We should all deeply appreciate the theme of this year’s conference: “Power from on High: The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit”. No less a Reformed luminary and champion of orthodoxy than Professor John Murray stated:

This is the era of the Holy Spirit. I must bring this indictment against the church that we have dishonored the Holy Spirit by failing to lay hold of the plenitude of grace and resource which he imparts.¹

Sometimes this neglect of what is truly the sine qua non of effective Gospel ministry comes from a backwardness about drawing attention to the one whose ministry has been likened to a spotlight that does not draw attention to itself, but rather illumines an object to be seen by others. “When the Spirit of truth comes … he will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13f)², said the Lord Jesus of the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet we must not, in any sense, understand this to mean that we should avoid dealing distinctively with the Holy Spirit and his work:

…to draw the conclusion from this that we should not focus our attention on the Spirit at all, or grow in personal knowledge of him is a mistake. The fact that within the economy of the divine activity he does not draw attention to himself but to the Son and the Father is actually a reason for us to seek to know him better, to experience communion with him more intimately, not the reverse. He is to be glorified together with the Father and the Son.³

In our responses to the so-called charismatic movement (although, a proper understanding of the theology of the New Testament should prompt us to re-claim this phrase by boldly stating that our Lord’s entire work in this age is the true charismatic movement)⁴, we seriously err if we do not emphasize the person and work of the Holy Spirit; rather, we should boldly and heartily give the robust biblical and theological development of that theme, particularly since we do, indeed,  live in “the era of the Holy Spirit.” Doctrinal and practical errors have rightly been called “the unpaid bills of the Church.” Our response to the errors of Arminianism must be a full presentation of the biblical teaching regarding human responsibility as well as the biblical teaching on divine sovereignty. Our response to the errors of charismatic excesses in worship must be a full presentation and outworking of the regulation and animation of worship by the Word and Spirit of God.  Similarly, our response to the errors of Pentecostalism must be a full presentation of what the Scriptures teach regarding the person and work of the Holy Spirit, together with the immense practical outworking of that teaching. Even if the Reformed community has made strides in the former, we still lack much in the latter. I trust that this conference and this paper will contribute positively in both areas.

The topic assigned to me is “The Witness and Seal of the Spirit”, although (for reasons that will soon become obvious), I prefer to entitle this “The Sealing and Witnessing Work of the Spirit.”  While the language of “seal” or “sealing” and “witness” or its verbal equivalents are used dozens of times in the New Testament, the passages most relevant to this presentation are as follows:⁵

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.Romans 8:16

And the one who establishes us with you into Christ, and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts.2 Corinthians 1:21f

In whom, i.e. in Christ, also, you, having heard the word of truth — the Gospel of your salvation — in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit , who is the down payment of our inheritance unto the redemption of the (purchased) possession, unto the praise of his glory.Ephesians 1:13f

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption.Ephesians 4:30

As one might expect, these vivid and dynamic descriptions of the Holy Spirit’s work in the believer have been developed in intriguing ways throughout the history of the Christian Church.

By the second century, the “sealing” of the Spirit began to be identified with baptism and/or the laying on of hands that often accompanied baptismal ceremonies. Building on the pattern of the Hellenistic world⁶, in which seals, i.e. the production of a stamp or seal on a suitable object by means of an instrument, usually a signet or ring, marked ownership and served as proofs of identity, or as guarantees against violence⁷, baptism would naturally be understood as a sign that the baptized one is owned by the triune God, was identified with him, and would, from that point, be protected by God himself. Also, because seals (which often bore the images of gods)⁸ had public and private functions used to express royal authorization⁹, baptism as a seal would indicate that the baptized one had publicly and officially become part of a new kingdom. Later, this linkage of the Hellenistic concept of sealing would be wed to the teaching that baptism, like Old Covenant circumcision, is a seal, Gen. 17:11, cf. Rom. 4:11.¹⁰ This view of baptism as the meaning of the seal or sealing work of the Spirit predominated through the Middle Ages. It has its modern defenders and proponents in the work of the Anglican G. W. H. Lampe¹¹ and, more recently in G. R. Beasley-Murray’s classic study Baptism in the New Testament.¹²

At the time of the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin re-gained the biblical emphasis on faith in connection with the sealing work of the Holy Spirit, cf. Eph. 1:13f., and focused on the various aspects of the believer’s personal assurance and the genuineness of his faith as the meaning of the Spirit’s work in sealing the believer:

Seals give validity both to charters and to testaments; anciently they were the principal means by which the writer of a letter could be known; and, in short, a seal distinguishes what is true and certain, from what is false and spurious … The true conviction which believers have of the word of God, of their own salvation, and of religion in general, does not spring from the judgment of the flesh, or from human and philosophical arguments, but from the sealing of the Spirit, who imparts to their consciences such certainty as to remove all doubt.¹³

