Sealing of the Holy Spirit

Definition and Meaning

The sealing of the Holy Spirit is the teaching that God gives the Holy Spirit to believers to mark them as His own possession and to guarantee their future salvation. A seal is a stamp or signet, and to seal is to impress such a stamp. In the ancient world a seal served three purposes: it indicated ownership, it authenticated something as genuine, and it secured something by closing it up. Biblical interpreters generally hold that all three senses are present in this expression.

Biblical and Historical Background

The principal text is Ephesians 1:13–14. Paul says that those who heard and believed the gospel "were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise," and he calls the Spirit "the earnest of our inheritance." Ephesians 4:30 urges believers not to grieve the Holy Spirit, "whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Second Corinthians 1:21–22 likewise states that God "hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." The scene in Ezekiel 9:4, in which those who receive a mark on their foreheads are spared from judgment, is often read together with Revelation 7:3: "till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads."

In the early church the word "seal" (Greek sphragis) was also used to refer to baptism. Continuing this tradition, the Eastern Orthodox Church anoints the newly baptized with oil immediately after baptism, proclaiming "the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit." The Catholic Church understands the expression in connection with the sacrament of confirmation. Since the Reformation, Protestants have generally regarded sealing not as a particular rite but as the Holy Spirit's indwelling of the believer at the moment of faith. Some, however, such as the Puritan Thomas Goodwin and, in the twentieth century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, are reported to have regarded sealing as a distinct experience of assurance that comes after one has believed.

Practice in Korean Churches

In Korean Protestant preaching, sealing is usually discussed together with the idea of a "guarantee" when explaining assurance of salvation. The emphasis varies among Korean denominations.

• Presbyterian and other Reformed denominations: These hold that every believer is sealed at the moment of believing and present this as a basis for the perseverance of the saints. The Westminster Confession of Faith calls the sacraments "signs and seals" of the covenant of grace.
• Methodist, Holiness, and other churches in the Wesleyan tradition: These emphasize assurance together with the witness of the Spirit described in Romans 8:16. At the same time, they tend to give considerable weight to Ephesians 4:30 as a warning to remain in the faith.
• Baptists: Many churches teach that the sealing received at conversion is a basis for the eternal security of salvation.
• Full Gospel and other Pentecostal denominations: Many explanations distinguish sealing, which occurs at regeneration, from baptism in the Holy Spirit, which is understood as a subsequent experience of receiving power.

Shincheonji, a group that the general assemblies of several Korean denominations have designated as heretical, interprets the sealed 144,000 of Revelation 7 as members who have been taught its own doctrines. Established denominations criticize this as an arbitrary interpretation of the text.