Sealed with the Holy Spirit 4

Ephesians 1:13e

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Let’s look at Joel 2:28, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all
flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young
men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my
spirit.” And it’s one of many quotations in the Old Testament where God promised that he would pour
out his Spirit upon men and women. And that’s the meaning of part of the verse that we’ve been
studying in Ephesians during these weeks.

In Ephesians 1:13, “In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,
and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” And the Greek makes it very
clear that this was actually literally the Holy Spirit that was promised, and it was promised in
verses like this one in Joel and if you look at Ezekiel 36:25 you see it there also. “I will
sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your
idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and
I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my
spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.”
So those are some of the promises that are mentioned here and then in this verse, “You were sealed
with the Holy Spirit that was promised.”

What we had started to talk about was the meaning of the sealing of the Holy Spirit, what it really
meant to be sealed with the Holy Spirit. Martin Lloyd Jones has some comments that might give us
all light just because it comes in different words. He says, “In what sense then can it be said
that the Holy Spirit was not given until the day of Pentecost?” Because obviously what we’re saying
is this Holy Spirit was promised and its coming was on the day of Pentecost.” And so he’s saying,
“In what sense can it be said that the Holy Spirit was not given until the day of Pentecost?”
Because he’s saying that obviously there was activity by the Holy Spirit before the day of
Pentecost.

He says, “Clearly, it does not mean that the Holy Spirit had not been given at all or in any sense
until the day of Pentecost. That cannot be the case because we find that even the men of the Old
Testament dispensation had the Spirit. The one thing that David most feared after he had committed
the terrible sins of adultery and murder is seen in his prayer, ‘Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.’”
So obviously people in the Old Testament had experience of the Holy Spirit.

So when God gives us the promise that the Holy Spirit will come upon us, then he’s obviously meaning
something beyond what the Old Testament people experienced of the Holy Spirit. And then he [Martin
Lloyd Jones] says too, about the disciples, “The disciples of our Lord had already received the
Spirit in that sense long before the day of Pentecost. They were believers, and in a certain room
our Lord had breathed upon them saying, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost’ and this was before the day of
Pentecost.
They had not only believed already, they had been enabled to do certain great works and yet he still
promises them the Holy Spirit. To these same men upon whom he had breathed the Spirit on that
occasion he says, ‘You shall receive this Holy Spirit. You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit
not many days hence.’”

So obviously to be sealed with the Holy Spirit is something different from just having the Holy
Spirit, because the Old Testament people had the Holy Spirit and the disciples themselves had
received the Holy Spirit as Jesus breathed him upon them. And then he says, “The Holy Spirit was
not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.” That’s John 7:39 and you might want to look at
it. Despite the fact that the Holy Spirit was obviously possessed and experienced by the Old
Testament prophets and despite the fact that the disciples had in some sense received the Holy
Spirit, yet in John 7:38 it says, “He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his
heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who
believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not
yet glorified.”

So there’s obviously an implication that this coming of the Holy Spirit cannot take place until
after Jesus is glorified even though men and women had experienced in some way the Holy Spirit. In
some way he had been able to give the prophets the ability to foresee the future, in some way he had
been able to give power to Moses to perform miracles, in some way he had been able to even give the
disciples power, the seventy who went out and said the demons were subject to them. In some way
they were able to experience the Holy Spirit and yet there is some sense in which the New Testament
implies the Holy Spirit will not be given until Jesus is glorified. Until Jesus, that is, is raised
from the dead.

So that’s what Jones is bringing up. He says, “In what sense then is this sealing of the Holy
Spirit different from what people experienced before?” The first thing he says is, “It isn’t just
regeneration.” He says, “The disciples were clearly born again well before the day of Pentecost and
had received the Spirit. They believed in the Lord, they had repented, they had received new life.”
And he points out that the Samaritans were in that position and the Ephesian disciples in Acts 19;
that they had both had Jesus preached to them and they believed in him, but they still had not been
baptized with the Holy Spirit.

So being baptized with the Holy Spirit is not just being born again because obviously, these people
had been born again and yet they were told to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. He then says
something that we don’t talk about much — unction. You may have read about it – those of us who
have read Power Through Prayer by Bounds would have heard of unction. He says, “Secondly, the
fulfillment has no reference to the unction that is given us by the Holy Spirit or our spiritual
understanding. That the unction is from the Holy Spirit, Paul makes abundantly plain in this first
epistle of Corinthians Chapter 2, the princes of this world did not recognize our Lord and did not
believe in him, but we do both because the Spirit who reveals all things, even the deep things of
God has enabled us believers to do so.”

So you remember that part in Corinthians where it says, “You could not understand because you were
natural; these things are perceived by the Spirit.” “You have unction,’ says John in his first
epistle. Clearly this sealing with the Spirit does not apply here because you can have this unction
and spiritual understanding and still not know this sealing.” He gives an example of it. He tells
how Jesus explained the scriptures to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: he opened to them
the scriptures and they obviously had received spiritual understanding of the inner meaning of the
scriptures and yet they had not yet been baptized with the Holy Spirit.

