The Sealing of the Holy Ghost
‘‘After that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,” Eph. i:13.
use of a seal in human business contracts
and legal transactions is as old as human
society.
The first thing suggested by a seal is Reality. The seal leaves a definite, visible and tangible mark that no one can mistake. So the Holy Spirit makes Christian experience actual, real and conscious. That which we have taken by simple faith now becomes a matter of living experience. This is what was meant when the Apostle John said, “The law was given by Moses, but grace and reality came by Jesus Christ.’’ The law was only a “shadow of good things to come,” a promise and a type of things that had not yet materialized. Jesus Christ brings to us, by the Holy Spirit, “the very substance” of those things. When the sinner believes in the Lord Jesus Christ his first step is to take by simple faith the promise of forgiveness and full salvation, and then to reckon upon God’s Word* and “count the things that are not as though they were.” But, after faith is tested and proved, the Holy Spirit brings to the heart the conscious witness of all that we have believed for, and sheds abroad the peace, love and joy of the Lord in our happy hearts, and we can say now, ‘T know Him whom I have believed,” So, in all other experiences of faith, there is the twofold stage, first of believing and reckoning, and then of realizing and knowing.
The Scriptures themselves speak of two seals in this connection. First, there is our seal which faith places upon God’s promise when it takes Him at His Word and counts Him true. ‘‘He that hath believed on Him hath set his seal that God is true.” When we really believe God we commit ourselves to His Word as completely as when the notary puts his stamp upon a business contract. But now having set our seal to the promise, God comes and adds His seal upon ours. “After that ye believed ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.” God makes real to our spiritual senses that which we accepted, without feeling, in naked faith, and now we know as well as believe. Hence the Apostle John declares, “He that believeth on Him hath the witness in himself.” We have no right to look for the witness or for any inward sense of divine acceptance until after we have first believed without it, and then God will surely give it.
It is all right, therefore, to tell people not to wait for feeling, but simply to take God at His Word. But there is a limit to this. After we have taken God at His Word there is a place for feeling, experience and all the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace and a long catalogue of other spiritual experiences. Beloved friend, have you set your seal to God’s Word, first for your salvation and then for every other blessing that you have a right to claim for spirit, soul and body? And have you also claimed and obtained the Holy Spirit’s sealing and realizing touch, so that you can say with the apostle, ‘’We have believed and come to know that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God”? “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ.”
The second meaning of a seal is Security, Certainty and the guarantee of all contained in the paper sealed. The seal accredits the document and gives assurance that all the contracts will be fulfilled. And so the Holy Spirit as God’s Seal gives to the heart full assurance of faith and the absolute certainty that we shall inherit all His covenant promises. There is undoubtedly a place into which the believer may come where doubt and fear have forever passed away and the spirit rests upon the “strong oonsolation’’ not only of God’s promise, but of God’s oath, as ‘’an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and that entereth into that within the veil.” Henceforth its attitude is, “I know Him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” This blessed experience is the result of full committal, entire consecration and, in consequence, the sealing of the Holy Ghost. Speaking of such an experience the Apostle Peter says, “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if ye do these things ye shall never fall, for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Once more, the seal implies Resemblance. It transmits its own image to the sensitive wax or the written page. It leaves a copy of its own face upon the object sealed. And so the Holy Spirit when He seals us not only makes the Lord Jesus real to our consciousness, but also the pattern and the very substance of our Christian character. He so unites us with Him that henceforth Jesus Himself lives in us, conforming us to His holy image and transforming and transfiguring us “into the same image from glory to glory even as by the glory of the Lord.”