13 How The Holy Spirit Seals God's People

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the 13th episode in a companion series to my book, Start Strong: A New Believer's Guide to Christianity, which is available wherever books are sold. Today we'll be studying Ephesians 1, verses 13 through 23, and this is one of the See for Yourself passages from chapter 13 of the book. Some days, God can seem distant and uninvolved in your life. You know the gospel, you want to believe it, but deep down you still wonder, is this really true? Do I really belong to God? Well, in this episode, we'll see how the Holy Spirit is God's seal of ownership, the assurance that you are in fact his, and the guarantee that he will bring you safely into the future he has promised. Thanks so much for listening. Well, this week we're going to be talking about the Holy Spirit. When we see the Holy Spirit in Scripture, He is almost always intervening in creation to accomplish God's purposes. I call the Holy Spirit God's agent of change because his role is primarily to bring about God's plans. Generally speaking, we can organize the work of the Holy Spirit into two broad categories, the universal and the individual. The individual way the Spirit works is to give individual believers different opportunities and roles to play in the kingdom of God. These are often what we think of as spiritual gifts. They're the various roles and chances and opportunities each of us has to serve the body of Christ. The universal work of the Spirit is something the Spirit does for all believers, and that is He transforms our hearts such that we now embrace and believe the gospel, and we can say and mean Jesus is Lord. And I have a podcast that goes into these two broad categories in great detail, and I'll link to that in the show notes. Today we're going to be talking about one aspect of the universal work of the Spirit, that is spiritual renewal. Both testaments understand the nature of spiritual renewal the same way. That is, that God transforms believers through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us faith. In the Old Testament, you'll see language like God gives you a heart to know, the eyes to see, and the ears to hear, or God circumcises your heart to love him so that you may live. God writes his law on your heart so that he can be your God and you will be his people. God gives you a new heart, a new spirit. God removes your heart of stone and gives you a heart of flesh. And God puts his spirit within you to cause you to walk in his statutes. Each of those phrases in the Old Testament talks about the same sort of thing the New Testament describes as being born again or born from above. And that is this work that God does inside us to make us people who love him and are no longer rebellious to him. And that's what I've called the universal work of the Spirit because it is something the Spirit does for every believer. Today, I want to look at a passage from Ephesians 1 to explore this idea further. And in this passage, we'll see the Holy Spirit is God's agent of change. He intervenes in the world to change us, and we'll see that the change we most need is salvation. Now, this is early in Paul's letter to the Ephesians. He begins this letter with a series of blessings God gives to all believers through the work of Jesus Christ. And you can read through the list. God chose us in Christ, God predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus. In Jesus we have redemption and an inheritance. And the one we're going to talk about is the last one, being sealed with the Spirit. So we're going to start in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. In him, and that's Christ, in him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. Now, before we talk about what it means to be sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, let's talk about the prerequisites. Paul describes two conditions for being sealed by the Spirit, and that is hearing and believing. We have to hear the truth about our sinfulness, the truth about our inability to save ourselves from sin, the truth that God owes us nothing and is not obligated to save us or give us any blessing. And then we have to genuinely believe that God will save us from our sins and forgive us because of the blood of Jesus Christ. So we hear that truth, we understand it, and we believe that Jesus died in our place in order to justify and redeem us. So when we hear the message and believe it, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. And notice Paul calls him the promised Holy Spirit. God pouring out his spirit on us is a fulfillment of the Old Testament promises and the Old Testament predictions. We can look at a number of them. I'll only look at one here. Probably the most famous is Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. So Jeremiah is predicting a day will come when God will write the law on the hearts of his people. And what he means by that, writing the law on the hearts of his people, is what we've been talking about, the transforming of our hearts, the universal work of the Spirit, where he makes us people who are no longer rebellious to God but want to follow him. Another famous passage comes from Joel 2, and the Apostle Peter quotes that passage on the day of Pentecost, which is the day God fulfilled this promise. Joel 2, 28 and 29. It will come about after this that I will pour out my spirit on all mankind, and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions, even on the male and female servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days. And notice the two concepts