So the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not just the unction that even a born again person has – a
person who has come spiritually alive. In other words in [Charles] Finney’s terminology it isn’t an

awakened sinner; it isn’t even a regenerated sinner it’s something beyond that. Even an awakened
sinner has some sense of his need for repentance and a conviction of sin. Even a regenerated sinner
has some ability to say, “The scripture has come alive to me. I can understand it. I can see it.
I have spiritual insight.” But he’s saying it’s not just that.

Then he says, and this is useful I think for us, this piece, “Thirdly, and particularly important,
the sealing with the Spirit is not sanctification.” And you have to make a distinction between the
entire sanctification which is what we often talk about in regard to the baptism with the Spirit,
entire sanctification and sanctification. Entire sanctification we talk about as the inner heart
and the cleansing of the heart. But he’s making the point, “To believe that it is, has been the
chief error in connection with the subject. That sealing with the Spirit does not mean
sanctification can be proved by the fact that there is no gap or interval between justification and
sanctification as there is no gap between regeneration and sanctification. The teaching of the
scripture is that the moment a man is born again his sanctification has and must have started.”

Well it obviously has; when a person is born of God, he sees certain sins in his life that are wrong
and he does away with them. His sanctification has begun. Already in the new birth a person has to
some extent received some of Jesus’ beauty and that’s why we say even a carnal Christian has some of
Christ’s life in him because the sanctification has begun. It’s different from his entire
sanctification but the sanctification has begun. And he’s saying, “The teaching of the scripture is
that the moment a man is born again then his sanctification must have started. The process of
making him holy and separating him out to God has already begun. There is no greater error than to
teach that the coming of the Holy Spirit is just sanctification.” No, sanctification begins when
you’re born again. Entire sanctification is another matter that we need to talk about. But
sanctification is there.”

Then he says, “It’s not just the manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. I hold that
you can manifest such fruit without of necessity knowing the sealing of the Spirit. For the
springing forth of that fruit is a part of the work of the Spirit within us which goes on steadily
and constantly in the process of sanctification.” And I think that’s true. We would say that there
are many Christians, even carnal Christians who manifest some of the fruit of the Spirit. Now,
that’s not a constant thing in their life, but they do manifest some of the fruit of the Spirit and
all he’s saying is don’t say that baptism with the Holy Spirit, or sealing with the Holy Spirit is
just the fruit of the Holy Spirit. That is present even in a born again believer.

This I think is useful to us because we’ve sometimes talked about this but I have not actually seen
it expressed so clearly by one who is regarded as a normal evangelical. “Once more negatively
saying the things that it is not, the sealing of the Spirit does not mean assurance of salvation as
the result of our believing the word, or as the result of arguments worked out from the word.” This
was always to me a very questionable approach, you remember it accompanied the “bridge” illustration
in Campus Crusade and was used quite widely. And I’ll just read it to you again, “Once more
negatively, the sealing of the Spirit does not mean ‘assurance’ of salvation as the result of our
believing the word or as the result of arguments worked out from the word. The common teaching
concerning assurance of salvation is that the way to give people assurance is to take them to the
scriptures and then ask them, ‘Do you believe this to be the word of God?’”

This sounds so familiar to us: “Do you believe this to be the word of God? If they say that they do
it is then pointed out to them that the scripture says, ‘He that believeth shall have ever lasting

life.’ With many other such passages. For example, ‘He that believeth shall not come into
condemnation. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believe with
him shall not perish but have every lasting life.’ They are then asked, ‘Do you believe in him?’ If
they do they are again told, ‘The word says that if you believe in him you have ever lasting life.’
So if they believe they must have ever lasting life and that becomes the basis of their assurance of
salvation. It is deduced in that way from the scriptures. But that is not the sealing of the
Spirit.” Though he says – so you know what he says, “Though it is quite right as far as it goes.”
But he’s saying, “That is not the sealing of the Spirit.” And that is in a way a certain kind of
assurance, but he’s not backing it pretty much. [There is a missing portion here] “obtained by
reasoning from the first epistle of John which is mainly concerned with the question of assurance of
salvation. According to John there are a number of tests which we can apply in this respect. For
instance, we know we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. Another is that
we know that we are Christians if we keep his commandments and if we believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ and so on. If we can say honestly that we love God’s people and prefer their company to any
other, we must be Christians. And if we arrive at a similar satisfactory answer to the other
questions, we can be assured that we are true Christians whatever doubts may arise in our hearts.

These tests of the first epistle of John are more thorough and better tests than those which are
objectively based on the Bible. But the two taken together gives strong ground of assurance and yet
I am suggesting that the sealing of the Spirit is more than we have so far considered. It is a yet
stronger and higher form of assurance. It includes the blessings mentioned but goes beyond them.
It is the Spirit in us that enables us to do what I have already described. But the sealing with
the Spirit is something additional to that and is something done by the Spirit to us.”

