A Seal and a Pledge

One of Annette’s most treasured possessions is her engagement ring. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the same thing is true of many of you women here today who are married or have been married.

I wish I could tell you that there was a great romantic story about how I gave it to her. The simple fact is that I’m not very romantic, so I simply decided to ask her to marry me one night and then asked her. In fact, I think I woke her up to ask her.

I didn’t have a ring to give her at the time, and at that point in my life, I didn’t have the money to buy her something appropriate. We just figured we’d get married without the ring.

But when I told my mother that I had proposed and that Annette had said yes, Mom did something wonderful that helped seal the relationship between her and her future daughter-in-law.

She gave me her own engagement ring and said I should give that to Annette.

I remember giving that ring to Annette and seeing the stunned look on her face. She couldn’t believe Miss Lynn would be willing to part with this treasured memory of my parents’ 25-year marriage, which had ended a few years before when my father died.

She was touched by by Mom’s generosity and by the sentiment it carried. Mom was welcoming Annette into the family as a daughter. And I think the gesture meant more to Annette than any ring I might have bought at the mall jewelry store.

There are so many things I wish I could go back and do over in my life — so many of them that I wish I could go back and do the right way, instead of the wrong way I did them.

But one thing I think wouldn’t change would be that ring. Even if I could change all the wrong things I did as Annette and I launched our lives together, I think I would still give her my mother’s engagement ring.

I like the sense that I think she gets from it of connection, not just to me but to my family and my history.

But if I were able to go back and do it all over, I WOULD make the proposal something more romantic and memorable. And I’d give her the ring when I popped the question.

I’d do it differently, because I have a better understanding now of the the ring’s significance and symbolism.

And, as it turns out, this better understanding came about through Bible study.

Now, today, we are continuing our series “The Church — Revealed.” And as we continue, we are going to look at another aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work in the church.

As we do, we’re going to discover some interesting parallels to a part of the Spirit’s work in the Church and the significance of the engagement ring.

And we’re going to see that — just as the giving of an engagement ring brings some expectations from both parties — the giving of the Holy Spirit to the church also results in expectations, both of God, the giver, and the Church, the recipient.

You may recall that last week we spoke of the fact that the church is born of and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Next week, we’ll talk about how the church is indwelt by the Spirit, and the following week, we’ll talk about the Spirit’s work of sanctifying the church.

Much of what we’ll cover during these weeks will come out of the Book of Ephesians. One commentator estimates there are 59 references to the Holy Spirit in this letter. That works out to about a quarter of all the references to the Spirit in the New Testament.

This letter to the church at Ephesus, then, is a great place to spend time if you want to get a better understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit, both in your individual lives as followers of Christ and in the life of the church.

We’re going to look at just a couple of verses this week, verses 13 and 14 of chapter 1.

Following a brief introduction, the Apostle Paul launches in verse 3 of this chapter, into an extended doxology — a psalm of praise — to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit for their work in salvation.

God the Father had a plan to redeem sinners, to take we who were dead in our trespasses and forgive us for our sins, to give us new life, to bring us into His family as adopted sons and daughters, and to lavish upon us His grace.

And He accomplished this plan at the cross, where His sinless Son, Jesus, gave Himself as a sacrifice so that all who put their faith in Him and in the sufficiency of His sacrifice might be saved FROM eternal damnation and TO eternal life.

And the purpose of this work of Jesus, along with God’s gracious offer of eternal life to those who believe, is, according to verse 10, “the summing up of all things in Christ.”

In other words, God’s plan of salvation wasn’t ultimately designed simply to give sinners who were destined for Hell an opportunity to go to Heaven instead.

That’s one of the mistakes we often make when we talk about salvation. We make it all about US. And it’s certainly true that we benefit greatly from what Jesus did for us at the cross.

But there is something much greater going on here that we shouldn’t miss. God’s plan of salvation for fallen mankind was designed to bring all things together in Christ.

We who follow Jesus in faith are said in the Bible to now be IN Him. He is the beginning and the end of all things, and all things hold together in Him.

He is the one into whose image we Christians are being conformed. To the extent that we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, Jesus is the one we are being made to be like.

“In the fullness of times,” as Paul puts it in verse 10, the perfection and righteousness and holiness and grace of Jesus will be reflected throughout the new heavens and the new earth and in all who inhabit them.

Everything and everyone will be under His rule and authority, and all will worship Him as King of kings and Lord of lords. And this, as Paul puts it in verse 12, will be to the praise of God’s glory in Christ.

Your salvation and mine is to bring glory to Jesus, who bought us at the price of His own blood, and He paid that price to bring glory to His Father.

And so, having described the work of the Father and the Son in salvation, Paul turns in verse 13 to the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1:13–14 NASB95

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

Having heard the message of truth, the gospel of salvation, the good news of a savior whose death and resurrection provide a way for sinners who have rebelled against God to be reconciled to Him, many of you have chosen to put your faith in Jesus.