in Joel: the spirit will be given, one without measure, and two, without distinction. Everyone who believes, men and women, young and old, slave and free alike, they will all be given a full measure of the spirit. Now, Scripture often uses opposite pairs to represent the total. So they say day and night to mean all the time, or heaven and earth to mean everywhere. And these pairs in the quotes from Joel are meant to mean everyone, sons and daughters, young and old, male and female. The idea is this is going to be given to all God's people. Now I won't take the time to look at it, but we could look at other prophets who take this one step further and say the blessings will go out beyond all Israel to all the nations, which you can kind of see a hint of in Joel. So Paul uses this phrase, the Holy Spirit of promise or the promised Holy Spirit on purpose, because he's saying this is the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament, that the law would be written on our hearts. The law is written on our hearts because now we have God's Spirit indwelling us, chaining us from the inside out to make us the type of people who not only want to keep the law, but eventually do in fact keep the law. All right, so what does the Holy Spirit do? Let's go back to Ephesians 1, 13 and 14. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. So when we hear and believe the gospel, God fulfills his promise and seals us with the Holy Spirit. So let's talk about what it means to be sealed. Paul is speaking metaphorically here. In many cultures of his day, people used seals to guarantee their signature, kind of like we notarize something today to guarantee a signature. Families would have a ring or a stamp with an emblem on it. That was their seal. The seal had their family crest or some unique carving that identified them. So when they had some important document or letter and they wanted to guarantee that the signature on the document was genuine, they would affix their seal to the document, usually in wax. So when a noble or a king put his seal on something, the seal meant this belongs to me, and you better not mess with it. A king might close a pouch or a chest with his seal, and that signified this belongs to the king. Only the intended recipient can break the seal. Everyone else was to leave it alone because it belonged to the king or the master. So the seal had a threefold purpose. One, it guaranteed the authenticity of the documents. Two, it named their rightful owner. And three, it protected the documents from being harmed or tampered with. And in fact, if you tampered with a seal, that was a capital offense. You could be put to death for it. And I think that's the idea Paul has in mind in Ephesians when he says Christians are sealed with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit guarantees our authenticity, our ownership, and our protection. So let's look at those in turn. Authenticity. How do you know you're a Christian? It's not because you have an official document, perhaps you have a baptismal certificate or a letter of church membership. That's not what guarantees you're a Christian. Instead, when you became a Christian, the Holy God took his metaphorical signet ring and pressed it against your soul, leaving his image indelibly stamped upon it by the Holy Spirit. This is why your spirit now cries out, Abba Father. This sealing by the Holy Spirit is what brings authenticity and assurance that you are a believer and it's far more secure than any ritual or piece of paper. The king's seal in the Old Testament was used not only as a mark of authenticity, but also ownership. And likewise, the Holy Spirit sets you apart. He marks you as belonging to God. In his letters, Paul divides the world into two groups, those who belong to God and those who don't. And that's really the only dividing line that matters. And what's the difference between those two groups? One group has heard and believed the gospel and been sealed with the Spirit, and the other has refused or rejected the gospel, or maybe they haven't heard it yet. So what marks you as a child of God is that you believe, you hear the gospel, you believe it, because the Holy Spirit is now working inside you to give you faith and belief. And third, and perhaps from our perspective, the most important, the king's seal prevented official documents from being tampered with or harmed. The seal was irrevocable. And we can see that in the Old Testament. In the book of Esther, King Ahazarus said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, This, this is in Esther 8.8, but you may write as you please with regard to the Jews in the name of the king and seal it with the king's ring. For an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring cannot be revoked. And that's what God is saying when he metaphorically stamps your soul with his signet ring, the Holy Spirit. He has done something that cannot be revoked. When you're sealed with the Holy Spirit, God is making a statement. This is my adopted child, whom I own and I am committed to protect for eternity. So the seal fulfills this past promise that we see in the Old Testament. It grants security in the present because it is a mark that we are his, and finally it guarantees our future promise. The seal of the Spirit looks ahead to the future inheritance, and it is God's promise that he will get us there. Well, let's talk about that last bit, the promise, or the pledge that will get our inheritance. Let me read Ephesians 1:13 and 14 again. