Holy Spirit: Our Seal

Authenticity. In a world where imitations make an appearance in every arena of life, we rely heavily on ways to prove authenticity. A legal document, for instance, has the stamp and signature of a notary. A marriage license or birth certificate has the embossed seal of the issuing agency. A well-bred dog comes with documents as proof of his official registry. 

If we’re going to commit to a large purchase or enter into an important contract, we want to know that we are signing up for the real deal. And, we want something that denotes a guarantee for what we have been promised.

However, thinking of these ‘proofs of authenticity’ as only a modern necessity would be incorrect. Dating as far back as 3500 BCE, archaeological evidence of such practices exist. In places such as Ancient Mesopotamia, people used engraved cylinders to press signifying designs into clay as a way to identify ownership and deter theft – not too unlike modern practices of branding cattle. The Romans adapted this practice by using hot wax to authenticate and seal documents. 

But it was in the Middle Ages that the ruling class prolifically utilized signet rings with family crests to seal documents, to verify the identity of the letter’s sender, and to ensure security.¹ Similar to today’s seals on medication bottles, for Medieval Europeans, a broken seal on a document denoted broken, violated trust. 

As centuries went by and literacy increased, everyone writing letters sealed them with their personal wax emblem. I like to imagine Jane Austen sending all those letters she wrote to her sister as stamping each one with her wax and ring. 

In all these ways, we see that a ‘seal’ denotes ownership. It marks the object as official and often becomes a symbol of guaranteed authenticity or commitment. 

I offer this rather lengthy history lesson for personal purposes – and, I hope, for your edification. You see, I needed these images of the past, an understanding of what it means for something to be ‘sealed’. Because for years, when I read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and saw that we are ‘sealed’ by Holy Spirit (4:30), I imagined being vacuum-sealed with the Spirit. Water-tight. Protected. All the yuck of the world kept out of me. But, it turns out, Holy Spirit is much less a Ziploc baggie and more a stamp marking us as belonging to God.

Marked in God with a Holy Seal

Now that I think about being ‘sealed’ by the Spirit as a mark to signify belonging to God, my neuro-pathways are firing with all sorts of connections. For instance, I think back to the summer after my high school graduation and how my tight-knit friend group lamented our coming separation as we each prepared to go off to different colleges. How one day we came up with the idea to get a second piercing on our left ears as a symbol of our friendship. A sign of our belonging.

I think of the way families or circles of friends get matching tattoos to signify their connection. Or how moms and schools dress young children in matching outfits when they go to amusement parks or on field trips as a way to mark the kids as part of the group, making them more easily identifiable. And safe.

Similarly, my spiritual eyes have begun looking back to the way God ‘marked’ Abraham and every other Jewish male by circumcision as a sign of the covenant made between them (Genesis 17:10-11). Such a mark became an outward symbol of the promises made. And for Abraham, himself, circumcision was “a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith” (Romans 4:11). It signified that he was God’s and God was his.

It never occurred to me till now that in the same way circumcision was a ‘mark’ or ‘seal’ that signified belonging, identity, and commitment, Holy Spirit is the same for Christians.

With this in mind, I think of the original Eleven and the promises Jesus made to them before He ascended to heaven. How He said they would do ‘even greater’ things than He did (John 14:12) – and promised them eternal life with Him. How He commissioned them to make disciples and love all the people and take His message to the entire world. And how hard, if not impossible, all this would have felt to the rag-tag team of humans appointed to these tasks. 

I also think back to the early church and what it must have been like to begin this ‘Christian’ movement without all the doctrine or the Bible or the history that we have. How upside-down their lives as followers of Jesus would have been to everyone around them. And how easy it would have been to doubt that what they believed in the beginning about Jesus and their identity as children of God was really, actually true. 

And yet. God anticipated all of this. He knows our propensity to doubt. To forget. To wrestle between our felt needs, our circumstances, and the promises of God…and wonder if we have it right….

So. He sent His Spirit.

Friends, Holy Spirit is our seal! He is the sign we’ve been given, the One who consistently “testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Romans 8:16 NIV). He “joins with our spirit to affirm” this reality (NLT), granting us a spiritual, inner assurance that we belong to God. 