You have believed the gospel. You have trusted that He is who He said He is and that He will do what He said He will do.

You have repented from your sins. You have turned from trusting in yourself and in your own goodness. And you have placed your trust in Jesus and Him alone as your only hope to be saved from the just penalty for your sins.

And, having believed, Paul says in verse 13, you received the gift of the Holy Spirit, who now dwells within you. We who are followers of Christ, Paul says, are sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit.

At the time that Paul wrote this letter, a seal was part of a signet ring worn by someone in authority. It would be pressed into soft clay or some other substance, and the impression it left would be the seal of that person’s authority.

The seal might be affixed to a letter or official correspondence. It might be placed on a shipment of grain or some other commodity to show that it belonged to a certain person or that it had passed through their hands and they were responsible for it.

The seals of Roman emperors were found on coins and denoted that they were official currency of the Roman Empire. A Roman seal was placed on the tomb of Jesus.

In fact, seals during the first century indicated security, authentication and approval, genuineness, and ownership.

Just as the Roman guards placed a seal on Jesus’ tomb to show that it was secure, the Holy Spirit is given to us as a seal to help us know that we are secure in Christ.

Now the Roman seal was no match for the resurrection power that brought Jesus back to life on the third day after His crucifixion.

But the Holy Spirit of God is more than capable of securing our eternal future in Christ. The same Spirit who made Jesus come alive again will do so for each one of us who follows Him in faith.

And the Spirit is more than capable of securing His Church to the extent that not even the gates of Hades will overcome it.

Christ’s church will prevail, but not through Christian nationalism, not through political might, not through any righteousness of our own. Christ’s church will prevail, because it is sealed with the security of the Holy Spirit.

So, the Spirit is a seal of security for believers and for the church. He is also a seal of authentication and approval.

After Jesus had fed the 5,000 with the five barley loaves and two fish that a young boy had provided, He and His disciples had gone over the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum.

But the crowd followed them there the next morning, looking for Jesus.

The Apostle John records what Jesus had to say to them.

John 6:26–27 NASB95

Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”

God had set His seal on Jesus. He had filled Jesus with the Holy Spirit to show that Jesus was authentic and that He was ministering under God’s authority and approval.

In the same way, every true believer in Christ is sealed by the Holy Spirit to show that we are authentic followers of Jesus, that we are approved by God because of our position in Christ.

In one of his epistles, John wrote that the presence of the Holy Spirit within a person is evidence that the person is a Christian.

1 John 4:13 NASB95

By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

The same Spirit who authenticates believers also authenticates the church. And, as we talked about last week, a church operating without the Holy Spirit, or outside of the life-giving Holy Spirit, is a church that will not bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.

So, the Holy Spirit secures believers and the church. The Holy Spirit seals believers and the church as authentic and approved. And the Holy Spirit seals believers and the church as genuine.

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul put it this way:

Romans 8:14 NASB95

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Anybody can call himself a child of God. And, indeed, one of the favorite sayings of liberal “Christians” for whom so-called “tolerance” is the highest virtue is, “Hey, we’re all children of God.”

But is that what Paul tells us? No. Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the genuine children of God. And those CHURCHES that are led by the Spirit of God are the genuine churches.

Before we came to Liberty Spring Christian Church, my family and I visited a number of other churches in the area. We were looking for the right fit, but we were also looking for the churches that were being led by the Spirit of God.

We found a few churches where people were very spiritual, where they lifted up their hands and even seemed to be overtaken by the emotion of the music and the message. But we found only a few where they seemed to be led by the Spirit of God.

And how did we judge that? We looked for evidence that they loved God and their neighbors. And we looked for evidence that they hated sin.

The love part of that equation is vitally important, but so is the hatred part of it. How could it be otherwise, since one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to sanctify believers and the church — to purify them and make them holy to God.

Does a church tolerate open sin? If it does, then it’s grieving the Holy Spirit. Paul talks about that later in this letter to the Ephesians. He made a big deal about it in his first letter to the church in Corinth.

To be a GENUINE New Covenant community of the Spirit, we must walk in the Spirit, and that means we must continually — both as individuals and as the corporate church — be putting off the sinful passions and pleasures of this world.

If we don’t do that, we grieve the Holy Spirit. If we don’t do that, we offend and insult the Spirit of Holiness who abides within us.

So, the Holy Spirit seals us as secure in Christ. He authenticates and approves us as believers. His presence proves we are genuine children of God and a genuine church. And finally, His seal designates ownership, that we belong to God in Christ.

In the Book of Revelation, John records his vision of the end times, and when he gets to the fifth trumpet sounding from Heaven, he sees a bottomless pit opened up.