Calvin rightly noted that the Holy Spirit himself, not baptism or the laying on of hands, is the seal of the Spirit,¹⁴ and regards the “confirming”, “anointing”, and “sealing” as presented in 2 Corinthians 1:21f as, essentially, synonyms for the work of the Spirit in “(sealing) upon our hearts the certainty of his own word.”¹⁵ This is, likewise, the emphasis in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion;¹⁶ although it is significant that Calvin (in referring to Ephesians 1:13f. among other texts) also observes that the Spirit’s sealing work is connected with our actual hope and proleptic enjoyment of eternity; “Surely the gospel does not confine men’s hearts to delight in the present life, but lifts them to the hope of immortality. It does not fasten them to earthly pleasures, but by announcing a hope that rests in heaven it, so to speak, transports them hither.”¹⁷ Here Calvin anticipates what will later be developed more fully by Vos, Ridderbos, and others (see below). It is likewise significant that, unlike what became the established teaching of the early and medieval church, nowhere does Calvin link the sealing work of the Spirit with baptism. For Calvin, as for Paul, the Holy Spirit anoints, seals, and bears witness in the souls of believers in Jesus Christ.

We would expect that during the Puritan period, with its emphasis especially on the internal aspects and outworking of true faith (often called “experimental Calvinism), attention would be given to the various terms for the Holy Spirit’s work in believers. This was certainly the case with the attention given to the sealing work of the Holy Spirit. John Flavel (1628-1691)¹⁸ continues Calvin’s emphasis on assurance as of the essence of both the sealing and witnessing work of the Holy Spirit in Christians; yet Flavel (with other Puritan writers) shifts the emphasis from the Spirit himself as the seal to the supposed effects of that sealing. He also introduces distinctions in the sealing work of the Spirit:

There is an objective seal, which distinguishes the person; and a formal seal, which clears and ratifies his interest in Christ and salvation; the first he doth is sanctifying us, and the second in assuring us.¹⁹

One may possess the “objective seal,” but “may not be formally sealed, i.e. his sanctification may be very doubtful to himself, and he may labor under great fears about it.”²⁰ For Flavel, there are various “seasons” of the Spirit’s sealing work in a genuine Christian, and there are also various “ways and manners of sealing”²¹ Flavel presents “the genuine and proper effects and fruits of sealing” as “1. Inflamed love (i.e. toward God, WS). 2. Renewed care and diligence. 3. Deep abasements. 4. Increase of strength. 5. A desire to be with the Lord. 6. Improved mortification to the world.”²² In so doing, he establishes a pattern that would later be followed by others.  In that pattern the sealing work of the Spirit becomes something of a title for what, practically speaking, becomes an aspect of almost the entire work of sanctification in a believer.²³ In true Puritan fashion, Flavel also gives various directions, i.e. to those who have not yet been sealed, to those who had been sealed but had lost the comfort of that work, and to those who presently enjoy the comforts of it.²⁴ Clearly this is a departure from the assumption that all believers are recipients of the sealing work of the Holy Spirit. This approach to the subject may well have been because of the influence of the translation of the Authorized Version (1611) in which Ephesians 1:13 is infelicitously translated “…in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (emphasis mine). For whatever reason, this pattern of interpretation was also followed by Richard Baxter (1615-1691),²⁵ Thomas Brooks (1608-1680),²⁶ and Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), who gave the subject its fullest development from a Puritan perspective.²⁷ Later disciples of Sibbes such as John Cotton (1584-1652), John Preston (1587-1628), and Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680) also saw the sealing of the Spirit as a “superadded work” that may or may not be experienced by each believer.²⁸  

It is of great interest that the Puritan John Owen (1616-1683) gradually grew to reject this approach which was taken by his fellow Puritans. While, in 1657, he wrote: “I am not very clear in the certain particular intendment of this metaphor” (i.e. the seal of the Spirit),²⁹ he follows the historic train of previous Reformed interpretation in understanding the nature of the sealing as “imparting of the image or character of the seal to the thing sealed … The Spirit in believers really communicating the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, unto the soul, sealeth us.”³⁰ While fully granting (with Calvin) that the end of the sealing work includes “assuring our hearts of (the promises of God) and their stability,”³¹ Owen also notes that it is not the promise that is sealed to believers, but that believers themselves are sealed.³² “Then are believers sealed, when they are marked for God to be heirs of the promised inheritance, and to be preserved to the day of redemption.”³³

If you ask, now, ‘Which of these senses is chiefly intended in this expression of our being sealed by the Holy Ghost?’ I answer, the first, not excluding the other. We are sealed to the day of redemption when, from the stamp, image, and character of the Spirit upon our souls, we have a fresh sense of the love of God given to us, with a comfortable persuasion of our acceptance with him.³⁴

However, by the end of his life, Owen had come to clearer and firmer views of the meaning of the sealing of the Holy Spirit.  Included in his posthumously published “Two Discourses Concerning the Holy Spirit and His Work” (1693),³⁵ Owen devotes an entire chapter³⁶ to “The Spirit: A Seal, and How”. In commenting specifically on 2 Corinthians 1:21f, Ephesians 1:13, and Ephesians 4:30, Owen affirms (over against most of his contemporaries) that the Spirit himself is the seal, “and not any of his especial operations, as he is also directly said himself to be the ‘earnest of our inheritance’ … Wherefore, no especial act of the Spirit, but only an especial effect of his communication unto us, seems to be intended hereby.”³⁷

Determinative for the thinking of this later Owen, (and similar to Sibbes’ treatment of the subject as part of his treatise The Fruitful Labour for Eternal Food,³⁸ published over a half-century before Owen’s work) is his observation that the sealing work of the Spirit in Jesus Christ the mediator, cf John 6:27, is the pattern and source for the sealing work done in those in union with Jesus Christ by faith.

