Holy Spirit: The Proof and the Promise

I was enamored with my mother’s engagement ring as a little girl. I knew it represented my father’s commitment, when they were first in love, to make good on his promise to marry her. I remember thinking, “Who wouldn’t want to marry a man willing to offer such a beautiful and eye-catching pledge of his love?” When my husband presented me with a lovely engagement ring years later, I felt the joy of being chosen and marked for love. Looking at my ring made me long for the day I would become a bride.

In this passage, the apostle Paul wants to convey that same thrill and assurance of belonging to the believers in Ephesus. How could the Ephesians be confident of their place in God’s plan? How could they achieve the unity Paul exhorted all believers to embrace, unless were sure they belonged to the same kingdom? (Eph. 2:13-16)

To confirm the unity of all believers in Christ, Paul describes the Holy Spirit as both proof and promise of God’s great love for the Ephesian converts. He says the Spirit is their “seal” and “guarantee.” (Eph. 1:13-14) Much like an engagement ring, the presence of the Holy Spirit both identifies a believer as a chosen child of God and indicates that an even greater blessing is still to come.

When the Ephesians first heard the gospel and believed in Jesus, they were “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” (Eph. 1:13) The Greek word for “sealed” here is sphragizo, and it meant to seal up and close, as for guardianship or protection. Paul gave a similar illustration of the Holy Spirit’s mark on God’s people when he wrote to the church at Corinth: “[God] has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” (2 Cor. 1:22) For Paul, the Holy Spirit is the common denominator among God’s people; he is the seal that ensures our inheritance until Christ returns. (Eph. 1:14) In our own day, when an engagement ring is given, the bride-to-be is considered “spoken for,” symbolically sealed off just for the bridegroom on the wedding day. So it is with every believer who accepts Jesus and receives the Holy Spirit; the presence of the Spirit proclaims and preserves her identity in Christ.

The Greek word for “guarantee” that Paul uses when describing the promise of the Holy Spirit is arrabon. Arrabon (Eph. 1:14) means a first installment or down payment, but not in the sense of a refundable deposit. Arrabon is a pledge that cannot be revoked. It is the beginning of a commitment, the first taste of what is guaranteed to come. (Rom. 8:23) In a similar way, engagement to be married is not the fulfillment of a bridegroom’s promise, but it does point to a complete future union. It stokes anticipation for oneness with the beloved, by providing a preview of what that union will be like.

What a blessed assurance it is that the Lord Jesus and we, his Church, are vowed to each other! The Holy Spirit is both our proof of the Savior’s love and our promise that He is a bridegroom worth waiting for. Jesus told his disciples that the Holy Spirit in them would be even better than his physical presence with them. (John 16:7-14) How has the Holy Spirit made Christ and his gospel more real in your life? What does the Holy Spirit’s work in your life reveal to you about the nature of Christ?

Holy Spirit, you are a priceless treasure and a gift in my life! Help me to know my Christ Jesus more every day. Reveal his heart and his will to me. Show me how to wait for his return with hope and dignity and a countenance of joy because of your seal and guarantee. Teach me how to bring praise to his glory until the Father has worked all things together according to his will. I want to walk in assurance and confidence as a woman chosen and sealed by him. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Worth Another Look

In Ephesians 1, Paul uses the literary device of repetitive phrasing to highlight the triune nature of God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

First, Paul blesses our God and Father, for adopting every believer in Jesus, from before the foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:3-5) This, the Father did of his own will, “to the praise of his glorious grace.” (Eph. 1:6) The Father’s role in the mystery of salvation is that he sovereignly chose to accomplish it.

Next, Paul writes that those who were the first to hope in Christ – i.e., Jews, to whom Christ first revealed himself , (Matt. 10:5-6) – were predestined to have an inheritance in him, so that they “might be to the praise of his [Christ’s] glory.” (Eph. 1:11-12) God the Son achieves the necessary sacrifice and redemptive work of salvation.

Finally, the Ephesians, though they never met Jesus in the flesh, heard his gospel and believed it. (Eph. 1:13) Then the Holy Spirit sealed them and guaranteed their inheritance in the kingdom of God, “to the praise of his [the Spirit’s] glory.” (Eph. 1:14). God the Spirit completes the sovereign plan to “unite all things in him,” including Gentiles. (Eph. 1:10)

Paul’s repetition deftly shows that Father, Son, and Spirit are all worthy of the praise belonging to God, because each one of them is a Person of the Trinity.