death? Let us look at it. What is there about man, according to the common view, which is mortal? The body. And what is immortal? The soul. At death, the body, that part which is mortal, does not become immortal, but loses all its life, and goes into the grave to crumble back to dust. And the soul, which was immortal before, is no more than immortal afterward. Is there any swallowing up of mortality by life here? Just the reverse. Mortality, or the mortal part, is swallowed up by death. There is not so much life afterward as before; for after death, the soul only lives, while the body, which was alive before, is now dead.