The Arrabon of the Holy Spirit

"This phrase is twice used by Paul in another Epistle (2 Cor 1:22, 5:5). The metaphor is taken from bargains, in which, when a pledge has been given and accepted, the whole is confirmed, and no room is left for a change of mind." -John Calvin on Ephesians 1:14

Paul explains in Ephesians 1:14 that the Holy Spirit is given to us as an “arrabon” (αρραβων) (the Greek word here) or in English: “Pledge” (NASB), “deposit” (NIV), or “guarantee” (ESV, NKJV) or “down payment” (NET) or “earnest” (KJV, ASV) or “first installment.” (Message) When all those possible translations are taken together, the meaning starts to become clear. The Holy Spirit is the down payment or first installment of salvation, that which is begun and that which is to come.

So if the Holy Spirit is the down payment, the pledge, of our inheritance our salvation, then it is sure to be completed. Yet, some that will see the Holy Spirit pledged as a down payment or first installment and say that God can then take back the arrabon the pledge of the Holy Spirit. It has even been said: “the arrabon of the Holy Spirit, the down payment of future glory is given to all members of the visible church merely by being baptized and can be lost.” This is blasphemous.

To explain it in contemporary terms: you have all had a major purchase, whether a house or a car and know you that when you make a down payment, a pledge, a first installment, if you do not end up purchasing it or redeeming it, you do not get the down payment back. Once you hand over the pledge, that pledge or down payment is now theirs. Perhaps today, some of those rules vary, but it did not in Scripture.

The word “arrabon” appears in the Old Testament in the Septuagint (Greek Translation of the Old Testament) in Genesis 38. Judah gave the arrabon to Tamar, and this pledge of his signet, cord and staff was a guarantee of the final payment. When he did not pay the final payment of the goat, he lost his pledge, with his personalized signet.

That means, if God could give you the Holy Spirit as an arrabon, and does not in the end redeem you, then He doesn’t get the Holy Spirit back. If you can be given the Holy Spirit as an arrabon and end up in hell, that means the Holy Spirit can end up in hell. God would end up in hell.

To say one can lose the arrabon of the Holy Spirit is to call God a liar. You do not receive a pledge back if you don’t provide the payment. That’s what makes it a pledge. If you go back on your pledge, you lie. Now for someone to say that God can give the Spirit as a pledge and take Him back not only makes the whole transaction worthless, (what’s the point of the pledge then?) but saying God can give and then take back his pledge is calling God a liar. Or, it is to curse God to hell.

To all that have the Spirit as an arrabon, He is bonded to the soul of a believer. Where you go, He goes. Where ever you go, the Spirit goes.

Let me assure you, the Spirit will not go to hell. Christ experienced the wrath of God which is hell, but if God gives you the Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity knows what the Second Person of the Trinity endured in the hell of propitiation, of the hell of God’s wrath being poured out on Christ.

The Spirit bore Christ up during that, and He won’t go through that again. The Spirit will not be eternally grieved, the Spirit will not be thrown into hell, that means if you have the Spirit as an arrabon, as a down payment, BONDED to your soul, SEALED to your fate, your fate will not be eternal death.

Can God assure you any more than giving you Himself in the Spirit as the pledge, the guarantee of the inheritance in Christ? God is true to His word, we dare not blaspheme God in claiming otherwise.