Ceremony, Communion and the Sabbath

Gospel Tract #

The Seal of God

The struggle to survive occupied so much of ancient man's attention that relatively few people had the time to learn to read or write; therefore, a seal (a mark or sort of picture) was commonly used on legal documents instead of a signature. Each person's seal, or mark, was equiva lent to his name.

In the New Testament, it is said that God puts His name, or seal, on those whom He forgives. God's Old Covenant seal was physical circumcision (Rom.4:11), but the Seal of God is now "the Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph.4:30). Receiving the holy Ghost is the New Covenant equiva lent to Old Covenant circumcision. Paul wrote that now "circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter" (Rom. 2:29). By the baptism of the Spirit, we have the Father's name figuratively engraved on our hearts.

It should be noted that it is after we believe in Christ, not before, nor even when we believe, that we are sealed with the Spirit. There must be a believing before there is a receiving. Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of the faith he demonstrated before he received circumcision (Rom.4:11). In the same manner, we receive the baptism of the holy Ghost as a seal of the obedient faith in Jesus which we demonstrate before we receive it. As wise Peter explained, God gives the holy Ghost "to all who obey Him" (Acts 5:32).

God's Witness

The Seal of God must be applied to every transaction of His before it is official; and when that holy Seal is applied to our hearts, the evidence of it is the same as it has always been: speaking in tongues. Without that, no one is autho rized to claim to belong to the family of God. We are, in a manner of speaking, adopted into the family of God. Paul wrote, "Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry out, `Abba, Father'" (Rom. 8:15). Until we receive that blessed Spirit and "cry out" by its power in a language which the Spirit inspires, we have no inheritance in the kingdom of God.

Soon after the days of the apostles, Christianity, the perversion of the faith of Christ Jesus, blossomed; its ministers denying the necessity of the baptism of the holy Ghost (the Seal of God). This was done cleverly, not by openly rejecting the baptism of the holy Spirit but by rejecting God's chosen sign of that experience: speaking in tongues. Three centuries after Paul, for example, one of Christianity's most revered "fathers", Augustine, proclaimed that it was nonsensical to expect everyone who receives the holy Spirit to speak in tongues! To this day, Christianity maintains that error - influencing even many who have been baptized with the holy Ghost to deny the necessity of their own gift from God! "Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure. . . ."

The birth of a baby may be anticipated with great joy, and names may even be chosen for the child before the birth occurs. Still, the child has no life of its own and has no hope of an inheritance until he is born. So, it is for the people of God a joyous event for a sinner to be convicted of sin and turn from it, but that is only the conception; he must continue in the Word of God until he is sealed, or baptized with the Spirit, thus becoming a newly-born member of the family of God (cp. Jn.16:20-22).

Both Jesus and the apostles stressed the importance of the baptism of the Spirit because they knew that it is God's Seal, His singular mark which He sets upon the hearts of those who are His. John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus's baptism and Jesus confirmed John's message by commanding his disciples, as he departed from them, to "wait for the promise of the Fa ther, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly bap tized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the holy Ghost not many days hence." (Acts 1:4-5). The "promise of the Father" is that same holy Spirit by which we are sealed, as these faithful disciples learned when they were sealed by the holy Spirit on Pentecost morning. They, and many after them, received "the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal.3:14).

Peter preached that this promised Seal of God is for "all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call" (Acts 2:38-39). Reader, this promise of the holy Ghost is for you. Jesus encouraged his disciples' faith with these wonderful words: "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" (Lk.11:13). Amen! The heart of every soul that loves Jesus will be stamped with God's Seal of Approval: the baptism of the holy Ghost.

The Holy Spirit of Promise

"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom ye also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise." (Ephesians 1:13)

When one receives "that holy Spirit of promise", one can know assuredly that he is in possession of the most marvelous experience ever obtained by man. Jesus told his disciples "that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them" (Mt.13:17). Peter would later echo Jesus's words when he wrote to the saints that "the prophets who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you enquired and searched diligently, wanting to know who or when the Spirit of Christ which was in them was pointing to, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow" (1Pet.1:10-11). None of Israel's ancient prophets experienced the glory of the new birth which followed the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, "but unto us they did minister [write] the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into" (1Pet.1:12).

It is essential that we understand that no one prior to Acts 2 was sealed by the baptism of the holy Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit was not available to the saints of old because Jesus was not yet glorified (Jn.7:37-39). The giving of God's holy Spirit to men was purchased by Jesus who ascended to the presence of the Father in heaven and offered his own precious blood for our sins (Heb.9:24). It was not possible that the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant could take away sins (Heb.10:4), but "the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God" is able to cleanse the vilest sinner and make him blameless before the Father's throne. Faith in the blood of Christ can even bring forgiveness for crimes which were unforgivable in the Old Testament (Acts 13:38- 39)!

The greatest of Old Covenant saints were not as blessed as are the lowliest members of the body of Christ. Jesus said, "Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist; notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he" (Mt.11:11). John was so great in the sight of God that the prophets of old in Israel prophesied of his ministry, just as they prophesied of Jesus's birth, death, and resurrection (Mt.11:7-10). Indeed, Jesus even said that John was "more than a prophet". Still, anyone in this New Covenant who is sealed (baptized) with "that holy Spirit of promise" has been honored more highly by the Father and stands closer to His heart than did John, or David, or Abraham, or Moses, or anyone else who lived before the Promise was given to men. All those ancient heroes of faith "obtained a good report through faith", but they "received not the Promise" (Heb.11:39).

The Correct Name of God

Many of Christianity's religious leaders feverishly debate the true name of God. One faction tells us that Jehovah is the name authorized for God's children to bear. Another party emphatically declares that Jesus is the one and only name of God. Others insist Yahweh is the correct name for the Creator. There is one point of truth which is relevant to all such groups; namely, unless a man is stamped with the Seal of God he will remain here or in his grave when Jesus returns for those bearing the Father's name, whatever it is. It is the holy Ghost baptism which alone imprints the Father's name into our hearts; and instead of striving about the precise pronunciation of the Father's name in our language, we would be wise to seek and to receive that Spirit which confesses Christ through us in a language which proceeds from the throne of God - the language which bears witness that God's Seal has been applied. As the apostle John declared, "It is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is truth" (1Jn.5:6).

The Final Benefit of The Seal of God

Reader, do you hope to escape the great plagues which will soon come upon this earth? Plagues such as this one: "And it was commanded them [scorpion-like locusts] that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the Seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them [those without the Seal of God], but that they should be tormented five months. And their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it; and they shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them" (Rev.9:4-6). If we hope to escape such torments, then we must submit now to the will of God and be sealed with the baptism of the holy Ghost. Doing that, we may be counted worthy to be in that number who "shall see His face, and His name shall be in their foreheads" (Rev.22:4).