All our spiritual privileges, as they are immediately communicated unto us by Christ, so they consist wholly in a participation of that head, spring, and fullness of them which is in him; and as they proceed from our union with him, so their principal end is conformity unto him. And in him, in whom all things are conspicuous, we may learn the nature of those things which, in lesser measure and much darkness in ourselves, we are made partakers of. So do we learn our unction in his.³⁹           

After giving a number of qualifying remarks, Owen draws this conclusion regarding the actual meaning of sealing work of the Holy Spirit in the great original, Jesus Christ:

…this sealing of the Son is the communication of the Holy Spirit in all fullness  unto him, authorizing him unto and acting his divine power in, all the acts and duties of his office, so as to evidence the presence of God with him, and his approbation of him, as the only person that was to distribute the spiritual food of their souls unto men: for the Holy Spirit, by his powerful operations in him and by him, did evince and manifest that he was called and appointed of God to this work, owned by him, and accepted with him; which was God’s sealing of him.⁴⁰

With this pattern in view, Owen draws inferences regarding the meaning of the sealing work of the Spirit in those in union with Christ by faith.  While agreeing with his Puritan predecessors and contemporaries that “our conformity unto (Christ) is the design of all gracious communications unto us,”⁴¹ he puts in the forefront that this work is necessarily connected with every aspect of new creation, cf. 2 Cor. 5:17. The Spirit, as the one who seals, “fits (believers) for their (new) relations, to enable them unto their duties, to act their new principles, and every way to discharge the work they are called unto, even as their head, the Lord Jesus was unto his … Hereby he gives his testimony unto them that they are his, owned by him, accepted with him, his sons or children.”⁴² Thus Owen links both the sealing and witnessing work in the believer, and brings them both clearly under the specific category of assurance, rather than under the general rubric of sanctification. At the same time, the sealing work of the Spirit necessarily produces, from the believer, a testimony to the world that the sealed one is truly owned by God and marked with the stamp of the world to come.

Sinclair Ferguson rightly notes the significance of the later Owen’s development of the subject of the sealing of the Spirit: “What Owen has done, it is now clear, is to remove the suggestion of any theology of subsequence from his doctrine of the Christian life, without destroying the element of progression and development in the experience of God.”⁴³ We should add that Owen also rightly connects the doctrine to union with Christ, and also introduces (as did particularly Calvin and Sibbes before him) what we might call a proto-eschatological emphasis that would anticipate developments in 20^th century New Testament theology.

Before exploring those more recent theological developments and their implications for the understanding of the sealing and witnessing work of the Holy Spirit, it is necessary to address what can only be regarded as an unfortunate set-back within the Reformed community as it sought both to respond to the rise of Pentecostalism and, at the same time, provide positive, biblically formed views of the subject of the Holy Spirit and the various aspects of his work.⁴⁴

In 1978, the fifth release in Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ series of expositions on the book of Ephesians was published in the United Kingdom. A year later it was reprinted and released in the United States.⁴⁵ In that volume, “The Doctor” devoted five chapters to Ephesians 1:13, successively dealing with the meaning of being sealed with the Spirit, the nature of that sealing (two chapters), true and counterfeit experiences, and “problems and difficulties concerning the sealing.”⁴⁶ It is hardly an oversimplification to say that Lloyd-Jones’ development of the subject was, in most respects, like common Pentecostal views. “I am suggesting therefore that the ‘baptism with the Spirit’ is the same as the ‘sealing with the Spirit.’”⁴⁷

Aligning himself with many of the previously cited Puritan writers (and very questionably including Charles Hodge in this number), and marshalling the Authorized Version’s translation of Ephesians 1:13 into his cause, Lloyd-Jones revived the view that the sealing work of the Spirit may come (or usually does comes) as a subsequent experience following one’s faith in Christ. “I assert that this ‘sealing with the Spirit’ is something subsequent to believing, something additional to believing.”⁴⁸ Using examples from John and Acts, he labors to show that faith and the distinctive New Covenant expressions of the work of the Holy Spirit are frequently separated in the experience of Christians. He further uses Old Testament examples, as well as examples of the extraordinary experiences of Christians in the past in order to illustrate his understanding of the sealing work of the Spirit. Strikingly, in only one of those examples does the writer used by Lloyd-Jones as an illustration personally equate his experience with the Holy Spirit’s sealing work. 

