Sermon

by Rev. Charles Calder Mackintosh, D.D.
“Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”—Eph. 4:30.

There seems to be a great tendency in the present day to overlook the importance of rigidly adhering to the whole revealed mind of God regarding the way of salvation, and of being established in the faith of it. Wherever this tendency exists, we must view it as indicating a failing either in the reverent study of God’s Word, or in that inward vigour — the effect of feeding on the doctrines of the cross and of a growing acquaintance with them — which is at the root of all that is fruitful and precious in Christian practice. All the peculiar doctrines of the gospel have a practical tendency; that is to say, they are designed to influence, and, when truly received, do influence and regulate the conscience, the heart, and the life. This is true in an especial manner of the most mysterious and yet most vital of all doctrines — the doctrine of the Three-one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is no doctrine more above our comprehension; though there is nothing in it which is against our reason, inasmuch as we are not required to believe, as scoffers assert, that three are one, and one three in the same sense. And yet there is no doctrine which is more practical. It enters into the very essence of the Christian life to know the Father in His love, the Son in His mediation and grace, and the Spirit in His fellowship. The greatness of redemption is to be seen in this, that to each Person of the Godhead there is assigned His peculiar place or province in the work. To the Father it belongs to appoint everything in regard to the way of salvation, to choose sinners to eternal life, to send His Son, to accept of Him in His work, to justify those that believe in Him, and to manifest Himself as a reconciled God, Father, and Portion. (Eph. 1: 3-6). To the Son it belongs to purchase redemption by His sufferings and death, and in His state of exaltation to be Head over all things to the Church. (Eph. 1: 7, 22, 23; 5: 25-27). And to the Holy Ghost it belongs to put us in possession of the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

The peculiar work of the Holy Ghost was described in the preceding part of this epistle as that of the Quickener and the Indweller. He quickens those “dead in trespasses and sins: (Eph. 2: 1; compared with John 3: 6), and He dwells in His people as the Spirit of fellowship or of access to the Father (Eph. 2: 18, 22; 6: 18) — preserving and strengthening, and carrying on His great work in the heart, the work of sanctification according to His own nature as the Holy Spirit, according to the purpose of the Father, to the design of the Son in dying, and to the holiness of the law in all its precepts. (Eph 3: 16; 1: 4; 5: 26; 4: 17-32). And now in our text believers are declared to be sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption.

Let us, first, inquire into the meaning of this “sealing unto the day of redemption;” and, secondly, consider the exhortation founded on it.

I. We must connect this verse with the apostle’s previous statement, “In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession” (or of the peculiar people), “unto the praise of his glory.” (Eph. 1: 13, 14).

It is evident that whatever may be the precise nature of this privilege, it is something which follows faith and is consequent upon it. It follows the work of the Spirit as the Quickener; it follows the grace of adoption; and it accompanies the giving of the Spirit as the Spirit of adoption.

It may help to clear the views of some on this point, to notice that there is a twofold giving of the Holy Spirit: a giving to work faith, and a giving consequent on faith; the former, referred to by Christ when He says, “When he (the Comforter) is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment;” (John 16: 8), and the latter, referred to in the words, “That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Gal. 3: 14). Every sinner, as a sinner who needs to be united to Christ, to be born again, if he would see the Lord, has a warrant to pray to God in the Mediator’s name for the Holy Spirit; but it is the peculiar privilege of the children of God that the Spirit which has united them to Jesus is given to them to carry out the designs of that wondrous union, and to enable them to comport themselves suitably to their new relation as the children of God.

In the sealing of the Spirit there seems to be a reference to the two ordinary uses of sealing among men. First, it is to authenticate. The Holy Spirit is God’s mark put upon His people. The Spirit without measure was the Father’s mark upon His Son in the day of His humiliation: the Spirit in measure is the mark which He puts upon His chosen people. It is thus they are to be marked out from the world as a peculiar people. It is this which is to be the evidence to themselves that they are the children of God. They may not be able indeed at all times to read this evidence, though some find it so easy to carry about with them an undoubting persuasion of their sonship; but when the Holy Spirit bears witness with their spirits, when He sheds abroad the love of God in their hearts, then they know that they are His.

