The Sealing and Filling of God's Spirit
Have you as a believer given thought to how your relationship to Jesus Christ is made real from day to day? The apostle Paul told the Ephesian believers that:
In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (1:13-14)
Probably the single greatest element of this verse is the fact that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit when we believe on Christ. The concept of sealing is taken from the Roman postal system. When a letter was sealed with a wax seal from its sender, this meant that the seal was to remain permanently sealed until the recipient of the letter received it. This was in fact, a guarantee of the sender's complete and unquestioned ownership of the contents. In the case of the Christian, this has an obvious and eternal meaning. God says this sealing He makes upon each of his children at the moment they trust Jesus Christ as Savior guarantees not just HIs ownership of them but their future spiritual inheritance. This reminds us each moment that we cannot be taken from the Holy Spirit, nor can He be taken from us! When I am in Africa I often remind the believers there of this truth and it always is met with applause and great demonstrations of joy.
Everything in life can be taken from us in a moment. Our family, our possessions, our life itself, but the Spirit of God cannot be separated from us! This brings us to the point I would like to make today. The permanence of our relationship with Jesus Christ is made both a reality and made actual to us through the person of the Spirit of God.
Jesus said He would send Him to us when He ascended back to the Father. Since the day of Pentecost believers are now permanently indwelt with the Spirit of God. The Spirit is a person, one of the Triune persons of God, who is co-existent, co-eternal, and co-equal with God the Father and God the Son.
When He comes to indwell the believer in Christ, He comes to live with us in His entirety as a person. We don't get part of Him or several parts of Him. We get the entire person of the Spirit. That means the Spirit is not given to us incrementally or in parts, but rather He is constantly urging us as believers to yield every part of our life to Him daily.
We often hear people say of the Spirit, "I want more of Him". What they really should say is "I want the Spirit to have more of me". That is the Biblical idea throughout the NT! In Eph 5:18, Paul admonished the Ephesians, "and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." That last element "but be filled with the Spirit" is a present passive imperative in the original language and means that this filling is not a once for all time event! Literally it says, "But be continuously being filled". It is a command!
You see the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer is permanent but being filled with His presence is to be an on-going moment by moment process. This idea is one of being brought under the continuous on-going control of the Spirit. The process is a continuous responsibility for each Christ-follower to maintain. Every believer should desire the Spirit to have greater control of their will so that Christ can be magnified in their life to a greater degree. This is true for us all and so let me encourage you to be constantly being filled with the Spirit of God today! What a difference that will make in your life!
In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (1:13-14)
Probably the single greatest element of this verse is the fact that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit when we believe on Christ. The concept of sealing is taken from the Roman postal system. When a letter was sealed with a wax seal from its sender, this meant that the seal was to remain permanently sealed until the recipient of the letter received it. This was in fact, a guarantee of the sender's complete and unquestioned ownership of the contents. In the case of the Christian, this has an obvious and eternal meaning. God says this sealing He makes upon each of his children at the moment they trust Jesus Christ as Savior guarantees not just HIs ownership of them but their future spiritual inheritance. This reminds us each moment that we cannot be taken from the Holy Spirit, nor can He be taken from us! When I am in Africa I often remind the believers there of this truth and it always is met with applause and great demonstrations of joy.
Everything in life can be taken from us in a moment. Our family, our possessions, our life itself, but the Spirit of God cannot be separated from us! This brings us to the point I would like to make today. The permanence of our relationship with Jesus Christ is made both a reality and made actual to us through the person of the Spirit of God.
Jesus said He would send Him to us when He ascended back to the Father. Since the day of Pentecost believers are now permanently indwelt with the Spirit of God. The Spirit is a person, one of the Triune persons of God, who is co-existent, co-eternal, and co-equal with God the Father and God the Son.
When He comes to indwell the believer in Christ, He comes to live with us in His entirety as a person. We don't get part of Him or several parts of Him. We get the entire person of the Spirit. That means the Spirit is not given to us incrementally or in parts, but rather He is constantly urging us as believers to yield every part of our life to Him daily.
We often hear people say of the Spirit, "I want more of Him". What they really should say is "I want the Spirit to have more of me". That is the Biblical idea throughout the NT! In Eph 5:18, Paul admonished the Ephesians, "and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." That last element "but be filled with the Spirit" is a present passive imperative in the original language and means that this filling is not a once for all time event! Literally it says, "But be continuously being filled". It is a command!
You see the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer is permanent but being filled with His presence is to be an on-going moment by moment process. This idea is one of being brought under the continuous on-going control of the Spirit. The process is a continuous responsibility for each Christ-follower to maintain. Every believer should desire the Spirit to have greater control of their will so that Christ can be magnified in their life to a greater degree. This is true for us all and so let me encourage you to be constantly being filled with the Spirit of God today! What a difference that will make in your life!
Comments
Post a Comment