Smoke pours out from it, and out of the smoke comes a plague of locusts with stings like scorpions. They are sent to torment the people on earth who have rejected Jesus. But these locusts are given boundaries.

Revelation 9:4 NASB95

They were told not to hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

We know from Scripture, praise God, that there will be many during the Great Tribulation who come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, even if most who are on earth during that time curse God.

The locusts are part of God’s judgment on the people of earth for rejecting Him by rejecting His Son.

But the locusts will not harm those with the seal of God on their foreheads. They will not harm them, because those people belong to God. They are His children by virtue of having placed their faith in Jesus.

The same is true for us today. If you have been sealed with the Spirit through faith in Jesus, then you belong to God in Him. No one can snatch you out of the Father’s hand. You are His, and nothing can change that.

Likewise, the church that is sealed with the Spirit belongs to Jesus, who will offer it to His Father as a living sacrifice in Heaven. Nothing can change that; not even the gates of Hades can overpower it.

We might be persecuted. We might be hated. We might even lose freedom of religion. But none of those things can alter the fact that we are owned by God, that we belong to Him, that we have been promised as the Bride of Christ.

So, we are sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit.

And Paul refers to Him here as the Spirit of promise. This was the promise that Jesus made to His disciples, when He told them that He would send them a helper after He had ascended in His risen and glorified body back into Heaven.

But there are other promises connected to salvation, too. There is the promise of eternal life — life the way it was always meant to be in the presence of and in fellowship with God the Father and God the Son.

There is the promise for all believers of resurrection into our own glorified bodies.

There is the promise that we believers enter the Kingdom of Heaven not as servants but as adopted sons and daughters.

And there is the promise — the pledge, as Paul puts it in verse 14 — of an inheritance. We are joint heirs with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven.

And for all of these promises, the Holy Spirit is God’s pledge. Think of the Spirit as God’s down payment on the inheritance He promises those who follow Jesus in faith. In fact, down payment is one of the senses of this word in the Greek.

He is a down payment on the promised inheritance of eternal life. And He is a down payment, a first installment on the salvation that was begun in you when you first put your faith in Jesus and that will be complete when you receive your glorified body in heaven and have taken from you all desire and ability to sin.

The Holy Spirit is God’s promise to you that He will one day complete the work He began in you when you trusted in Jesus.

But what’s really neat about this word, “pledge,” is that during Paul’s time, it could also be used to describe an engagement ring.

An engagement ring was and is a pledge that one person will be faithful to another, that both are committed to forsaking all others — not just in marriage but also in the time leading up to it. It represents a promise to be bound together into a family.

An engagement ring is a token representing the sacrifices that each party will make to honor the other. The giver sacrifices the resources to buy the ring, and the receiver sacrifices the right to pursue other love interests.

And while it might not be true in the modern West, an engagement ring at the time Paul wrote this letter often represented a contractual arrangement between the man and the woman. Both parties accepted certain obligations arising from the giving of this ring.

Since we, the church, are pledged to become the Bride of Christ, I think it is wonderfully appropriate that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us as a pledge, an engagement ring.

As we “wear” this ring, we remember God’s promise that we are now part of His family, sons and daughters individually, and pledged corporately as Jesus’ bride.

As we “wear” this ring, we are reminded of our own promise to be faithful to Jesus, forsaking all others so we can be true to Him.

This means very much the same thing for us as individual Christians and as the church.

It means making His values our own. It means seeking His kingdom and His righteousness first. It means setting aside every other person, every other material pursuit, and every other ideology that we might have faith in so that our faith can be in Him and Him alone.

As we “wear” this ring of the Holy Spirit, we remember what Jesus had to sacrifice in order for us to have it. And in the remembering, we are reminded of how small our sacrifices are in comparison.

As we “wear” this ring, we are reminded of the obligations that came with it. We are reminded that God said, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” We are reminded that Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep My commandments.”

We are reminded that following Jesus means having the same values He has, loving the people He loves in the same sacrificial manner that He loves US, and showing the same grace and mercy that He showed us.

And there’s at least one more thing about wearing this ring of the Holy Spirit.

Have you ever noticed that a woman wearing an engagement ring never misses a chance to show it to her friends? “Have you seen my ring? Look at the engagement ring my fiancé gave me!”

Each of us who follows Jesus in faith — and every church that is truly sealed by the Spirit — should do likewise.

Our engagement ring — the Holy Spirit — should sparkle and shine for all the world to see. And when they ask about it, we need to be just as ready as that expectant bride to tell them all about the God-Man who gave it to us.

“Oh, He’s so wonderful! Let me tell you all about Him.”

We are sealed with the Spirit, who has been given to us as a pledge, as a down payment, as a promise, and as a sort of engagement ring.

Let us all be as eager to proclaim the love of Him who gave us His Spirit as the woman who received her engagement ring just yesterday.