In addition, much like Abraham’s ‘mark’ of righteousness, “the experience of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life” becomes our proof, as well as “a demonstration to others, of the genuineness of [our] faith.”² Holy Spirit, like the signet ring of God pressing into our spirits, is the mark validating us as true believers.

That’s why Paul exhorts us to trust that the moment we believed Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we “were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13 NIV). Holy Spirit in us is the evidence we need to keep believing that we are in God’s family – marked, sealed, identified as His. And then as we grow and mature in our faith, Holy Spirit “continues to testify, authenticating the reality of this relationship.”² It’s His work in us, the sanctifying work of making us more like Jesus, that becomes the evidence of His presence in us, the proof that we are who we say we are – that God is who He says He is! 

Sealed with the Spirit as a Deposit

Very often when we enter into a contract to borrow money, we must demonstrate our commitment to the process of paying back the money we owe by putting down a deposit. Typically, such a deposit is money – like the time we paid a set sum up-front when we were buying a house. This deposit was a way to ‘guarantee’ to the lenders that we would continue to pay them back every month. 

In his letters, Paul describes Holy Spirit in the same way – as a “deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 5:5). Paul knows that when we humans suffer in this world, we are easily tempted to give up on God because we doubt that a life without pain is really in our future (v.4). We doubt that God is keeping His end of the bargain. And so it is that with Holy Spirit in us, God has given us Someone to hold onto as we struggle. The Spirit becomes a living promise within our bodies that constantly reminds us that what we have believed about Jesus and heaven, about grace and truth, about God’s Word and Spirit are all true. In this way, Holy Spirit in us is “the first installment that guarantees everything [God] has promised us” (1 Corinthians 1:22 NLT). 

When we recognize our ‘seal’, Holy Spirit in us, as a sign of God’s faithfulness, our faith grows. Such a ‘guarantee’ gives us an inner assurance that helps us persevere through trials because it reminds us that God is with us, strengthening us, giving us all that we need. Much like Jesus in His wilderness temptations, we are able weather desert and dark valley seasons with faith because we’ve already been given a deposit, ensuring us that we are, indeed, children of God. And because we belong to God, we can trust that one day we will gain the inheritance we’ve been promised – eternal life with God (Ephesians 1:14). 

Seals and Marks to Come

While Holy Spirit has not sealed us like a Tupperware bowl, becoming our super-hero-like-shield from all harm or heartache or heartburn, He does stand at the ready to cover us spiritually (Ephesians 6:10-18). He will protect our minds, guard our hearts, and forever keep our souls out of the hands of our enemy (Romans 8:5; Philippians 4:5-7; 1 John 4:4). 

We need these assurances in this lifetime – because life is hard. Spiritual battles are real. And as we look ahead to the tribulations coming, to the Day of Judgment, to Christ’s return, it makes all the difference to know that we have been sealed in and by and with Holy Spirit. We never have to worry about losing our inheritance, our salvation. All of that is guaranteed – one hundred percent.

Even with such marked assurances (pun intended), it seems prudent to look ahead to this prophetic vision of Jesus’ return because within those pages, we see more ‘seals’ and ‘marks’, and we want to understand the differences and similarities between them and the Seal we already have.

For example, in Revelation 7:1-8, we read about an “angel with a signet ring coming to place a mark of protection on God’s servants,” the ones who will be enduring the trials of tribulation (see verses 2-3).³ In much the same way that Holy Spirit ‘seals’ believers today, this end-times seal marks believers of the Apocalypse as belonging to God. Unlike our seal, however, this forehead stamp is visible to all who look upon these faithful followers of Jesus. It’s an external mark that saves God’s children from God’s “end-time judgments and the wrath poured out on the earth.”² 

Of course, later in Revelation, John describes another ‘mark’ – this one placed on those who follow the beast, the Antichrist (Revelation 13:16-18). In typical fashion, our enemy counterfeits what God does for his own evil purposes. 

But we do not have to live in fear of what is to come because we have the mark of authenticity. We are sealed by Holy Spirit. We have been given the assurance of our place in God’s family, the validity of all our Father’s promises, and the blessing of knowing that our future with Jesus is secure.

My friend, if you have professed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, rest assured that you are sealed by God’s Spirit.