Clearly, Lloyd-Jones imports into the sealing work of the Spirit his own conceptions of elevated Christian experience. While rightly re-affirming the standard elements of authentication, ownership, and security,⁴⁹ as inherent in the concept of sealing, and while also rightly distinguishing the sealing work from regeneration, sanctification, and other aspects of the Spirit’s distinctive works, Lloyd-Jones nevertheless concludes that the sealing of the Spirit is a “direct, immediate, overwhelming experience and testimony by the Spirit.”⁵⁰ It brings “the immediate, direct, blessed assurance that we are the children of God, ‘heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.’”⁵¹ Lloyd-Jones, again in line with Pentecostalism, hints that the sealing work brings something beyond what a believer receives from the inscripturated Word of God: “

Without the sealing of the Spirit you can know that your sins are forgiven; but not in this special and certain manner (emphasis mine). ⁵²

Also in line with Pentecostal calls to “seek” subsequent experiences of the Spirit’s work, Lloyd-Jones urges believers to seek the sealing work of the Spirit: “Are we to seek this sealing? My answer, without any hesitation, is that we should most certainly do so ...You must go on asking for it until you have it, until you know that you have it.”⁵³ While “The Doctor” can find precedent for this in some of the Puritan applicatory sections treating this doctrine, one cannot find precedent for it in Scripture.

While Lloyd-Jones’ essentially Pentecostal approach to the subject captivated some and confused others, it met with effective rebuttals by many.⁵⁴ It is sufficient at this point to note that, for whatever reasons, Lloyd-Jones’ interpretation of texts like Ephesians 1:13 was uninformed by any understanding of the unique redemptive-historical significance of the Gospels and Pentecost. For Lloyd-Jones, all references to the Spirit were channeled through personal Christian experience, not through Christ and the believer’s union with him by faith. Likewise, even the proto-eschatological emphasis of Owen (and, to a lesser extent, others of his contemporaries) was replaced with a passion for present experiences of the Spirit. This led Lloyd-Jones to a mysticism that outstripped even the Puritans whom he claimed as the ancestry for his views.

On a much brighter note, the development of conservative biblical theology in the 20^th century brought many helpful advances in understanding the work of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost. With the seminal yet magisterial works of Geerhardus Vos⁵⁵ and Herman Ridderbos,⁵⁶ many theological concepts that may have been implicit in the best of the Reformed and Puritan tradition of exegesis became clearer and stood out in sharper focus when soteriological categories were understood against the backdrop of New Testament eschatology. In short, the “not yet” of the eternal Kingdom to be ushered in at the return of Christ has “already” entered history with the coming of the Messiah, his defeat of the powers of sin, the world, and Satan by the cross, his ushering in of a new mode of existence in his resurrection from the dead, and his kingly work of bringing that work into history with the application of redemption by the Holy Spirit. 

Here, the bud of Owen’s introduction of new creation motifs as he treats the effects of the sealing work of the Spirit⁵⁷ flower with Vos and Ridderbos, among others:

We … turn to another train of thought, which clearly starts from the eschatological end of the line, and from that looks backwards into the present life. This is the case in 2 Cor.1:22; 5;5; Eph. 1:14 … The ‘earnest’ consists in the Spirit … Now the Spirit possesses this significance of ‘pledge’ for no other reason than that He constitute a provisional installment of what in its fullness will be received hereafter … (The) Spirit is viewed as pertaining specifically to the future life, nay as constituting the substantial make-up of this life, and the present possession of the Spirit is regarded in the light of an anticipation. The Spirit’s proper sphere is the future aeon; from thence He projects Himself into the present, and becomes a prophecy of Himself in His eschatological operations.⁵⁸

…the Spirit is not only the author of the resurrection-act, but likewise the permanent substratum of the resurrection-life, to which He supplies the inner, basic element and the outer atmosphere.⁵⁹

Flesh (body) and Spirit do not stand over against one another … as two “parts” in the human existence or in the existence of Christ … “flesh” and “Spirit” represent two modes of existence … The contrast is therefore of a redemptive-historical nature: it qualifies the world and the mode of existence before Christ as flesh, that is, as the creaturely in its weakness; on the other hand, the dispensation that has taken effect with Christ as that of the Spirit, i.e. of power, imperishableness and glory (1 Cor. 15:42, 43, 50; Phil 3:21)…⁶⁰

…in the Old Testament thinking and speaking about the Spirit … the Spirit appears in the closest relationship with the acting of God in history. The Spirit represents the creating and re-creating power of God that governs the world and history and conducts them to their final goal.  He is the Creator and Precursor of the great future…⁶¹

It is this cosmic and aeonic eschatological emphasis that opens up not only the language of sealing, but also those terms which consistently accompany it in the New Testament.  This, in turn, provides a window to understand these concepts; a window that delivers our understanding from the realm of the purely experiential, and brings it into a realm of experience actually suggested by the terms themselves as they are defined redemptive-historically. In this age, believers are, by the Spirit, stamped with the mark of eternity as a down payment of its fullness in the New Heavens and the New Earth; and that eternity, for the believer, is nothing less than an eternity lived in a body totally transformed by the Spirit into the glorious image of Christ, cf. 1 Cor. 15:42-49, 2 Cor. 3:17f…

(Paul) constantly emphasizes that this dispensation of the Spirit is the dispensation of the Interim. One can even say that in Paul more than occurs anywhere else, the accent is placed on this provisional character. This is surely the significance of the expression so typical of him, that the Spirit is “the first gift” (Rom. 8:23), “the earnest” of that which God is yet to give (2 Cor. 1:22, 5:5), indeed “the earnest of the inheritance” (Eph. 1:14), by whom believers are sealed unto the final redemption (2 Cor. 1:22, Eph. 1:13, 4:30), and who awakens and keeps alive in them the believing longing and watching for the full revelation of the children of God (Rom. 8:16, 23, 26).⁶²

With this rich background of the history of interpretation before us (and it is good to be reminded that no responsible biblical interpretation ever occurs in an historical vacuum), we can now draw some exegetical and theological conclusions regarding the New Testament data on the sealing and witnessing work of the Holy Spirit. We will find that the schools of interpretation which addressed these concepts are not, in each case, mutually exclusive. One helps to inform and refine the other.