So it’s to think through that again and maybe even to listen to this again if you need to. He then
takes another example which I think helps us to think more clearly about it. “My last negative is
to say that the sealing is not the fullness of the Spirit, for later on in the epistles to the
Ephesians we shall find that the apostle gives a commandment, an exhortation in which he says, ‘Be
filled with the Spirit.’ Which means, go on being filled with the Spirit. That is something
therefore which you and I can control. In any case, it is something that is to be a perpetual state
and condition. We are to go on being filled with the Spirit.” That’s what the Greek means — be
filled with the Spirit, go on being filled with the Spirit. We need to go on being filled with the
Spirit all the time. And so he’s saying sealed with the Spirit is not that.

“That is something therefore which you and I can control. If we grieve the Spirit or quench the
Spirit we shall not be filled with the Spirit. In any case it is something that is to be a
perpetual state and condition. We are to go on being filled with the Spirit. But here in
describing this sealing the apostle refers to something that has happened in the past, you were
sealed.” Not something, you see, that is happening now or that we ought to be doing not, but
something that happened, “you were sealed.” . But the sealing with the Spirit is something
additional to that and is something done by the Spirit to He says, “You know that it has happened
and furthermore it was something that was done to you not something that you do.” So it’s something
that was done to you, not something that you do.

“So I suggest that we must draw a distinction between the sealing of the Spirit and the fullness of
the Spirit, or being filled with the Spirit.” And then he finishes off with, “In the first Chapter
of Acts, the Lord promised the disciples that they should be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many
days hence. But when we turn to chapter two and to the great events on the day of Pentecost, we
found that the fulfillment of the promise is described not as baptized with the Spirit but as being

filled with the Holy Spirit. What happened there is the fulfillment of what our Lord prophesized
as, ‘You shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ But the word baptized is not used in Acts chapter
two, the word used is filled. Clearly, the terms are used interchangeably.”

So he’s saying the sealing of the Spirit is not just a matter of being filled with the Spirit which
we are often told to go on being filled with the Spirit. But he’s making the point that “filled
with the Spirit” has at times been used in the scripture to mean baptized with the Spirit.
“Immediately after it referred to the same promise; Jesus said, ‘Don’t leave Jerusalem until you
receive the promise which you have with the Father where you will be baptized with the Spirit’ and
then in Acts 2 it says they were all filled with the Spirit.“ Well obviously, it means the same
thing in that particular context.

But still, he’s saying being filled with the Spirit is not normally being sealed with the Spirit.
“The explanation seems to be that the baptism of the Spirit is the first experience of the fullness
of the Spirit. It is the Spirit poured upon us in in this exceptional fullness. The first time
something outstanding happens it’s always unique. It happened to the apostles, it happened to Paul,
it happened to Cornelius, it happened to the Samarians, it happened to the Ephesians, it happened to
the Galatians, and it has gone on happening to Christians throughout the centuries as I shall show.
I am suggesting therefore that the baptism of the Spirit is the same as the sealing with the Spirit.
But someone may well ask, ‘Why use two different terms then? If baptism is meant why does it not
say baptism, indeed why did not Luke use the word baptism in the second chapter of Acts?’ The
answer, it seems to me is, that in the first and second chapters of Acts we are being taught the
doctrine of the Spirit directly so baptism is used.

The object there was to emphasize this giving of the Spirit, the fulfillment of God’s promise and it
is called a baptism because the Spirit was poured out upon men and women. But here in Ephesians
Paul is talking about inheritance. He desires us as Christians to realize we are inheritors, that
we are about to enter into the possession of a great inheritance and his concern is that we shall be
absolutely sure of the fact that we are inheritors. So his teaching is that the baptism of the
Spirit is the sealing that God gives to his promise that we are going to enter into this
inheritance. Here of course, the term sealing is the more appropriate term. When we are talking
about buying or selling property, or giving someone the promise of an inheritance, we produce a
document and we put our seal upon the document as we have seen. So it is obviously the appropriate
term to use here. It is right to regard the blessing as a sealing because it seals the promise.
But what seals the promise is the baptism of the Spirit by which the promise of the Father receives
practical expression.

It is that giving, that special giving of the Holy Spirit that our Lord spoke about on the last day,
the great day of the feast. So let it not be confused by the terms but realize we are dealing with
two different ways of looking at the same phenomenon and describing it in an appropriate manner in
each particular given setting.” And then he finishes the chapter, “Having thus established the
doctrine, we are in a position to go on to deal with the thing itself, to consider what the
scripture tells us about this wonderful, this glorious sealing that made such a difference to the
apostles and others. Acts 15:8 will help to lead us into it, ‘And God who knoweth the hearts bore
them witness giving them the Holy Spirit even as he did to us.’ It is God’s action in which he
bears witness that we are his children, that he is our Father and that we are heirs of God and joint
heirs with Christ. It is God’s authentication of the fact that we really belong to him.”

Let us pray.