Secondly, the sealing is for the purpose of security; and this seems to be specially pointed at when it is said that the Holy Spirit seals “unto the day of redemption.” God’s people are preserved and kept by Him. They have been redeemed — with a redemption of which the redemption out of Egypt was the type; they have been brought out of the house of sore and cruel bondage, and have been led through the Red Sea; but there is a wilderness to cross ere their redemption be completed — a great and terrible wilderness, which is strewed thickly with the carcasses of those who have perished in the ages that are past; and though they have manna from heaven to eat, and water from the rock to drink of, and the pillar of cloud and fire to conduct them in the way, yet they have hardships to endure, enemies to encounter — many temptations tending to make them faint and be discouraged, to cast away their confidence and draw back to perdition. Can they then entertain the well-grounded hope that they shall reach the uttermost bounds of the wilderness, and not only see the heavenly Canaan, but pass in safety the intervening river and enter on possession of the promised land? Yes, for they are sealed by the Holy Spirit. As the Son of God has engaged to present each one of His people before the Father — not one lost by the way — so the Divine Spirit charges Himself with the work of securing their preservation and their growing sanctification, till grace issues in glory. This will be on “the day of redemption” — the day of death, when they shall go hence to be with Christ; but rather the day of resurrection, when the natural body shall be redeemed from the grave, and the mystical body shall be complete. Hence it is that the Holy Spirit is “the earnest of the inheritance,” because He has undertaken to preserve them to the end. If this were not the case, no present enjoyment of the life of God, no present fellowship with God, would be any foretaste to the soul of something better. But because the Holy Spirit is the seal, He is the earnest of the inheritance, and the least measure of true spiritual enjoyment in the service of God is the pledge of the fulness of joy at His right hand. This unspeakable gift of God is “without repentance,” and therefore is the broken heart the pledge of eternal glory.

II. The exhortation, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,”

is in the text founded on believers’ possession of these privileges — on their being interested in God’s unchangeable love, and secured in a state of grace by the continued indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Let not this statement be misapprehended. I do not say that the Christian’s natural obligations to live holily are in any measure interfered with by the privilege of being in Christ; instead of being weakened, they are deepened. I do not mean, therefore, that he ought not to recognise the authority as well as the love of God in such an exhortation as this. But his whole strength for discharging his obligations lies in the provision of the Holy Spirit to “work in him to will and to do of God’s good pleasure;” and in realizing how incalculable his obligations are, he would sink into utter hopelessness except for this blessed provision. Oh, it is much to make such acquaintance with God’s law as leads us, while renouncing it for ever as a ground of hope, to recognise its unchanging obligation as a holy and blessed rule; and to make such acquaintance with grace as deepens our sense of obligation, and under this deepening sense of it leads us to cling closer and closer to the provision of the Holy Spirit. There is a strong tendency in our hearts to pervert the blessed truths of God’s word; — to make the exhortations feed our self-righteousness; or, under colour of exalting the grace of God and the liberty of His people, to do away with the spring of holiness and the incentive to vigilance which lie in a recognition of the sacred authority of God.

Again, the words “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,” bring before us the peculiar love of the Spirit to His people. True, He is incapable of human passions. He is the self-sufficient and unchanging Jehovah. But this and similar language is employed in accommodation to our weakness, to teach us in the strongest way in which language can do it how loving the Holy Spirit is, and how His heart is set on the true good, even the sanctification, of His people. He is capable of being grieved because of the love which He bears to them and the interest He feels in them. Speaking after the manner of men, His happiness is concerned in their walking worthy of their privileges. As an affectionate father grieves over the misconduct of a son and the wretchedness which he has brought upon himself, just because he loves him; so there is a love in the Holy Spirit to the subjects of His grace — freer, purer, infinitely richer than we can conceive — which is wounded by their unkindness, and by the misery which follows it.

Again, this exhortation is one the force of which will be felt by the Christian and by no other. Believers are alive to the force of this appeal. Their hearts are capable of appreciating it. They have been made alive to the wondrous nature of the love of the Three-one God and to the obligations arising out of it. The new nature which they have received is one that is afraid of abusing goodness and of sinning against love. They are more afraid of this than of any temporal suffering. It is not enough for them to have some good hope of being saved from hell. That is all the natural heart desires; but that would be no joyful hope to the Christian — no hope at all — unless with it he could indulge the hope of being enabled to love and to glorify God. That is what he chiefly desires. And oh! when grace is in exercise, such an exhortation as this will go to the Christian’s heart — to the heart of his heart — “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.“