Seals are impressions made when something hard presses into something soft. Signet rings and such impress, and clay and wax are impressed. I am a printmaker—I impress—and seals are a form of printmaking. Seals recently impressed me in a way that allows me to impress you with a penetrating truth about the faith walk of a follower of Jesus.
Here’s how I got there: The cycle of seven Feasts of God we read about in Leviticus 23 are to begin in early April. Those feasts present an annual calendar that is also a prophetic calendar of the history of God’s ministry to humanity, the unfolding of His plan of redemption. We experience His yearly calendar as a teaching picture that prepares us to understand His greater purposes throughout mankind’s history.
The first four feasts were fulfilled in human history, and we see them in hindsight. Jesus chose Passover as the day for His crucifixion, He chose Unleavened Bread for His burial, and He chose First Fruits for His resurrection. Pentecost is the day on which Jesus chose to give the promised gift of His Holy Spirit, and the Church was born.
The three fall feasts in God’s annual calendar, Trumpets, Atonement, and Booths, have yet to be prophetically fulfilled in human history. They point to the time of Jesus’s return and God’s fulfillment of His “kingdom come.” We look forward to their fulfillment with hope and certainty because we have seen the first four fulfilled.
Let’s look at what happened at Pentecost (the fourth feast) and how we get to the topic of seals and signet rings. The Church was born in the upper room in Jerusalem with the giving of the Holy Spirit. The giving of the Holy Spirit is a fulfillment of a promise Jesus made to the disciples before He died, that although He was leaving, He would send a Comforter, a Helper, the Spirit of Truth who is the Spirit of Messiah, who abides with us and is in us. Jesus commanded the disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the fulfillment of that promise.
With the giving of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church that took place on Pentecost, we are now, prophetically speaking, waiting with great expectation through the long, hot summer of history for the next big event in God’s cosmic calendar—for end-time events that have yet to occur.
What does it mean for us as believers in Jesus to have received the gift of the Holy Spirit and to be born as the Church but to still be waiting for the return of Jesus? Paul describes our present state:
In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:13–14)
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:30)
But it is God who establishes us together with you in Christ and who anointed us, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment. (2 Corinthians 1:21–22)
For we know that if our earthly house, the tent we live in, is dismantled, we have a building from God, a house not built by human hands, that is eternal in the heavens. For in this earthly house we groan, because we desire to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed, after we have put on our heavenly house, we will not be found naked. For we groan while we are in this tent, since we are weighed down, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment. (2 Corinthians 5:1–5)
We are sealed with a pledge. What does it mean to be sealed in this way? From NET commentary: This “denotes the first payment or first installment of money or goods which serves as a guarantee or pledge for the completion of the transaction…. The possession of the Spirit now by believers…can be viewed as a guarantee that God will give them the balance of the promised blessings in the future” (Ephesians 1:14 NET Bible note).
Today, we use our signatures to authenticate documents. But in ancient days, people did not write so much. When they needed to give authority to a document and show that the document authentically represented them, they used a seal. Sigillography is the word for the study of seals, from the Latin sigillum, meaning “seal.” Wealthy, prominent, or influential people had their own seals. There were personal seals, and official government and royal seals. Sometimes these seals were in the form of signet rings.
A seal was made from a hard material as a way of making an impression on a soft material. The hard material might be wood, metal, or crystal that was carved with an image or symbol, or words representing the person who owned the seal. The soft material was wax or clay. Often, the seals depicted gods or kings, as a way of invoking their authority over the document that was sealed.
In the book of Esther, we see the king—and in the Joseph story in Genesis, we see the pharaoh—giving their authority to Mordecai and Joseph by giving them their signet rings. That meant that Mordecai and Joseph had the authority to sign documents in the name of the pharaoh or king.
Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put the gold necklace around his neck. (Genesis 41:42)
The king took off his signet ring which he had taken away from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. (Esther 8:2)
The Lord speaks through the prophet Haggai about a Messianic prototype who will one day rule and reign, using Zerubbabel to represent the Christ to come:
“On that day,” declares the LORD of hosts, “I will take you, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, My servant,” declares the LORD, “and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you,” declares the LORD of hosts. (Haggai 2:23)
Could it be that Jesus Himself is God’s signet ring with which we are sealed? We are sealed with a view to an inheritance to come that will become manifest when Jesus returns. We are marked with the image of God (made in His image), His authority, His ownership, His authenticity, His royalty. He has the authority to open the seal according to His perfect will. We are God’s letter.
You are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:3)
Remember the finger of God that wrote the tablets on Mt. Sinai?
From Bible-History.com: “In Scripture we find, somehow, we are sealed…. A free-will decision is made. An imprint is then formed within us. Our souls bear His mark, His letters, His image, and all powers [meaning principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this age, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places] are duly informed: we belong to God. In His timing, many times unknown to us, He opens us as a scroll, and reads aloud what He has written inside, we become a living decree, a love letter and invitation for others to receive the forgiveness offered in Christ, and to be sealed forever by the gentle all-powerful Holy Spirit of God. The signet is hard and makes a deep impression, but only on soft substances like clay, wax, or humility. It cannot leave its mark on stone, or metal, or pride” (“Ancient Seals or Signets,” Bible History, bible-history.com/sketches/seals).
Not only is Jesus the signet ring, but He is also sealed by God:
On Him the Father, God, has set His seal. (John 6:27)
And who is worthy to open the seals? Only one is worthy to open the seals. Since it was God who sealed you for the day of redemption, it must be God who is able to open the seal. What does it mean to open the seal? It means that whatever is written on the scroll that was sealed has come to its moment—its time has come for fulfillment.
So it is with us. We are sealed until the time that we are ready to receive or fulfill what God has for us. We’ve been promised an inheritance, and when the time comes for it to be delivered to us, the seal will be opened.
So, in this long, hot summer of history as we await the return of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, we are “a letter of Christ, …written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts,” whose seal can only be opened by God Himself, and we wait for God to open our seal and deliver the fullness of our inheritance: the place Jesus has been preparing for us, the full measure of glory that He has to share with us.
Lord, may our spirits be soft enough to bear Your impression as a seal. May it be that we are teachable, humble, and aware that we are not our own. May we be willing to be sanctified, purified, readied for your return. And in the meantime, may we be useful for the good works that You have prepared beforehand for us to do during this long, hot summer of Your cosmic history!
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