Sanam Doctrinam

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation— having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

Ephesians 1:13-14

Occasionally I have been foolish enough to venture into computers I have owned. After I figure out how to remove the external case, typically losing a few of the tiny screws that hold it on in the process, I sometimes find a component I cannot identify, but that I feel quite certain must be removed to remedy whatever problem exists with the device. Strapped to that component is normally a brightly colored sticker that says something about invalidating a warranty if it is removed. I hesitate, then break the seal.

Seals are important. They guarantee things. In the above example, they are designed to guarantee that I don’t mess with something I’ve got no business getting into. On educational transcripts, seals guarantee authenticity. On perishable foods, they guarantee freshness.

In Scripture we discover that God the Holy Spirit has a guaranteeing ministry, of sorts. It is known as His sealing ministry. Specifically, it guarantees two things. To understand these two things, we have to consult the Scriptures to understand how the sealing ministry is used in them.

The first way we see seals being used in the Bible is as a guarantee of ownership or identity. To illustrate the way the Bible references seals being used in this way, we can go to Genesis 41:42. There, Pharaoh gives Joseph his signet ring. A signet ring is a ring used to make impressions or seals in a soft material. Joseph was able to put Pharaoh’s identifying mark of ownership on whatever he wanted. Another place we see a seal being used as a guarantee of ownership is in Revelation 7:2-8. There, 144,000 are identified as God’s servants by a seal. They will be certainly identified as the servants of the one true God by the fact that they have His seal upon them. Much as cattle brands today identify the owners of animals, in biblical times a seal identified who owned the thing or person which bore the seal.

The second way in which a seal was used in Scripture was to show security. The colorful story of Daniel in the lion’s den is an example of this use. Daniel 6:17 says that Darius sealed the stone over the den in order to guarantee that Daniel was securely inside. In a similar New Testament use of a seal, we can go to Matthew 27:66. There, the Pharisees and the chief priests put a seal on Christ’s tomb. Again, the seal upon the tomb demonstrated security. No one would open Jesus’ tomb without breaking the seal. His body was secure (or so they thought).

The significance of the Holy Spirit’s sealing ministry is visible in these literal uses of seals in the Bible. The Spirit’s indwelling presence in the believer in Jesus Christ guarantees his or her identity. God identifies the believer as one of His own. Our recognition of our unique identity as God’s own possession informs every aspect of how we live.

There is a poignant moment in the movie Toy Story, when the main character, a cloth doll named Woody, forgets what he’s all about. Then, he looks at the bottom of his boot and spies the name of his owner, Andy, carved into the plastic. As a result, Woody regains his sense of who he is and what he should be about. As believers in Christ, we, too, need to check our metaphorical boots from time to time to remind ourselves of whose we are. Being sealed as God’s own is a powerful incentive for holy living because it says that we are not our own, that we are to be living for Another.

Besides guaranteeing the believer’s identity, the sealing of the Spirit in the life of the believer is a guarantee of the believer’s security. This guarantee of security is particularly apparent in today’s verse. Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1:14 as “a pledge of our inheritance.” The meaning of the word for “pledge” literally is the “payment of part of a purchase price in advance.” The point is that the Spirit being given to believers is the first installment, the down payment, in our redemption. Our redemption will culminate in the redemption of our bodies, or our glorification (Romans 8:23). We live in anticipation and expectation of this future reality. While our glorification is yet future, it’s as good as done. God has already made the down payment. We already have His seal, the Holy Spirit, so we can live in confidence that we will spend eternity glorified in the presence of the glorious Christ.

Today, in response to what we’ve seen about the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit, we’ve got an opportunity to thank God that we are His. What’s more, we can express gratitude to Him that we will certainly appear with His Son in glory. We have His seal on it.

. . . for he who has died is freed from sin.

Romans 6:7

A dark era in the history of our nation was the time of American slavery. Slaveholders systematically and forcibly reduced their slaves to the designation of being mere property. It was a tragic time in America’s history. Abraham Lincoln, however, sought to make a formal end of the practice of American slavery in the Confederate States of America by means of his “Emancipation Proclamation.” This document freed the slaves who were held in the Confederacy. As good as Lincoln’s order was, however, it was accompanied by tragedy: Many slaves did not know that it had been issued. They were free, by executive order of the President of the United States. Their lack of knowledge of the freedom that had been extended to them by the President, however, make the Emancipation Proclamation’s words useless to them. As far as they knew, they were still enslaved, and continued to live like it.