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee, or we could translate that, the pledge of our inheritance until we were acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. The seal is a mark of ownership and protection. The Holy Spirit is a mark on believers that shows we belong to God and we're under his protection, but the Holy Spirit is also a pledge of our inheritance. Now, this Greek word for pledge or guarantee, it's essentially a down payment. A down payment is the first installment that you pay on a loan, and it guarantees you're going to pay the rest. So it's like earnest money. If I'm promising to buy your house, I might give you a down payment or earnest money to demonstrate that I am serious. I intend to buy your house. So I'm giving you this sum of money up front that guarantees that I intend to pay you the rest. That down payment is my pledge. It guarantees that my promise is good. And that's how Paul is picturing the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God's down payment, a pledge from God that one day he will fully give us our inheritance. We have been adopted as his children because of Jesus, and that gives us an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. But we don't have that inheritance yet. It's been promised to us. We are awaiting its fulfillment. And in the meantime, God gives us his spirit as a pledge that he intends to fulfill his promise. And the promise we're waiting for, the fulfillment that has not yet come, is the complete release and freedom from sin and death. So our destiny is sealed. There is no doubt that God will forgive us and grant us a place in his kingdom, but we're still looking forward to the day when that happens. One day Jesus will return, and this time he will bring mercy and forgiveness to those who believe, along with complete freedom from sin and death. This is the future inheritance we look forward to. And the guarantee that we will receive it, the pledge we have now, is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guarantees our salvation, and we have no reason to doubt it. Now, before we end this episode, let's look at one more thing that Paul says in this chapter about the Holy Spirit. Paul often begins his letters with a prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving for the work that God has done in the lives of his readers. Paul spent his life as an apostle traveling from place to place, preaching the gospel, starting churches, and then leaving. How the people fared after he left the city was naturally of great interest to him. There's a real sense in which the people he preached to are the evidence of the success of his life's work. So he often begins his letters with a prayer, thanking God for the way his listeners, the people he's preached to, have responded to the gospel. And he says something to the effect, I pray for you all the time, and when I do, I'm grateful for the work God has done among you. Then, after expressing his gratitude, he goes on to say, and this is what I'm praying God will do for you in the future. Now, I find these prayers very instructive because they show us what Paul's concerns were, and ultimately, I think, what his concerns might be for us if he wrote us a letter today. The prayers in his New Testament letters share some common themes. He never prays for things like, oh, progress on the new church building or increased giving or that the pastor would run for mayor or something. His prayers are typically concerned with their spiritual growth and maturity. And that's what we see here in Ephesians. After running through all the blessings that God has given us in Christ, Paul then prays for them in verses 15 through 18. And let's look at that. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hoped which He has called you, and what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. Now there's a lot we could say about that little prayer, but what I want to focus on is what he's asking for wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ. Wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, and in that Hyman context is Christ. Wisdom is the skill to live life well. It starts with seeing the truth about God and His creation. So wisdom sees reality accurately and then it applies that accurate understanding to the rest of life, therefore, living life well. So wisdom understands and then acts on the truth. It's not the acquisition of knowledge, it's not gaining facts and educational degrees. Wisdom is seeing the truth that God has established in creation and applying it to life and living life well. Wisdom not only understands the truth about God, wisdom sees the value and the relevance of that truth for daily life. So the person who is wise understands what is true from God's perspective and lives life in light of that truth. Or, put it another way, the person who is wise understands that God has made great promises, believes in those promises, and lives in the light of those promises. Now we're not talking about an abstract grasp of theological doctrines. We're talking about life-savvy or prudent decision making based on an accurate understanding of the world God created. And if you stop and think about it, you probably know wise life-savvy people. They just seem to get it. They're the ones you seek out for advice when you're faced with a difficult choice because they just seem to be able to get to the heart of the problem. Maybe it's someone who never finished high school, or maybe it's your grandparent or parent or coach. The person who is wise understands reality and can spot a bad decision a mile away. And Paul prays that they would have this kind of wisdom. He says, the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Now, it