For today’s prayer, we will use the lyrics of the worship song, “Sealed with the Promise.”⁴ Let’s pray to remember what Jesus has done for us and how Holy Spirit in us is our Seal of Promise. Let’s pray:

Lord, I remember…

I was drifting, chasing every sound 
Empty hands just turning pages down 
Then your Word cut through the noise I knew
Good News spoken, and my heart (a)woke to You

I am sealed with the promise
By the Spirit of God 
You have written your mercy 
On the dust of my heart

Every fear, every shadow 
Falls away, in your love
I am sealed with the promise
By the Spirit of God

You were waiting, in the quiet years
Pulling threads through all my hidden fears 
Heard your voice and all my running stopped
Now your presence is the anchor I’ve got

I am sealed with the promise
By the Spirit of God
You have written your mercy
On the dust of my heart.

Every fear, every shadow 
Falls away, in your love
I am sealed with the promise
By the Spirit of God

Marked as yours
Heaven stamped on my soul 
You won’t let go
You won’t let go
Till faith is sight
And I stand in that hold
You won’t let go
You won’t let go

I am sealed with the promise
By the Spirit of God 
You have written your mercy 
On the dust of my heart

In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

[Please remember that throughout this series, we want to move through information gathering to Holy Spirit experiencing. As such, I will be adding an ‘experience’ of Holy Spirit each week in our “Rhythms” section below. I hope you’ll jump down there to see how you might stretch yourself in the way of experiencing more of the Spirit in your life. You can trust I’m doing the same!!]

Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.

• 1 – Interestingly, John’s vision in Revelation shows Jesus as the only one worthy enough to open a scroll with seven seals. Jesus is the only one who can break open each seal and initiate each judgment on the earth (Revelation 5). I love that we’ve been given a picture of a wax seal’s function in Scripture, and all that it communicates to us about the writer and recipient of that particular scroll in the Last Days – a scroll sealed until an appointed time, made secure until the appointed Person holds it in His hands. A scroll sealed by God Himself.
• 2 – This Gospel Coalition article on the seal of Holy Spirit
• 3 – This BibleProject guide on Revelation
• 4 – Today’s prayer is taken from a new-to-me song, “Sealed with the Promise,” by Kelly Adams. Y’all, it’s nothing short of amazing! I am hooked! Not only have I linked the song here but I’ve added it, along with another song (“Holy Spirit Come” by Patrick Mayberry), to our Holy Spirit Playlist on Spotify.
• Many of you have found me on Substack. Thank you so much! And, if you’d like to listen to (rather than read) these weekly posts, you can do so on Substack. It’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post. While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective.
• My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes the first week of each month to those who have subscribed on my website. I also post them on Substack. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.

Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike.

• The rhythm we are employing for our summer Holy Spirit series falls in the category of a weekly experience. For so many of us, we need to experience the actual assurance of the truths we’ve looked at today — that we are sealed with the Spirit as our sign of belonging to God. We are God’s children! We’re not only in the family, but we’re guaranteed an eternal inheritance — and Holy Spirit is the first installment of that inheritance.
  
  I realize each of us meets with God differently, experiencing His presence and hearing His voice in a variety of ways, yet it is vastly important that we take the time to position ourselves before Him long enough this week to allow these assurances to pour into our hearts, to soak into our souls until we become confident that, in Christ, our salvation is guaranteed, that, by the Spirit, our sanctification is promised, and that our eternal life with the Father will happen — no matter what the world or those closest to us or our fears tell us.
  
  Once we have that spiritual confidence that we are God’s and that all He has promised is coming, we need to document these truths and our assurances. Find a journal, turn to a clean page, date it, and write down the details of your experiences. Then draw or paint or write some more, sing or dance or take a walk to seal the deal. Friends, we have an enemy who will challenge us about the promises of God, who will tempt us to doubt God’s faithfulness or our worthiness, who will accuse or discourage or hurt us until we doubt our Father and His goodness and His love — and that’s why we document these moments. When the enemy comes to call, we can counter every lie and accusation with truth. We are sealed with Holy Spirit. We belong to God, and God belongs to us. He is with us all the time, loving and helping and leading us. And He will bring us Home to Him in the end. Bank on it. AMEN.

• We’re all called to share the truth about who Jesus is. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. May we use our whole selves to tell others about our holy God!!

Featured Photo is a photo of a stained glass window from the Catholic Diocese of La Crosse, WI
“All the Bits and Pieces” Photo by Zrng N Gharib on Unsplash.
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