Sealed By The Spirit – Ephesians 1:13
Ephesians 1:13 reminds us that the blessings of salvation are not limited to Israel alone, but have come also to the Gentiles—to all who hear the word of truth and believe in Christ. Paul shifts from “we” to “you also,” showing that the same salvation promised through the Jews has now come to the nations. This salvation comes through the gospel, “the word of truth,” not through human opinion, religious tradition, or vague ideas about God’s love. The gospel is the good news of salvation: that sinners who are guilty before God can be forgiven because Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, lived the perfect life we could not live, died under the wrath of God in the place of sinners, was buried, and rose again so that all who believe in him are justified and made right with God. Hearing this gospel is necessary, but hearing alone is not enough. The sinner must believe in Christ, turning from sin, self-righteousness, idols, and every false hope, and resting entirely upon Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Paul also shows that when a sinner hears the gospel and believes in Christ, he is immediately sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not a second blessing that comes later or a reward for a higher level of Christian experience. At the very moment of true faith, God gives his Spirit to dwell within the believer, marking that person as his own. The Holy Spirit was promised in the Old Testament, promised by Christ to his disciples, and poured out at Pentecost; now every believer receives him at conversion. This sealing gives Christians assurance, security, and joy, because it means God has claimed them, indwelt them, and marked them as belonging to him forever. Therefore, those who have believed in Christ can live as thankful, holy, confident people, knowing that the God who saved them has sealed them by his Spirit for his glory.
FULL SERMON TEXT:
We’ve been working our way slowly and joyfully, I hope, through this long sentence in the original Greek at the beginning of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Beginning in verse 3 through 14 is all one long sentence, as we’ve stated pretty much every week since we started this sentence.
And as we work through this, we recognize this is doxological. It is theological. It is deeply theological. It is Paul just pouring out praise for the blessings of salvation that he has received.
We’ve looked at God’s election before the foundation of the world. We’ve looked at the blessings of holiness and blamelessness before him. We’ve looked at predestination. We’ve looked at the fact that we’ve been adopted as his children. We looked at all the lavish grace, the revelation of the mystery of his will, the secure inheritance, all of these things. And the truth that all of this happens according to the counsel of his own will, in order that, as last week we talked about, we might live to the praise of his glory.
And today, we continue on. There are still two more verses left in this long sentence. We’ll cover only verse 13 this morning and 14 next week.
But in verse 13, as I mentioned last week, Paul turns to direct his attention to the Gentiles. He has been saying “we.” He has been saying, like last week and the week before, that “we have obtained an inheritance” so that “we who were the first to hope,” referencing him and the other Jews, the early Israelite, Jewish believers who had converted to Christianity in a sense, that they put their hope in the Jesus Christ who had come.
And now again, the word shifts from “we” to “you” here. And so it directs the attention to Gentile believers there in Ephesus. And praise the Lord, that includes us.
And what he says to them, he is saying to every single one of us who has trusted in Christ from that point on. Well, and really from that point before as well. At this point, they had the Christ. Not just the promise of the Messiah, but the Messiah fulfilled and come.
And so what this verse here this morning is going to focus our attention on is on a single moment in the Christian life.
If you will, stand with me for the reading of God’s Word.
I’m going to begin in verse 3. By the end of this section of verse 3 through 14, we will have read through this passage 12 times. Hopefully, that’s helpful for you. And for those of you guys who’ve been in Track One, you’ll have read through this part of Ephesians 42 times, hopefully.
Repetition is how we learn. This is good for us. This is so deep. This is so rich theologically. It is good for us to repeat this again and again and again.
Paul says, beginning in verse 3:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us.
In all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as the plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.
In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory.
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.”
Father, this morning, as we look at this one moment in our Christian life, the first moment in our Christian life, help us to remember. Lord, help us who are yours, who are sealed, to remember these things, how you worked in our heart, how you brought about salvation in our life. Lord, so that we can once again worship and glorify you for your grace and your goodness to us.
And as we look at this verse, and as we think about what it means, Lord, give us confidence, give us boldness, give us assurance and security, knowing that we belong to you, and that you made it certain.