seems to me adding this word revelation emphasizes how hard true wisdom is to come by. You probably know people who are wise in the ways of the world. They know how to navigate through life and come out on top. Maybe they're particularly skilled at surviving office politics, living life on the streets, or negotiating the deal, but that's not the kind of wisdom Paul has in view here. He's talking about the kind of wisdom that comes through revelation, that is grounded in biblical truths. A wisdom that recognizes God exists, that he's holy and we are not, and one day we will have to face him. A wisdom that recognizes there is a path to eternal life and not everyone is on it. That kind of wisdom is hard to come by. Left to ourselves, we would find it foolish and reject it. It takes the work of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to see and embrace that kind of truth and wisdom. And that's what Paul is praying for them. Paul is asking that they would come to know God in this wisdom and revelation. This is not the kind of wisdom that teaches you how to invest in the stock market or win friends and influence people. This is knowledge of God. Now it's easy to say that we know God, and we want to think about in what sense do we need to know God? Well, Paul explains in 18 through 20. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Now, that's a lot of kind of big, flowery language and phrases, but let's think about what he's saying. Paul wants us to understand God's character and his purposes as it relates to us. Paul's not asking for an abstract systematic theology kind of understanding, the kind that I need to pass a theological test. He's asking that we know God. And that is not only to know about God and who he is, but to recognize that truth means something to me. It makes a difference in who I am, what I value, and how I live my life. This is the kind of knowledge that changes our daily decisions. What we believe to be true changes how we act, what we say, and what we do. Now all of us have a worldview, and by that I mean a picture of reality out of which we operate. Why do some things make me glad and other things scare me to death? Well, it's because I have a certain understanding of reality and the way the world works. And that picture makes me pursue some things and avoid others. When the Bible talks about my heart, it's a metaphor for the inner person, the real me, the place where you find my will, my desires, my hopes, my thoughts, the place where my worldview rests. We all start out with hearts that are blind and foolish. We look at reality and we don't get it. We trade things of eternal importance for immediate gratification. We look at right and we call it wrong. We look at wrong and we call it right. We look at selfishness and we call it good, and we look at generosity and we call it foolish. Our wills are stubborn, our hopes are foolish, our values are worldly, and that's how we all start out. And Paul is praying that we would have that change, that the eyes of our heart, the way we see the world, the worldview we operate out of, that that would be changed so that we see and know and understand God. Whatever I see outside with my physical eyes, the eyes inside would start to get it and recognize, hey, that is really true and valuable and wise, and I ought to build my life on that. So what will we see when the eyes of our hearts are enlightened? Let me read 18 and 19 again. Having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might. So Paul says, I hope you see these three things. And actually, I think those three things are one thing expressed three ways. Paul prays that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened so that they would know the hope of his calling, the riches of the glory of his inheritance, and the surpassing greatness of his power. Now we've talked about the hope of his calling on this podcast before. This is the confident, eager expectation that we will be freed from sin and made holy. Hope is not wishful thinking. The New Testament word for hope is never used to express a wish or a desire. It is reserved for something that you are confident will actually happen. So hope is an eager, confident, joyous expectation that something will happen. And what are we hoping for? To one day stand holy and blameless before God, to be his people, to be forgiven by Christ and completely freed from sin and death. He called us to make us the kind of people we were created to be: unfallen, undefiled, knowing right from wrong, completely morally blameless, worthy and perfect. Now, if that seems remote and irrelevant to you as you live your daily life, I would say you probably don't understand the depth of your sin. Being made holy as God is holy is the only goal worth pursuing. It is those who hunger for righteousness that will find it. It is those who long to be released from sin that will be rewarded with that freedom from sin. Nothing else will meet the desires of your heart. Let me give you an analogy to try to explain this. Imagine someone you love is in a plane crash. At first, the news reports that there are no survivors. And of course, this terrible grief and loss comes over you because now you know your loved one is gone and there's nothing you can do about it. But then a couple days later, you hear actually your loved one survived. He or she is well and will be coming home. But it's gonna take a while. It's going to take several weeks for your loved one to travel back from the remote location of the crash. Well, now you have hope. Before you had no hope. Now all you have to do is