1. It is not water baptism or the laying on of hands that is the sealing work of the Spirit, but the Spirit himself is the seal and does the sealing work. “You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit…” (Eph. 1:13). “…the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). The Spirit himself is the content of the Old Testament promise, cf. Acts 2:33, Gal. 3:14, and he is likewise that promised Spirit by which believers are sealed. “The usage of the New Testament … implies that it is the Spirit himself who is the seal of the believer, just as the sealing of Christ (Jn. 6:27) is best understood not as his water baptism as such, but as the coming on him of the Spirit at this baptism.”⁶³ There is, in fact, no reference to baptism in 2 Corinthians 1:22, or Ephesians 1:13, or 4:30.  While, to be sure, water baptism is a seal, and particularly a seal of the Spirit’s work in baptizing us into one body (1 Cor. 12:13); and while it is also true that “there is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified: whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other,”⁶⁴ it is incorrect to confuse water baptism with the Spirit in his sealing work:
   
   "What is characterized here is not baptism in the first place, but the gift of the Spirit.  The point of departure for the term “sealing” does not lie therefore in sacramental appropriation or “stamping” in behalf of Christ (because the one baptized is transferred to his name), but in the evidence that the gift of the Spirit itself produces in him who receives it. The latter is thereby furnished with the seal that he belongs to God, just as the gift of the Spirit may be accounted the first fruits and earnest of the inheritance."⁶⁵
    
2. While, as a general meaning, the sealing of the Spirit should be understood as an impress of the Spirit on the soul of the believer, the oft repeated specific aspects of “sealing”, both in Scripture and in the surrounding cultures, all certainly apply to the sealing work of the Holy Spirit.  These are well stated by Charles Hodge:
   
   "A seal is used, 1. To indicate proprietorship (i.e. ownership, WS). 2. To authenticate or prove to be genuine. 3. To preserve safe or inviolate. The Holy Spirit, which in one view is unction, in another view is a seal.  He marks them in whom he dwells as belonging to God. They bear the seal of God upon them, cf. Rev. 7:2, 2:19 … He also bears witness in the hearts of believers that they are the children of God. He authenticates them to themselves and others as genuine believers. And he effectually secures them from apostasy and perdition, cf. Eph. 1:3, 4:30 … The indwelling of the Spirit, therefore renders the believer secure and steadfast; it is his anointing; it is the seal of God impressed upon the soul, and therefore the pledge of redemption."⁶⁶
   
   At the same time, these aspects of sealing should be more fully informed by the terms which are closely linked with the sealing of the Spirit. The Spirit who seals is the Spirit who is also a down payment (Gk: arrabwn), cf. 2 Cor. 1:22, Eph. 1:14 of our eternal redemption. To be “sealed with the Holy Spirit” and to be given the Spirit as a “down payment of our eternal inheritance” are explanatory of one another.⁶⁷ All commentators rightly note that the down payment (or “earnest”) is both a pledge that the eternal inheritance will be given, and the first installment of the inheritance itself.
   
   "In giving (the Spirit) to us God is not simply promising us our final inheritance, but actually providing us with a foretaste of it, even if it “is only a small fraction of the future endowment” … Because of the ministry of the Spirit to their hearts and lives, they can begin to enjoy this everlasting possession now. The Spirit received is the first installment and guarantee of the inheritance in the age to come that awaits God’s sons and daughters.”⁶⁸
   
   This “realized eschatological” thrust of the term so closely related to the Holy Spirit in his sealing work, should inform our understanding of what it is to be sealed as believers. We are owned by the God who shall be our God for all eternity. The genuineness of that redemption is shown by its truly heavenly character. “The men of grace have found glory begun below.”⁶⁹ We are preserved safe (which is the emphasis of the several references to “the sealed” in the book of Revelation) precisely because our everlasting possession is secure in Christ by virtue of the covenant of grace and his completed and ongoing work in that covenant. The eschatological cast in these passages only serves to heighten the profound concept of God’s sealing his people.
    
