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LOSING THE HOLY SPIRIT? “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.” (Psa. 51:11) Even though it’s found in the Old Testament, this verse is used by some to oppose the doctrine of eternal security by teaching that God can take His Holy Spirit from the believer, thus leaving him an unregenerate, unborn and unsaved man. What such people fail to realize is that no Old Testament saint was born again and SEALED with God’s Spirit as we are today. Ephesians 4:30 says, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” The verse does NOT say that the believer is sealed just until God takes His Spirit away; it says UNTIL THE DAY OF REDEMPTION. II Corinthians 1:22 further explains this by saying that this sealing of the Holy Spirit is an “earnest,” or a down payment: “Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” Because of the price that Jesus paid at Calvary, the salvation of the New Testament believer is a PURCHASED POSSESSION (Eph. 1:13-14). As such, God’s makes a spiritual down payment when we believe on Christ by sealing us with His Spirit, and then full redemption is complete when Christ returns and raises us up in new glorified bodies. Romans 8:23 explains this well: “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” If God were to take His Holy Spirit from a New Testament believer, then He would be breaking a covenant, the NEW covenant, the New TESTAMENT, that was established at Calvary by the blood of Jesus Christ. To run clear back to a verse from one thousand years before Christ (Psa. 51:11) and apply it to believers living today amounts to IGNORING THE PRICE THAT JESUS PAID ON THE CROSS. That’s absurd! CALVARY CHANGED EVERYTHING! No one was born again in the Old Testament, yet millions are born again today. After the fall of man, no one was called a “son of God,” yet millions are called that today. No one after the fall of man had God’s image; yet believers today have His image through Jesus Christ. Furthermore, no one went to heaven when they died in the Old Testament, yet every believer goes to heaven today. Calvary changed everything. It's true that God’s Spirit could leave a man in the Old Testament. His Spirit left Saul, and, as far as we know, never returned (I Sam. 16:14). Yet, God’s Spirit apparently left Samson and then returned later (Jud. 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14; 16:20-31) and reserved a spot for him in the Hall of Faith (Heb. 11:32)! But none of that lines up doctrinally with the New Testament reality of believers being SEALED with God’s Spirit until Christ returns. Things are very different now, thanks to Christ’s work at Calvary, and people who use Old Testament Scripture to disannul New Testament truth are not the kind of people that you need to be studying. As a New Testament Christian, you can quench the Spirit (I Ths. 5:19), you can be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18), and you even stir up the Spirit (II Tim. 1:6; Acts 17:16), but you cannot LOSE the Spirit that God has sealed in you until the day of redemption: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.” (John 14:16)