052 Ephesians 1:1-14 Part 4 - The Gift of the Holy Spirit

Welcome to the fourth talk in our series on Ephesians.

We have been looking at the first 14 verses of chapter 1. So far we have seen that Paul is praising God for blessings in the heavenly realms (v3). These include:

The will of God 1-4-5-9-11 Election and Predestination 4-5-11 In Christ (10 references) The gift of the Holy Spirit 13-14, which is our theme for today.

Obviously this is a vast subject, so today we’ll concentrate specifically on what Paul is saying in Ephesians 1:13-14.

13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,

14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory.

Today there are four aspects of these verses which I would like to look at in more detail. They are:

When you believed Marked in him with a seal A deposit guaranteeing our inheritance The redemption of those who are God’s possession. When you believed

As I mentioned in an earlier talk, the Authorised Version (KJV) translates this as

after you believed.

It is not my intention in this talk to get into the technicalities of the use of aorist participles in the Greek language. It’s enough to say that either translation is perfectly acceptable from a grammatical point of view. However the issue of whether we receive the Spirit at or after conversion is very important. In the case of the Ephesians, it is very clear from Acts 19:1-6 that the Spirit came upon them after they had come to faith in Christ and been baptised in water. The same is true of the Samaritans in Acts 8.

Paul’s question to the Ephesians in Acts 19:2 “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” clearly implies that it is possible to have come to faith in Christ without having yet received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yet Paul is very clear in Romans 8:9 that if anyone does not have the Spirit they do not belong to Christ.

This is a big subject and I dealt with it in some detail in a  previous series of podcasts and in my book, The Holy Spirit - an Introduction. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it is as follows:

Every Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit from the moment of conversion, but not all have the empowering experience which Jesus describes as being baptised in the Spirit in Acts 1:4-8. In NT times Christian initiation comprised three elements:

Repentance and faith Baptism in water Baptism in, or receiving the gift of, the Holy Spirit.

In my view, what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 1:13-14 is C, though many would argue that he is referring to the Spirit’s work in regeneration which occurs at A. But that may be because some don’t believe in baptism in the Spirit as a separate work from conversion.

So, to decide which translation is more appropriate, we must now turn our attention to the significance of two closely related metaphors:

Marked in him with a seal A deposit guaranteeing our inheritance (pledge) Marked in him with a seal (sphragizo, sphragis)

Mankind has been using seals for thousands of years now and their use has changed relatively little.

To mark an object as the property of its owner.

Just as I might write my name in a book as evidence that it belongs to me, so a seal would provide evidence of ownership.

It may be this that Paul has in mind when he refers to Abraham’s circumcision as a seal in Romans 4:11. Abraham had been given the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith before he was circumcised. It was his faith, of course, not circumcision that made him right with God, but circumcision was the outward sign or seal that, because of his faith, he belonged to God.

Similarly, when we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, that is a sure sign that we belong to God. Like Abraham we belong to God because we have believed, and having believed (Ephesians 1:14) we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

So, is it the work of the Spirit at conversion or the baptism in the Spirit that seals the Christian and gives him the deposit which guarantees the things to come? In my view the natural way to read Ephesians 1:14 is to understand the sealing to follow the believing.  Furthermore, as Stanley Horton has pointed out, the seal did not cause ownership. It only recognised it. It’s possible to belong without being sealed, just as it’s possible to be engaged without having an engagement ring!

Of course born-again believers who have not been baptised in the Spirit will make it to heaven! But in my view they’re certainly missing a lovely foretaste of the miracle-powers of the age to come. And if Paul appears at times to suggest that all Christians enjoy these blessings, we need to remember that in New Testament times the baptism in the Spirit was an at/after conversion experience. All Christians did enjoy them then!

To give validity to a document

Degrees, diplomas and certificates usually carry the seal of the university or college awarding them as evidence that they are genuine, and seals are frequently used in legal documents for a similar purpose.

A biblical example of this is to be found in Jeremiah 32:10ff where the prophet, having bought a field for seventeen shekels of silver, signs and seals the deed of purchase and has it witnessed. Perhaps we can learn from this that being ‘sealed with the Holy Spirit’ we are not only marked out as belonging to God, but as, in some sense, having validity.  We are the genuine article, we really do belong to him.

As a mark of authority

This leads us to another important aspect of the use of seals. When I was a Bible College principal, I used the college seal to give validity to the diplomas we were awarding. But I had to be careful that I did not let the seal fall into the wrong hands, for whoever had that seal effectively had my authority. On the other hand, if I entrusted the seal to a loyal staff-member, by giving them the seal I delegated my authority to them.

This has, in fact, been a recognised use of seals for thousands of years. To hold the king’s seal was to possess his authority. When Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of the whole land of Egypt he gave him a seal in the form of a signet ring (Genesis 41:41-42). The seal meant that he had Pharaoh’s authority.

When Jesus gave the disciples the great commission he sent them out with his authority, but he told them not to go until they had first received the Holy Spirit. There is thus a sense in which the Spirit is the source not only of our power, but of our authority as we go out into the world to preach the gospel.

To keep the contents of a letter secret

Sometimes envelopes are sealed with wax so that the person who receives the letter knows that no-one else has read it since it left the sender. We know from Isaiah 29:11 that, even in Bible times, seals were used in a similar way:

If you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, ‘Read this please’, he will answer, ‘I can’t; it is sealed.’

So one purpose of a seal is to keep something secret - but not for ever! When someone seals a letter it is not their intention that the letter should never be opened. There is always a right time for the seal to be broken. It is then that the secret is revealed. More on this at the end of the next talk.