3. Responsible exegesis will not permit the view that the sealing work of the Spirit is, in any sense, subsequent to the act of believing in Christ. The act of believing that brings union with Jesus Christ brings every benefit of Christ with it, including the sealing work of the Holy Spirit. The aorist participles in Ephesians 1:13, i.e. akousantes; pisteuantes may denote actions that precede the action of the main verb, i.e. the aorist passive indicative form of sfragizw, but they may also indicate coincident or following action. In fact, Greek tenses do not primarily indicate the time of an action, i.e. past, present, or future, so much as they indicate the state of an action, i.e complete, incomplete, or indefinite. Donald Macleod, in challenging the views of Martyn Lloyd-Jones regarding the sealing work of the Spirit as subsequent to the act of believing, makes these important observations:
   
   "The unwisdom of deducing from the aorist participle in Ephesians 1:13 that there is a clear interval between believing and being sealed is well illustrated in a very familiar clause from the gospels: “Jesus answered and said (apokriqeis eipen).” Apokriqeis is an aorist participle exactly similar to pisteuantes (believing) in Eph. 1:13. Yet it would be absurd to say that the Lord’s saying was subsequent to the Lord’s answering; and even more absurd to hold that it was possible to have answered without having said. In fact, the relation between believing and being sealed is exactly the same as that between believing and being justified. Faith is logically prior to justification, but this does not mean there is an interval between them or that it is possible to be a believer and yet not be justified. Similarly, faith comes before sealing, but this does not necessitate any interval between them."⁷⁰
   
   Indeed, other texts show conclusively that the each believer not only possesses the Spirit, but also all of the blessings that flow from him. The very nature of the Christian life is to live in, with, and by the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer. “…hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”, i.e. without exception (Rom. 5:5). “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom. 8:9). The apostle Paul, in the immediate context of Ephesians 1:13, notes that all the saints have “every spiritual blessing (i.e. blessing that comes from and by the Holy Spirit, WS) in the heavenly places” in Christ (Eph. 1:3). Further, when Paul states in Ephesians 4:30: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”, there is no indication that this sealing work applies to only some. Indeed, the universality of the command assumes the universality of the gift in view. 
   
   No less an authority than Gordon Fee, who has affinities with certain aspects of charismatic theology, definitively disputes any notion of subsequence in the relationship of the sealing of the Spirit and believing:
   
   "That the aorist participle intends something antecedent to the main verb need not be doubted … but the two verbs have nothing to do with separate and distinct experiences of faith. Rather, the one (“having believed in Christ”) logically precedes the other (“you were sealed”); but from Paul’s perspective these are two sides of the same coin, thus “antecedent circumstance.” There is simply nothing in the context, or anything inherent in this bit of grammar, that would cause one to think that Paul intends to refer here to two distinct experiences. The argument, in fact, has to do with the reality that these Gentiles in becoming believers in Christ also received the promised Holy Spirit, thus indicating that they too are God’s own possession. Arguments about individual Christian experience are therefore beside Paul’s point (emphasis mine)."⁷¹
   
   At the same time, we must grant that there will be greater or lesser senses of what the sealing work of the Spirit means as a gift of grace to the believer. Just as, in the ongoing work of progressive sanctification, the Christian grows to understand and appreciate more each aspect of his or her redemption in Christ, so that will be true with understanding and appreciating the sealing work of the Holy Spirit as what Charles Hodge calls “a most precious gift, to be most religiously cherished.”⁷²
    
4. Because the sealing of the Spirit is an aspect of the believer’s union with Christ, it is quite proper (with Sibbes and Owen in particular)⁷³ to consider Christ’s sealing with the Spirit, John 6:27, as the great original from which the believer’s seal derives its meaning. While the import of Christ’s affirmation, “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal” is somewhat cryptic, at least our Lord is referring to a seal which authenticates his messianic work as the promised Son of Man, cf. Dan. 7:13. While this may refer to Jesus’ baptism, the aorist tense does not mandate that a specific event in which God the Father set his seal on Christ be in view.⁷⁴
   
   Regardless of how one understands the time or way in which the Father set his seal on the Son, it is highly significant that both the use of “Son of Man” and the context of the messianic work of giving the things, i.e. food, pertaining to eternal life are richly eschatological in nature. In John’s gospel, “Son of Man” is “increasingly laden … with associations of revelation brought from heaven to earth”⁷⁵, cf. Jn. 1:51, 3:13, 5:27. In the ultimate “sealed one”, the impress of everything pertaining to the glory of heaven and of the age to come, manifests itself. The Holy Spirit not only descended from heaven, but he remained upon Christ following his baptism, Jn. 1:32. He is the beloved Son who is uniquely claimed by the Father, and authenticated as the one to be heard, cf. Matt. 3:17, 17:5; Mk. 1:11, 9:7; Lk. 3:21f, 9:35. As the great prototype for believers, this sealing work in Christ undergirded his self-offering (Heb. 9:14), preserved him through death, secured his resurrection (Rom. 8:11), and, from the time of Christ’s resurrection, is now bound up with the exalted Son of God’s power as the last Adam, the messianic man from heaven, cf. Rom. 1:4, 1 Cor. 15:45, 47. All of this must inform our understanding of the weightiness of the sealing work of the Spirit done by the exalted Christ in those in union with him by faith.
    