wait patiently and joyously and know that your friend is coming back. Eventually, you will see your friend again. Now, of course, as you wait, there will be good days and bad days. Some days will be easier than others, but you are confident this is not an empty promise. This will be fulfilled. In spite of the fact that your friend is not here now, hope has captured your heart. You thought he was dead, but now he's alive, and that knowledge gives you hope and strength to face even a prolonged separation. Well, that's how the hope of the gospel operates in our lives. It changes our perspective on reality. It changes the way we view trials and the frustrations of today. Because we have hope, we view them in a different light. And this is what Paul is praying for: that in their innermost being, they would be captured by the value of the gospel, the reality of the hope of the gospel, and that that would mean something so significant to us that it would change our daily lives. So if the hope of the gospel means nothing to us, then the problem is probably our perspective. We have lost sight of what our real problems are and where the solution is to be found. And we need to come to grips with two realities. Reality number one, we think we know what will solve our problems. Maybe we think it's financial security, the current hardship coming to an end, better health, beauty, romance, marriage, perfect grades, career success, something like that. Well, the New Testament says that's not your problem. That may be a problem, but the real problem is that you are sinners in the hands of a holy God. There is a fire coming, which nothing in this world will survive. It's all going to burn and you're going to walk right into the middle of it. And the only way to survive that fire is through genuine faith in Jesus Christ. That's reality number one. The second reality we have to come to grips with is that all our basic human desires will find their fulfillment in the promised kingdom of God. Freedom from death, freedom from guilt, freedom from sin. Essentially, we will be freed from everything that robs us of fulfillment now in the kingdom of heaven. You want to be loved? Well, you will be loved and loved deeply in return in the kingdom of heaven. You want security, you will be unshakably secure in the kingdom of God. You want meaning and purpose, you will live lives of great meaning and glorious purpose there. You will know complete peace of mind and rest. There will be no more sin, no more tears, no more frustration, no more tragedies, no more of any of the things that frustrate our life and existence now. That's why setting our hope on the coming kingdom of God brings clarity to our minds, because we have set our hope on something that is truly valuable and unshakable. We get so distracted by the things of this world that we lose sight of how important the kingdom of God is. But the Holy Spirit is a pledge and a seal that we will get it. God, in His mercy and great love, has started this process. The ball is rolling and it will complete its course. The reality of this new gift of the Holy Spirit, this new faith, this trust in God is in motion. The process has begun and the trials we experience now are part of it. Trials prove to us that our faith is real, and if our faith is real, that our hope is secure, and we stand to inherit life in the kingdom of God free from sin and death and guilt. Now, some days we're just too foolish to see how valuable that is. And sometimes God has to pry our fingers out of the mud and the dirt to lift our eyes to the glories He has promised, because we're just too immature and foolish to see how valuable his promises are. We need the Spirit of God to help us see those truths. And that's what Paul is praying for: that because of Christ, we will move from hopelessness to hope, and we will understand the riches of the glory of his inheritance. And part of the job of the Holy Spirit, part of the universal work of the Holy Spirit is ensuring that we become people who understand, that we receive our inheritance because he has taught us the truths, opened our eyes to them, and grounded them into our being such that we live and act on them. So the Holy Spirit is the down payment, the pledge, and the seal of our inheritance. He is the one who is ultimately going to bring about that inheritance we've been promised. And here Paul is praying that the Holy Spirit would bring home to our hearts, our worldview, our understanding how valuable and wonderful that is, that we would come to see the riches and significance of that inheritance now, and that understanding would give us the anchor to get through life. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. The blog version of this episode is at wednesdayintheword.com slash start strong podcast one free. You can listen to all the episodes in this series at wednesdayintheword.com. There is no charge, no spam, and no ads. Just free, trustworthy resources to help you grow in your understanding of scripture. One small favor, if this podcast is blessed, please follow it and leave a positive review wherever you listen. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and what you learned at. If you're reading along and this is my book Start Strong in New Believers Guide to Christianity, read chapter 14 before listening to the next episode. And if you are reading along, I would be very grateful if you would leave me a positive review on Amazon or Goodreads. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coast. You can find all of Reggie's wonderful music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.