A rough corollary might be extended from this bit of American history to believers in Jesus Christ. They, too, have received an Emancipation Proclamation, of sorts.

To find our emancipation, we need go no farther than today’s verse, Romans 6:7. There, Paul explicitly tells us that we are freed from sin. He says that this freedom came by means of our death, of all things. Specifically, Paul speaks of our death by crucifixion. Romans 6:6 tells us that believers were crucified with Christ. When we believed in Him, we were also identified with Him in His death to the end that we died to our old ways. Dead people have no obligations. Sin was our master before Christ. When we died with Him, we were released from any obligations toward sin. It is no longer our master.

There are two types of people in our world. First of all, there are those who are slaves of sin, and think they are not. The world is filled with such folks. They believe they are free, but they are actually enslaved. They are captive to the impulses and passions of sin. They think they are free to do what they want, but the reality is that they are unknowingly following the dictates of the flesh. Then, there are those who are not slaves of sin, and think that they are. Many believers in Jesus Christ, much as the slaves who did not know of the Emancipation Proclamation, fall into this category. They are not aware that they are free. Consequently, they go on obeying a master to whom they have no obligation.

It is a shame to think of a believer in Jesus Christ going though life, serving that which is not his master, simply because he is ignorant of what God has said. Scripture, however, boldly says that believers in Christ are no longer slaves to sin. They are free. They are forever delivered from the slavery of sin.

What practical difference does this make in our lives? It seems abstract to speak of our crucifixion with Christ and deliverance from the slavery of sin. Scripture provides these facts, but do they make resistance to sin any easier? Certainly the struggle with sin for the believer in Christ does not cease the moment she considers herself dead to sin (Romans 6:11), but Paul does use our new relation to sin as an incentive and a philosophical ground for the way we live. He reasons this out, when, in Romans 6:19, he says, “For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.” After this, Paul asks us to consider what it was like when we were slaves of sin. He asks the Romans in Romans 6:21 to do a benefit analysis on what they gained from their slavery to sin. He describes what they derived from their service to sin as death. So, he says, our crucifixion with Christ and our death and consequent freedom from sin has great significance with regard to our everyday practice. As we size up the results of our service to our old master, sin, with that of our new freedom, we are utterly compelled to live in the light of our God’s proclamation of our emancipation.

As believers in Jesus Christ, we are truly free from sin. Let’s live like it!

For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:13-14

According to Noah Webster, our English word forgive comes from the Gothic word, fragiban. The sense is “to give from,” that is, away, as we see by the Gothic fra (”from”). The original idea behind forgiveness, then, is to forgive the offense, to send it away, to reject it, not to impute it to the offender.

I like this image Webster uses. It’s almost as if the person granting forgiveness ships away whatever offense has been done, with no return address. God does something like that, as well, at the moment a person believes in Christ. For today’s musing, I’d like to do two things. First, I’d like to trace the concept of forgiveness throughout the pages of Scripture; and second, to consider the two types of forgiveness of which Scripture speaks and how they apply to today’s verse.

Forgiveness from God was something a bit different in the Old Testament, as compared to its significance today. In the Old Testament, there were a multiplicity of sacrifices by which saints sought to deal with sin. The primary way they sought to deal with sin was by covering it. That may conjure up images in our minds of cleaning the floor by sweeping the dirt under a rug. Actually, this idea of covering was something God Himself ordained. There was even a special word for it. It’s the word that is translated in our English Bibles “to atone.” The word literally means “to cover.” In fact, in some places, such as in the account of Noah covering the ark with pitch, the word is used very literally (Genesis 6:14), as Noah brushed waterproofing into the gaps in the ark’s wood. The idea of covering sin may seem like a poor way of dealing with it. It seems so temporary. It was. God was demonstrating to people that sin can’t be covered indefinitely. Eventually, it has to be dealt with. These Old Testament saints were forgiven, so to speak, on credit, when their sin was covered. The bill would come due. When was it paid? On the cross, of course. When Jesus bore the sin of mankind on the cross, He was paying the bill of all the sin that had been previously covered. Today, we live in the afterglow of the bill having been paid. When we believe in Christ, no longer is our sin merely covered. It is, as Colossians 1:14 points out, forgiven. The debt has been paid.