5. It is incorrect to say that believers must “seek” the sealing work of the Spirit; but it is basic to the theology of the New Testament that believers should live out of that sealing work as an aspect of their union with Christ, the pre-eminent sealed one. Just as Christians live out of and enjoy the practical implications of their justification, e.g. Rom. 5:1ff, adoption, e.g. Rom. 8:12ff, and union with Christ in his death and resurrection, e.g. Rom. 6:1ff, so Christians are meant to live out of and enjoy the down payment of the Holy Spirit as that which seals us. Precisely because every aspect of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer is connected with this sealing down payment, every reference to the Holy Spirit’s work in believers may legitimately be channeled through its import in connection with His sealing work. However, given the strongly eschatological thrust of the sealing work as explained by both a down payment, Eph. 1:14, 2 Cor. 1:22, and first-fruits/guarantee, 2 Cor. 5:5, it would seem to be most appropriate that those things connected with a believer’s “heavenly mindedness” be placed under the rubric of the sealing work of the Spirit. Indeed, rather than “seeking the sealing,” one might say that because of the sealing of the Spirit the believer is called to seek the things inherent in the Spirit as a down payment of eternity. Here the language of Colossians 3:1-4 is most fitting:
   
   “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
    
6. Over against the extra-biblical mysticism to which this subject (and anything else connected with the Holy Spirit’s work) can fall prey, we must emphasize far more than we do that our understanding of the sealing work of the Spirit, like our understanding of every other work of the Spirit, must be governed by the authority Christ speaking in and by his inscripturated word. The Holy Spirit works by the Word cf. Jn. 14:17, 16:13, and the works of the Holy Spirit must be understood by that Word. “The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all … opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.”⁷⁶, cf. 1 Jn. 4:1-6. Likewise, the Holy Spirit uses the Scriptures to form in believers everything that truly flows from his sealing work, cf. Jn. 17:17.

This brings us to briefly consider some lines of application that flow from a correct understanding of the sealing work of the Holy Spirit.  Here the Puritans rightly sought to “improve” the doctrine, even if their “improvements” went, at times, beyond what the Scriptures actually say, and all too often leveled this aspect of the Spirit’s work by virtually equating it with any and every aspect of sanctification. While we must not fall into the trap of importing categories of biblical teaching that are far afield of the sealing and witnessing work of the Holy Spirit as the impress of the indwelling presence of Christ in the believer, neither should we be backward about responsibly developing the “experimental” implications of this grand doctrine.⁷⁷

1. It is right and best to put the meaning of the Holy Spirit’s sealing work under the broader category of assurance. While it is impossible for us to gain access to God’s decree of election, the sealing work of the Spirit is a primary source of the evidence that one is truly an object of God’s sovereign saving grace. This is because of the close connection of the sealing of the Spirit and the Spirit as both down payment and first-fruits/guarantee of the full realization of the believer’s redemption at the day of Christ’s return, cf. Eph. 1:13. 4:30. It is also under the category of assurance growing out of the sealing work of the Holy Spirit that we are to understand the accompanying witnessing work of the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). Thus, the Westminster Confession of Faith is right to refer to the seal of the Spirit in its section “Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation”: 
   
   "This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope; but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are children of God, which Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption (emphasis mine)."⁷⁸ 
    
2. There will necessarily be a profound Christ-centeredness to the believer’s experience of the sealing work of the Holy Spirit. Not only is this because the Spirit’s work in this “age of the Spirit” is to serve economically as the presence of Christ in his people, Jn. 14:16-18, but also because it is the Spirit’s distinctive work to take the things of Christ and declare them, Jn. 15:26, 16:14. Even as seals in the world of the Old and New Testaments often bore the image of a king or a god⁷⁹ and impressed that image on that which received the seal, so the seal of the Spirit bears the likeness of Christ.⁸⁰ Whatever else this means, by virtue of this sealing work the believer now will “boast in the Lord”, 1 Cor. 1:31, as a foretaste of the praise of Christ’s glory that will come with the full payment of what is now a down payment, cf. Eph. 1:14.
    
3. The sealing of the Spirit is worked out in no small measure in the spirit of adoption in the believer, Rom. 8:14-17. As the great prototype of the sealed one is declared to be the beloved Son, so those sealed in union with him are impressed with a sense of sonship such that they naturally cry out “Abba!  Father!” (Rom. 8:15). This is the nucleus of the witnessing work of the Spirit in the believer. “In testifying to our being the children of God, the Spirit testifies, that we are born of God, that we are objects of his paternal love, and that we are heirs of the inheritance of the saints in life.”⁸¹
    
4. The sealing of the Spirit is inseparably connected with the variegated meaning of the work of the Holy Spirit as the “Paraclete”, cf. Jn. 14:16, 26, 15:26, 16:7. Whether this pregnant term is understood as “Comforter”, “Helper”, “Encourager” or anything else in its broad semantic range, all are closely tied to assistance in the battle contexts of the believer’s life as he remains in a world inveterately hostile to the Kingdom of God, e.g. Jn. 15:18-25, 16:2f, 8-11. This ought to be seen in connection with the sealing work as, in part, a securing of the believer in the midst of danger and as preservation from apostasy. This is especially prominent in the book of Revelation. It is in this book that is given particularly to encourage saints who are undergoing or who are about to undergo faith-challenging persecution that the comfort of the seal is referred to frequently, Rev. 7:3-8, 9:4.
    
