Being Sealed With the Holy Spirit Does Not Mean Unconditional Eternal Security

Unconditional eternal security teachers often don’t blatantly just say that the Christian has a license to sin. They rather typically just imply that in stating that the Christian could never possibly end up lost. One of the routes which they take to make that claim is by using Bible verses about born-again Christians being sealed by the Holy Spirit. As with many of the other ways in which the unconditional security people deceive with vain words, they add to the Word of God by reading “sealed unconditionally” into the verses about being sealed with the Holy Spirit- even though the Bible does not use the term “sealed unconditionally.”

Besides the big question regarding whether an individual is really even sealed in the first place, the Bible speaks about the conditions of those who are actually sealed remaining sealed until the day of redemption. It also warns of the very real possibility of grieving the Holy Spirit to the point of falling away from Christ and being condemned to hell in the end.

2 Corinthians 1:22: “Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”

Only those who forsake their sins in repentance and submit to Christ to be His disciple under the authority of His Word are sealed with His Spirit in the first place (Acts 5:30-32). These are sealed in a conditional way which does not involve a license to live unholy going forward nor irresistible compelling to ensure that they never turn away from the Lord.

If someone who had been sealed with the Holy Spirit is unconditionally eternally secure no matter how they live now, because they had at some point previously repented and turned to Christ, this would make the gospel basically an offer to get in line with the Lord today so you can be safe from His condemnation no matter what you do tomorrow. Consider how illogical, contradictory, and just plain evil that would be. Yet many practically claim this to be the true gospel. The authentic Gospel though does not work this way. It rather works in line with the rest of the Word of God which guarantees that the Lord has no fellowship with evildoers and judges them without exceptions.

Colossians 3:25: “But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.”

Psalm 5:4-6: “For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish (or, boastful) shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing (that is, lying; deceit; falsehood): the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.”

A person being sealed with the Holy Spirit is the Lord’s witness that they have entered the narrow way to life in Christ. The Holy Spirit residing in an individual also is able to provide detailed help which is necessary in navigating that narrow way to obtaining ultimate redemption in the end. Since subjection to the written Word of God defines that narrow way to life, the Holy Spirit’s instruction always aligns with and conforms to that. Jesus walked in His own Word in like manner on earth. He surely does not seal people to embolden them to walk in a contrary way (that is, walk in sin) nor does His Spirit lead anyone without their active cooperation. It is altogether possible for one to draw back from the Lord after they have entered the narrow way to life and begun to be led by the Holy Spirit.

The following warning is given to truly born-again Christians who had been sealed by the Spirit (they had been reminded of that earlier in Ephesians; and they are reminded again here right as they are given this warning).

Ephesians 4:30: “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”

There are many who think that you can never be unsealed through grieving the Spirit of God. Though the same people add “unconditionally” to the Bible in the verses about people being sealed with the Holy Spirit, they also subtract from the Bible in ignoring the vast multitude of proofs which it gives that those who have really been sealed and begun well in Christ can end up lost. There is one such proof given less than ten verses after the warning about grieving the Spirit in Ephesians 4:30.

Ephesians 5:5-6: “For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.”

Judgment Day will not be a day of redemption for those who work lawlessness in God’s eyes- whether they were ever sealed with His Spirit before or not. The unconditional eternal security preachers have their pet verses in Ephesians which they love to quote- but they don’t bring up Ephesians 5:5-6.

A living faith which is acceptable is demonstrated by deeds (in terms of following the light of God’s Word). Unbelief is also demonstrated by refusing to follow the light of God’s Word. Those who get sealed with the Holy Spirit are only sealed because they have turned to the Lord with a living faith which is attentive, diligent, and active to do whatever He commands. The seal itself is a witness to the acceptable quality of one’s faith. Those who are sealed which don’t in accordance with a living faith in Christ obviously grieve the Spirit. Those who refuse to repent and rather persist in disobedience will be unsealed for turning against the very purpose they were sealed for. Saying that those who get sealed are sealed unconditionally is adding to the Word of God and going against the very logic of Biblical redemption.

Let’s look at another passage which the unconditional eternal security teachers like to latch onto- even though it doesn’t teach what they claim it teaches.

John 10:27-30: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.”

Hearing Jesus’ voice and following Him is an essential of faith. Exercising faith for a time won’t keep one who is not continuing to do so in the present. The seal on a believer in Christ can be broken. No one is being kept in Christ who is not continuing in a living faith in Him by hearing His voice (i.e. His Word) and following Him. The seal is kept intact through the believer continuing in obedient faith. Like the similarly abused passages Romans 8:35-39 and 1 Peter 1:5, John 10:27-30 is not teaching unconditional eternal security. However, what all of these passages do teach, along with the verses about Christians being sealed with the Holy Spirit, is that no external force can separate an obedient disciple who is faithfully following the real Jesus of the Bible from the love of God which is in Him.

The Apostle Paul, the man who wrote the epistles which speak of believers being sealed with the Holy Spirit, understood that he had a race to run in being led by the Holy Spirit on the narrow way to life in order to actually attain the redemption which he was sealed for.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”

The word that the Bible uses to describe setting a seal in the Greek text has to do with attesting or confirming something. And the word in the Greek text for castaway in 1 Corinthians 9:27 is “adokimos”- a word related to being rejected; not approved; being unfit for; not standing the test.

The Apostle Paul then, though he had been sealed already by the Spirit of God, ran and fought to heed the instructions of God’s Word and not rather turn back to sin in order to endure on the narrow way to life in Christ so that he would be fit to enter the kingdom of God at the end. He instructed others who had been sealed to do the same.

The very act of taking one phrase in the Bible, and then divorcing that phrase from the rest of the Bible’s counsel to state a conclusion which the rest of the Bible’s counsel teaches contrary to, is ridiculous. The obvious and basic Biblical principle of needing to be subject to the authority of God’s Word in order to be in His grace, the reality the Bible expresses of how man must choose to serve the Lord and reject idols both before and after an initial conversion to the true God, and the actuality that Jesus came to save us from our sins (not in them) are all aspects of the Bible’s counsel which demonstrate that being sealed with the Holy Spirit at one’s initial conversion doesn’t unconditionally guarantee one’s eternal salvation. There is a trial afterwards related to the logic of why one would be sealed in the first place. There are many other Bible realities as well which must be taken into account in order to properly understand what the Bible means, and what it doesn’t mean, when it speaks of being sealed with the Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 12:7-14 (this is speaking directly to Christians which had been sealed with the Holy Spirit): “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:” (and keep reading in Hebrews 12 for the point to be driven home yet more).

Rejecting unconditional eternal security, recognizing it for the deceitful belief that it is, and not compromising in standing against it will cut a person off from mainstream Christian communities and networks. The doctrine that born-again Christians are immune in this life from turning against the Lord and ending up in hell for doing so is despicable and results in practical evil consequences. The doctrine itself pertains to the realm of darkness. Those who embrace it, along with those which treat it as acceptable for anyone to hold, need to repent and forsake all associations with it.