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NASB | 2 Corinthians 1:22 who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 2 Corinthians 1:22 it is He who has also put His seal on us [that is, He has appropriated us and certified us as His] and has given us the [Holy] Spirit in our hearts as a pledge [like a security deposit to guarantee the fulfillment of His promise of eternal life]. |
Subject: When does one receive the Holy Spirit? |
Bible Note: Dear Jon, The internal reality is always manifest in observable externalities. Indeed, these are the means by which we judge ourselves (1 Corinthians 11:31; 2 Corinthians 13:5)! Feelings are utterly misleading. The Scriptures no nothing of a mystical, ethereal, insubstantial, unmeasurable faith. The gospel -- the true gospel -- changes lives! This is why the Scripture gives us so many characteristics of what the lost look like, what the saved look like, what hypocrites look like, disciples look like, what elders look like, what pastors and teachers look like, what false teachers look like, what godly older men look like, what godly younger men look like, etc. etc. So you say on the one hand that it is not possible to discern the effects of salvation, and then on the other you say that the fruit of the Spirit will eventually result. I am constrained to ask, therefore, are the items in the list in Galatians 5:22-23 ("love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" ) really only invisible/internal? Aren't they every bit as visible as the items in the previous list in vv19-21 ("sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies")? What am I missing in what you are trying to say? In Him, Doc "The testimony of an enlightened conscience, judging by the Word of God, and deciding in our favour, that by His grace we have been enabled to take up the 'yoke of Christ,' is in some respects a more satisfactory evidence that we are His and He is ours, than if an angel were sent from Heaven to tell us that our names are written in the book of life." --John Newton "The more these visible exercises of grace are renewed, the more certain you will be. The more frequently these actings are renewed, the more abiding and confirmed your assurance will be. A man that has been assured of such visible exercises of grace, may quickly after be in doubt, whether he was not mistaken. But when such actings are renewed again and again, he grows more settled and established about his good state. If a man see a good thing once, that makes it sure: but if afterwards he feared he was deceived, when he comes to see it again, he is more sure he was not mistaken." --Solomon Stoddard "Nothing deserves the name religion that falls short of a remarkable change of disposition, created in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and showing itself in unselfish love for the things of God and in a burning desire for Christian conduct for all men." --Jonathan Edwards "Frames and feelings are but evanescent, and Satan may be the inspirer of them. The Scriptural method for obtaining assurance is for us to prayerfully and impartially examine and test ourselves by the Word, to see whether or not we bear in ourselves those marks by which God’s children are described and may be identified: such as mourning over sin, hungering after righteousness, grieving over unbelief, longing for conformity to Christ’s image, separation from the world, walking in the way of God’s commandments, distrust of self, praying daily for Divine grace." --A. W. Pink "It has been given to you [the believer] as an opportunity for you to have a ministry in which you witness, you demonstrate a changed life, a heart at peace, the radiant joy of fellowship with a living Lord on your face, and love pouring out of your heart to those who, like you, have struggled and lost frequently in the rat race of life." --Ray C. Stedman "Our deeds are not the basis of our salvation, they are the evidence of our salvation. They are not foundation, they are demonstration." --John Piper "James 2:17 says that 'faith, if it hath not works, is dead.' An unfortunate legacy of modern evangelism is that one's assurance of salvation is attached to a decision. Biblically, however, assurance has nothing to do with the past; it's related to what your life is like right now. Jesus said, 'If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed' (John 8:31 ). Evidence of salvation is always present in a true believer." --John MacArthur |