What is forgiveness? What does it involve in our day? In the Old Testament, as we have seen, sin was simply covered on a temporary basis. In the New Testament, however, Scripture speaks of forgiveness in two senses. The first, which we might refer to as judicial forgiveness, happens at the moment a person believes in Christ. The second sense, which we might refer to as relational forgiveness, is ongoing in nature. Jesus contrasts both in His words to Peter in John 13:10. He refers to judicial forgiveness in terms of a bath and relational forgiveness in terms of washing one’s feet. Relational forgiveness is the type of forgiveness that is spoken of in 1 John 1:9, where we read about confessing our sins that we might experience forgiveness. Relational forgiveness is necessary because we disrupt our fellowship with God as believers in Christ when we sin. Colossians 1:13-14, however, is speaking about judicial forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness involves God dealing with our moral debt obligations in a final way. He sends our offenses away.

Right now, our home is for sale. We eagerly anticipate the day that our house is sold, and our debt obligations to the bank are satisfied. I anticipate a sense of relief when we are told that the debt we owe is paid in full. That’s the sense in judicial forgiveness. God says to the believing sinner, “All debts are paid, not on the basis of your having paid them, but on the basis of My Son having paid them.”

As believers in Christ, we have not simply connected ourselves to another religious belief system; we are forgiven people. God has sent our sins away—forever.

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.

1 John 3:1

It’s hard to know with much certainty about the personalities and characteristics of the writers of the New Testament. Of course, there are clues, as in surveying the New Testament we discover the different styles of the writers. Different writers focused on certain terms and themes. Sometimes, a particular writer’s style has a unique flavor, such as Mark’s tendency to pen a fast-moving narrative. While it may be impossible to know everything about these writers, I believe we can say that there was one thing that the Apostle John found astounding: the fact that believers in Jesus Christ are children of God.

John did well to be astounded, and so should we. To consider the import of God calling us His children is a daunting undertaking. I think it might be most helpful to consider three areas of significance related to the identity of believers in Jesus Christ as God’s children. These three areas of significance are certainly not exhaustive by any means. They are, however, found in the near context of today’s verse, and so I’ll limit my reflections to those.

First, it’s worthy to note that the believer’s identity as God’s child is an expression of His love for us. John says as much. He describes the fact that we are God’s children as the outworking of the Father’s great love for us. It makes sense: Parents normally love their children. God, by simply telling us that we are His children, is, at the same time, setting His love upon us. It’s a popular idea that we’re all God’s children (”all” being defined in the broadest sense). The biblical reality, however, is that only those who have placed their faith in Christ are God’s children. Those of us who have children can understand what is in a parent’s heart toward their child. Now, imagine the perfect father. That’s exactly how God identifies Himself. His love is perfect, deep, and unchanging. This love is not some kind of cold, theological abstraction. It’s a warm, tenderhearted compassion by means of which He cares for us with the greatest concern. Our Father loves us!

A second area of significance the Apostle John identifies is uniqueness in contrast to the world. In 1 John 3:1, the apostle writes: “For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” Believers in Jesus Christ are different. The New Testament says as much when it identifies believers as “holy,” which carries the idea of being set apart. Believers in Christ are twice-born people in a once-born world. They are citizens of heaven among citizens of earth. They are God’s children among children of the devil. As a consequence, we stand in stark relief to the rest of humanity. We are “a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). As a result, John points out, we can only expect not to be known by the world. The idea behind that phrase is that the world cannot figure out believers in Christ. They are a conundrum, an enigma to the unbelieving world. This, I might add, is why faithful believers in Jesus Christ who consistently mirror His ways will undoubtedly experience persecution in one form or another (2 Timothy 3:12). Believers in Jesus Christ are unique as God’s children.

The third area of significance related to our identity as God’s children is what we might refer to as “family resemblance.” In 1 John 3:2 we read, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” Parents’ biological children are imbued with their genes. I have characteristics, both visible and as components of my personality, that are similar to those of my parents. So it is in the spiritual realm. God’s children, John says, bear His characteristics in some regard now, but in their glorification they will fully reflect His characteristics, even as Jesus did, perfectly. One day for believers in Christ it will truly be “like Father, like son” (or daughter!).

We are far from merely being people who hold to a unique set of spiritual beliefs. We are the very children of God. And our identity as His children reminds us of His deep love for us, our uniqueness in contrast to the world, and the distinct family resemblance we will mirror perfectly in the age to come.