The answer
“Contemplate! ‘He who establishes us with you in Christ, and anointed us is God, He who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee’ (2 Cor. 1:22). Someone goes to buy a house at a great price and he says give me an earnest that I may have confidence: or one goes to take a wife for himself, he arranges about dowry and property, and he says give me an earnest. Observe: in the purchase of a slave and in all covenants there is an earnest. Since then Christ made a covenant with us (for He was about to take me as a bride) he also assigned a dowry to me not of money, but of blood. But this dowry which He assigns is the bestowal of good things such as eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man. He assigned them for the dowry:— immortality, praise with the angels, release from death, freedom from sin, the inheritance of a kingdom (so great are his riches), righteousness, sanctification, deliverance from present evils, discovery of future blessings. Great was my dowry.”1017
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
1017 St. John Chrysostom, Homily 2 on Eutropius (NPNF I/9:260).