5. Each of these experimental aspects of the seal of the Spirit, including the desire for holiness (which is the preeminent mark of the New Heavens and the New Earth, Ezek. 36:26f, cf.  Zech 14:20f, Rev. 21:27, 22:3, 14f) and the fruit of the Spirit, Gal. 5:22f (which, quite literally, are first-fruits of the full harvest of these things in New Heavens and New Earth) must always be informed and conditioned by the eschatological character of the gift as both down payment and guarantee/first-fruits. This is the consistent pattern in all of the relevant biblical references, cf. Rom. 8:23, 2 Cor. 1:21f, Eph. 1:13f. It is particularly what is in the forefront of Paul’s affirmation of the believer’s longing for the mortal to be swallowed up by life. “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee, i.e. first-fruits” (2 Cor. 5:5). It is significant that this is the climax of Paul’s lengthy argument (2 Cor. 4:1-5:10) for why he and his fellow ministers did not “lose heart”, 4:1, 16. In the midst of the most severe opposition, “the eternal weight of glory” is, as it were, felt and seen by faith, 4:16, 5:7, as that which far outweighs “this light momentary affliction,” 4:17. No doubt that sense of the eschatological weight of glory came by virtue of the seal of the Spirit of that glory in them.⁸²
   
   This mingled sense of longing, hope, and joy that come from the impress of the Spirit on the soul of the believer is perhaps most poignantly (if not always quite accurately) expressed in some of the more elevated devotional language of the Christian Church:
   
   "Bringing from heaven our seven-fold dower, sign of our God’s right hand of power. O blessed Spirit, promised long, your coming wakes the heart to song."⁸³
   
   "Gracious Spirit, Dove divine, let thy light within me shine; all my guilty fears remove; fill me full of heaven and love. Life and peace to me impart; seal salvation on my heart; breathe thyself into my breast, earnest of immortal rest."⁸⁴
   
   "Heaven came down, and glory filled my soul."⁸⁵
    
6. Last, but certainly not least, more consideration must be given not only to the meaning of the sealing of the Spirit on individual believers, but also on the meaning of that work for the church corporate. Markus Barth⁸⁶ suggestively opens several lines of thought in this regard. Most intriguing is his remark that “All later chapters of Ephesians unfold the meaning of the spiritual ‘seal.’  Paul may have considered it sufficient in 1:13 to use the cryptic term ‘sealing’ because he wanted at this point only to announce things which would be clarified later.”⁸⁷ If, in fact, this is the case, it opens up a fresh field for considering the meaning and import of the sealing work of the Holy Spirit. That field, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, the self-evidently corporate character of the glorified Spiritual church triumphant in the “not yet” cannot but challenge us to give more attention to how, by the seal of the Spirit, this is demonstrated in the Spirit-indwelt church militant in the “already”. The observation of Gordon Fee is appropriate at this point:
   
   "This essential framework (i.e. the ‘already’ and ‘not yet’) likewise conditions Paul’s understanding that the church is an eschatological community whose members live in the present as those stamped with eternity. We live as expatriates on earth; our true citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). Ethical life, therefore, does not consist of rules to live by. Rather, empowered by the Spirit, we now live the life of the future in the present age, the life that characterizes God himself."⁸⁸

Conclusion⤒🔗

At the risk of over-simplification, the seal of the Spirit (the meaning of which is developed by the related term “down payment” (Gk: arrabwn), cf. 2 Cor. 1:22, Eph. 1:14) may, in its import, be likened to an engagement ring.⁸⁹ Fully realizing that an engagement ring hardly possesses the inherent power of God the Holy Spirit, nevertheless, its significance gives an earthly analogy to the heavenly gift of the sealing of the Holy Spirit as a down payment.

One who wears an engagement ring shows that she is already owned or claimed by another. The engagement ring, when taken seriously, shows with authority that the one wearing the ring is linked to another. It is a means of protecting the person from the advances of another. It witnesses to the bearer and to others a certain truth about the relationship she has. It impresses the bearer constantly with thoughts of the estate of marriage to come. Indeed, it is anticipation or a foretaste of that estate in which the engagement ring will be surpassed by a wedding ring, and anticipation will be replaced with realization. The down payment of the engagement ring will be fully paid with entrance into the state of marriage. 

With all of its limitations, this is a helpful analogy as, from now on, we read: “(you) 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” (Eph. 1:13b, 14). 

Likewise, may we be reminded of the sealing work of the Holy Spirit and every other aspect of the work of the Spirit as the indwelling presence of Christ in the believer as we sing:

For your gift of God the Spirit, power to make our lives anew,
Pledge of life and hope of glory, Savior, we would worship you.
Crowning gift of resurrection, sent from your ascended throne,
Fullness of the very God-head, come to make your life our own.

He who in creation’s dawning, brooded on the lifeless deep,
Still across our nature’s darkness, moves to wake our souls from sleep,
Moves to stir, to draw, to quicken; thrusts us through with sense of sin;
Brings to birth and seals and fills us – saving Advocate within.

He the mighty God indwells us; his to strengthen, help, empower;
His to overcome the tempter; ours to call in danger’s hour.
In his strength we dare to battle all the raging hosts of sin,
And by him alone we conquer foes without and foes within.

Father, grant your Holy Spirit in our hearts may rule today.
Grieved not, quenched not, but unhindered, work in us his sovereign way.
Fill us with your holy fullness, God the Father, Spirit, Son;
In us, through us, then forever, shall your perfect will be done.⁹⁰