Commenting on texts where the Spirit is said to be the “guarantee” (e.g., 2 Cor 1:21-22):
So, does the Spirit’s seal make
the final salvation certain? Yes! But notice that the words about the Spirit as
guarantee are spoken to “you” in the plural, to the entire community. The
Spirit is a communal seal, not a personal seal. This is true across the New
Testament. When Paul says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that
God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16), the “you” is plural in the Greek
text, and Paul is speaking about how the Corinthian house churches collectively
for a temple where God has taken up residence in Corinth. In fact, even when we
would most expect Paul to speak of the Holy Spirit as indwelling the
individual, he politely demurs. For example, in 2 Timothy where Paul is writing
predominately to an individual, Timothy, we might have expected Paul to say, “By
the Holy Spirit who dwells within you, guard the good deposit entrusted
to you,” but instead he says, “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us,
guard the good deposit entrusted to you” (2 Tim. 1:14). (Matthew W. Bates, Beyond
the Salvation Wars: Why Both Protestants and Catholics Must Reimagine How We
Are Saved [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2025], 183-84, emphasis in
original)
