4 Sealed with the Spirit
When I was a child, there often used to be an advertisement for a brand of glue in the top corner of the front page of our evening paper. It read, "A small deposit secures any item."
It was a clever slogan; after all, I can still remember it 50 years later! But it has a double meaning. It could also be referring to making a down payment, a pledge or deposit on an item in a shop so that nobody else could buy it.
Paul sees the Holy Spirit as such a deposit:
Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession – to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1: 13(b), 14 [NIV]
The Holy Spirit is our guarantee that God, who has begun to work in us will not abandon us. We will be with him for ever, and the gift of his Spirit shows his intention. The Spirit is God's first instalment; in eternity we will know the full measure of his presence. The word Paul uses for guarantee, arrabon, is used in modern Greek for an engagement ring.
Paul also says that the Holy Spirit is a seal. Farmers marked their livestock with a seal to show that they belonged to him. In the same way, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives indicates that we belong to God.
"The Spirit changes the human heart. Suddenly we are something we never used to be." [Gregory the Great]
Spirit of the Living God, break me, melt me, mould me, fill me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.
David Long
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