Lord, this morning, if there’s anyone in this room who this is new to, maybe they’ve not heard the gospel, or they’ve not heard it in a way or at the right time to where you would open their hearts and minds to understand and to believe it, Lord, I pray that that would happen. Teach them this morning the truth of your Word. Open their eyes so that they may see the glories of Jesus.
For some of us in this room, there may have been false teaching on this subject, so Lord, bring reproof, bring correction, so we can understand these things your way, not ours.
And for those who know these truths well, Lord, bring it up again. Continue to train us in righteousness through your Word, that we may not just be people who are sitting here as lumps on a log, but as people you have called to be equipped for every good work that you’ve called us to do.
Do this by your Spirit, for the glory of Jesus Christ, for him alone. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
You may be seated.
So if you read through 13 and 14, you’ll notice they go together, clearly. And it’s hard to preach one without the other, but I’m going to do it this morning because I want to focus in on one part of it, and next week we’ll flesh it out even more as we finish this section next week.
We’re going to focus our attention on the first part of 13 and the moment of the sealing of the Spirit. When the sinner hears the gospel and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, God seals him with the Holy Spirit.
We’ll talk about how that works out, what that sealing means more fully next week as we finish the rest of the verse. But in that moment, and I’ll show you exactly why that’s so clearly important this morning.
We’ll do this under three different parts.
First, notice that the gospel came to you, Christian. Remember that.
Paul begins with the words, “In Him, you also.”
Remember, we’re shifting the focus from what Paul was talking about last week to the fact that it was him and the other Jews who were the original, the first to hope in Christ. They’re the first Christians. And now it goes beyond just the Jews. It goes beyond just any race or people group to the Gentiles, to the nations.
“To you” is referencing Paul saying, “To you guys. You who were not part of the promise. You were not given all the prophets and the prophecies and the promises. But this promise is now for you.”
“In Him you also.”
The blessings that he started talking about back in verse 3, that we have gone over, that we have celebrated, that we have rejoiced in, are not just for Israel, are not just for those believing Jews. It is not limited to one race or ethnic group. The same salvation that came to and through the Jews now comes to the Gentiles.
And for those who may not know, Gentiles is just the word meaning everybody else that’s not a Jew by birth, by race, by ethnic group.
It’s come to us. The gospel has been made known to us.
I mean, we are a product of what he’s saying 2,000 years ago here to the Ephesians. We’re sitting in this room, in this church, in this place, in the middle of America that they didn’t even know about, by the grace of God alone, that he would invite those who did not know, those who were not part of those original promises. He would invite us.
“In Him you also.”
But how did it come?
He says, “When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.”
God does not save people just by saying, “Zap, you’re saved.”
That is one of the many arguments that people bring up against us who believe in the election of God and the predestination of God that the Bible clearly teaches. What we’ve been going through in this paragraph, people will say about us that believe these wonderful truths, “Well, God’s just going to save anybody he wants to. What’s the point in the gospel? What’s the point in believing? What’s the point in all that?”
Because he said so.
He didn’t just say he’s going to save whoever he wants. He says how he’s going to save them, by what means.
How did it come?
It didn’t just come because one day you woke up and God said, “You’re saved.” It came through hearing the word of truth.
If you’re, we use this word just because this is what the word people use, a Calvinist, or you’re Reformed, or you believe in the doctrines of grace, and you don’t believe that salvation comes through the preaching, the hearing, the believing of the gospel, you’re not a real Calvinist. You’re not really Reformed. You don’t really believe in the doctrines of grace. That’s a different form. That’s unbiblical.
God saves through the gospel, through the word of truth.
That’s why I’m standing up here. I believe in the doctrines of grace. I believe that God chooses. He predestines. Why would I be standing up here if I believe that, unless I also believe he’s predestined and determined and chosen how he wants to do that?
Right? What I’m doing is actually important. When you share the gospel, that’s actually important. It’s part of what God has predestined. It’s part of what God has chosen. It is part of the counsel of his will.
So he’s telling them, he’s reminding the Gentiles, he’s reminding us even today, these promises all came to you when?
When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
Those two phrases are just talking about the same thing. The word of truth is the gospel of salvation. The word of truth could also be expanded to include all of the Scriptures, but in particular here, he’s referencing the good news of Jesus. The gospel means good news of your salvation.
