In our corporate worship on the Lord’s Day, we’re now gazing into Eph. 1:13-14, as Paul gives praise for the guaranteeing seal of the Holy Spirit. In this brief passage, Paul speaks specifically about the Holy Spirit’s work with regard to the genuine conversion of God’s people, and also with regard to His securing of their eternal redemption.
To be sure, much confusion and distortion abounds with regard to the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Dr. Sinclair Ferguson makes this observation: “For while his work has been recognized, the Spirit himself remains to many Christians an anonymous, faceless aspect of the divine being. Even the title ‘Holy Spirit’ evokes a different gamut of emotions from those expressed in response to the titles ‘Father’ and ‘Son’”. (Ferguson, The Holy Spirit, IVP: 1996, pg. 12)
An exhaustive biblical study of the person and work of the Holy Spirit goes beyond the framework of our current exposition of Ephesians. But even as you read the book of Ephesians, you find that the Holy Spirit is prominent in all Paul has to say. Thus we learn of the sealing of the Spirit (Eph. 1:13; 4:30), of access in one Spirit to the Father (2:18), of God building His people into a dwelling of His in the Spirit (2:22); of God revealing truth to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit (3:5), of God seeking to strengthen His people with power through His Spirit (3:16), of Christians needing to be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (4:3), of there being one Spirit (4:4), of the danger of grieving the Holy Spirit (4:30), of Christian’s need to continually be filled with the Spirit (5:18), of the word of God being the sword of the Spirit (6:17), and of the need for Christian’s to continually be praying in the Spirit (6:18).
Beloved, because the Spirit of God has revealed so much about Himself in God’s word, we need to rightly understand His person and work. And even from all that is declared in Eph. 1:3-14, we need to rejoice and live in the power of the Spirit’s work, in connection with the electing grace of the Father, and the redeeming work of the Son. May God teach and strengthen all of us – for our assurance in Him, and His glory in and through us.
Because Christ lives, and is returning,
Greg