But he emphasizes word of truth before he says the gospel of your salvation.
Why? Because the gospel is not man’s opinion or a religious group’s guessing at how it’s supposed to go. The gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s reliable, powerful word that tells us the truth about who God is, about who you are, about what sin is, about how sinners can be saved.
It’s the gospel of your salvation because it is the good news that brings actual salvation, redemption, rescue.
What does salvation mean? To be saved from something.
You go into many churches today, they’re not preaching a gospel of salvation, they’re preaching a gospel of love, and that’s not the same gospel.
“God loves you, come to him.”
That’s not the gospel.
The word of truth is the gospel of salvation. You must be saved.
Why must I be saved? Because you’re a sinner in need of salvation. You are dead at the bottom of the ocean. You need life. You need to be saved.
The good news includes the fact that there is bad news. You need the good news because, guess what? You’re living the bad news right now.
“Well, I don’t feel like I’m dead at the bottom of the ocean. I don’t feel like I’m lost. I’m having a pretty good life.”
Yep, that’s why you need to be saved. Because you live like that and you die like that, you’re gone forever, and this is the best life you will ever know.
The gospel, the word of truth, is the gospel of salvation. They go together.
You cannot have the gospel without truth. You don’t get to make up a gospel however you want to try to gather as many people into a group as you can. That’s not the true gospel. That’s not the truth. You must come through the word of truth.
He says, “You were saved and forgiven to you when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.”
This is the same gospel then that the apostles preached.
And here is the gospel: that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, lived a perfect life. Sinless. In fact, the only human being to ever do it.
“Well, I live a pretty good life. I’m a pretty good person.”
But you’re a sinner. He says it. It doesn’t matter how good you are. You can’t tell me from the moment you were born until the moment you’re hearing my words right now, you’ve never told a lie?
“Well, that’s not really being a bad person.”
That’s a sin. Strike one, and you’re dead. There’s no strike three.
You’ve broken—Scripture tells us if you’ve broken one law, you’ve broken it all.
Listen, if I go speeding down the street and a cop pulls me over, what does he say?
“You broke the law.”
You broke it.
“Well, which one?”
Well, it doesn’t matter. You broke the law.
“Well, I didn’t commit murder. I didn’t commit adultery.”
But you broke the law. Doesn’t matter.
He was the only one. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived a perfect, sinless life. You can only have a relationship with God, you can only have eternal life with him, if you are perfectly sinless.
Jesus is the only one who has fulfilled it. He’s the only one that’s done it. He’s the only one who’s fulfilled that requirement. Which means we are living in the bad news.
But the good news is that perfect life lived died on the cross, laid down his life willingly as a substitute.
“God, instead of pouring out your wrath on this sinner, and this sinner, and this sinner, pour it out on me.”
So then the wages, the payment, the penalty that we deserve for our sins was laid on him at the cross.
And Jesus’ death was not just physical. He bore the spiritual wrath of God on that cross. And because he was not just a man, but also God infinite, he did not just take enough of the wrath of God for himself, he was eternal. He took all the wrath of God for any who would call on the name of the Lord to be saved.
He died on that cross bearing the wrath of God for sinners, was buried in a borrowed tomb.
And you would think, “Okay, well, that should be good enough.”
No, no, no, no, no. If he died and stayed dead, then that’s not good enough. He rose from the dead three days later.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof that payment was good enough. God has accepted that payment, and all who believe will be justified, meaning they will be made sinless.
Remember, I told you, the only way to have a relationship with God, to have eternal life, is to be sinless. But you and I can’t do that. Jesus did it for us so that his perfect life that he lived is now counted as ours. Praise God.
And our sinful life was laid on him at the cross. It was that great exchange.
So now all who believe, who put their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, are made perfect in his sight, and we can have a relationship with God. We can be saved from our sins.
That’s the gospel of salvation, not just the gospel of love, not just the gospel of having a better life, the gospel of salvation.
And that’s the message that Paul preached. That’s the message that the Ephesians believed, that the Gentiles believed, that all who have truly been converted have believed for the last 2,000 years.
It’s the same message that came to you who believe. It’s the same message that you now carry with you to share with others so that they may believe.
The message never changes. The true message that brings salvation never changes.
Meaning, all those who preach a false gospel or a different gospel or another-way-around gospel, people who believe that gospel are not saved.
And there may be some in this room.
“Well, I came to faith in Jesus by believing that God really loves me and that he wants me, and so I prayed a prayer, and so I’m a Christian now, right?”
Did you hear the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation? Or did you just want to go to somebody who likes you a lot?
One truth brings salvation, and the other eternal damnation.
And I only say that not to go, “Oh, well, how dare you. I’m offended that you would say my salvation may not be real.”
No, I’m telling you so that you don’t go to hell thinking you were right. I want you to know the good news, the word of truth, the gospel that brings salvation.
No one, listen to me—again, I’m a Calvinist standing up here—no one is saved apart from the gospel. Not one.
Why do I believe that? Because that’s what God’s Word says.
Romans 10:17: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”
You must preach the good news of Jesus. You must hear it in order to believe it.
And it is, according to Romans 1:16, the gospel that is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
There’s no way around the gospel in order to be saved.
“When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.”
Number two, you believed it. You believed in Christ.
That’s what it says, “and believed in Him.”
It’s not enough just to hear it. Again, just because I’m a Reformed doctrines-of-grace believer, believing what the Bible says about him choosing, does not mean that I think you don’t have to exercise faith in the gospel.
No, you do. You must believe. It is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That’s what the Bible teaches. You must believe.
It doesn’t just say, “when you heard the gospel, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and were saved.”
No, “and believed in Him.”
There are a lot of people who really like the gospel, but they haven’t believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation.
They may have even heard the true gospel like we’ve been talking about. And they say, “You know, I really like that.” That’s not the same thing. That’s not the same thing as believing in him.
“Yeah, that sounds like a great story. It’s a good movie line. Great storyline. Man, everybody’s in trouble. Jesus came and he laid down his life so that people could be saved. Wow, I like that.”
Great. Do you believe it?
Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you believe on him? Do you believe that Jesus is the only way, that he is Lord, that he is Savior?
Hearing the gospel is necessary. It is even essential to the process, but it’s not enough. The gospel must be received by faith.
“Believed in Him” means to place your whole trust in Jesus.
So when these original Ephesians, for example, would have been putting their faith in Jesus, it would have looked like something outwardly. In this area, in this region, in this town, in this city, in the surrounding areas, this Greek kind of culture that they were in, they believed in all kinds of gods, all kinds of idols erected everywhere that they would worship, they would serve.
It would be literally turning from all that, rejecting it all.
None of that is real. None of that is good. My worshiping that idol is not good enough anymore. It’s unworthy. That’s not my God.
And to say, “Jesus Christ alone is my God.”
It’s to turn from everything else, to turn from your idols, to turn from your former way of life, to turn from self-righteousness, that I’m a pretty decent person. It’s to turn away from everything else and rest entirely on Jesus.
It is to believe that his death and resurrection was sufficient to pay the penalty for sins and to guarantee their salvation. It is to believe those facts, those truths.
And so just like it was for them, as Paul is talking to these believers there, it is the same for us today. The same response is required for every single person who would become a Christian, who would be a believer, who would be redeemed.
It’s not enough to just admire Jesus. It’s not enough just to attend church or to try to live as moral of a life as you can.
You must believe in him. You must entrust yourself to him as your Lord and Savior.
Romans tells us if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
So then we come to the next part of this verse, which is what’s going to connect us to next week.
Notice when this happened. Notice the timing.
Paul doesn’t say they believed and then sometime later down the road, the Holy Spirit decided to show up. In the grammar of the sentence, in the flow of this sentence, the believing and the sealing of the Holy Spirit happened at the same time. It’s in the same moment.
In the moment they believed in Christ, they were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
At that moment, you were sealed with the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit here is called the promised Holy Spirit. Why? Because he was promised.
Throughout the Old Testament, sometimes people think, “Well, the Holy Spirit didn’t show up until the New Testament.” That’s not true.
He’s God. God eternally exists. He’s infinite. He’s always existed, and he’s always at work, and he’s even in the Old Testament. You’re just not looking.
From the very beginning, the Spirit hovered over the waters. He’s there. He’s at work.
But the promised Holy Spirit to dwell within his believers is even back there.
Prophets like Joel and Ezekiel prophesied of a day when God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh. And then Jesus himself, while he was with his disciples, what did he do? He made them a promise, didn’t he? He said that he would send a Comforter. He’s going to send the Spirit to his disciples.
And by this time, when Paul’s writing Ephesians, what has also taken place? Acts chapter 2. Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came, and that promise was fulfilled.
And so now, every single believer receives the Holy Spirit at the moment they believe.
It is the Holy Spirit that is bringing about regeneration. He is giving us faith. He’s opening our eyes to see the truth of the gospel. He’s gifting us the faith to believe that gospel and repentance to turn from everything else to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Again, I’ll flesh out more of what the sealing actually means.
But the reason I’m emphasizing this, I want you to understand that the sealing of the Holy Spirit is not a second blessing that comes later on. It’s immediate.
At the very instant of conversion, God is sealing the believer with his Spirit.
This is important, and I emphasize it today because in our world today, in the broader Christian world, there are some denominations, particularly in the more charismatic traditions, that teach that the Holy Spirit comes upon a person in a separate, subsequent experience later on after conversion.
They often point to speaking in tongues or other dramatic manifestations as the evidence or the proof that someone has actually received the Holy Spirit.
You may hear people talk about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. They think of that as a second work of grace that empowers the believer for service. It happens some later time.
But, believer, that’s not my view. That’s not the Baptist view. That’s not the biblical view, unfortunately. And it’s hard to have those conversations with some that are in those traditions.
But according to what Scripture says, according to what we even just read here in this one verse in Ephesians chapter 1, it tells us clearly the sealing with the Holy Spirit happens at the moment of faith.
When a sinner hears the gospel and truly believes in Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in him immediately. You see, the presence of the Holy Spirit is the seal. It is the marking that the person belongs to God.
This doesn’t deny the works of the Holy Spirit. That doesn’t deny the gifting of the Spirit, various gifts that the New Testament talks about. But the New Testament is clear that the Spirit is received when we believe, not when we speak in tongues, not later on.
When we believe.
Brother David Miller put it like this. Baptists are oftentimes falsely accused of ignoring the Holy Spirit because we don’t believe in all the second blessing and that kind of stuff that I was just talking about.
But here’s what David Miller said:
“Baptists who are saved are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and Baptists who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit are gifted by the Spirit, and those who are indwelt and gifted by the Spirit have in them a river of living water flowing out.”
See, rather than not believing in the Holy Spirit as we are falsely accused of sometimes, we believe in the Spirit. But we believe he comes in that moment, immediately.
And it’s because he has come, that he seals us, that we have the life, that we have the giftings, that we have all the things. We don’t manifest them in order to prove that we have them. We have them. He’s with us.
The sealing by the Spirit means that God has marked you as his own.
“I own you,” God says of each of us who believe.
Again, there’s more involved. There’s ownership, there’s security. We’re going to explore that more fully next week in what the sealing means, what being sealed by the Holy Spirit means as we move and finish through verse 14.
But today, it’s enough for us to rejoice that this sealing of the Holy Spirit, the coming of the Holy Spirit into the life of a believer, is immediate, and it is certain, and it is a promise for every single person who believes.
So Ephesians 1:13 tells us that when we heard the gospel of our salvation, the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, and believed in Jesus, we’re sealed with the promised Holy Spirit at that very moment.
So if you have truly believed in Christ, then the promise for you is that you carry God’s own seal upon you. You have God himself in you. You belong to him, and the Holy Spirit is the proof of it.
But again, if you’ve never believed, today is the day. Hear the word of truth. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and when you do, God will seal you with his Spirit and make you his forever.
So for those of us who are his, let this fill us with joy, with security, with assurance of salvation, that the God who is with us is not going to lose us.
You were sealed at the moment of faith. He doesn’t go away. He doesn’t come just if you’re good enough.
So we can live now as thankful, grateful, beloved, and holy people for the glory of God alone.
Amen.