Can the Holy Spirit leave a believer in Jesus?

The Holy Spirit is God, the third member of the trinity, who indwells believers at the moment of salvation.  Ephesians 1:13-14 says, “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.” Two significant words (“seal” and “deposit”) are used to describe the Holy Spirit’s work. In the first century, important documents, like letters or contracts, would be sealed shut with hot wax and the person’s signet ring would be pressed into the hot wax thereby officially identifying that document to be under the authority of the person to whom that signet ring belonged. That’s the idea behind our being sealed with the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God’s official “seal” upon us that we belong to Him and that he will give us the inheritance that he has promised to give us. Furthermore, he’s also like a “deposit”, guaranteeing that inheritance.  When you buy something expensive, like a house, you secure your purchase with a downpayment. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is God’s down payment which secures us for the inheritance he has promised us, our glorified resurrected body. All this is yours the moment “you believed”!

The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” This is not a temporary indwelling either, because God always completes what he starts. It says in Philippians 1:6, “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Since God started the work of salvation in us, he will see to it that it is also completed one day.  Someday you and I will stand before Jesus Christ perfect and complete. We’ll be fully transformed into his likeness.

So, if the Holy Spirit were to ever leave us, this would not complete the work God had started and it would make God unfaithful, which of course he is not.  What God promises he fulfills. God “cannot lie” (Hebrews 6:18).  Therefore, if he promises to give us the Holy Spirit until our salvation is completed, then that means the Holy Spirit cannot and will not ever leave a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Part of the confusion about the issue is because of statements in the Old Testament.  For example, we read how the Spirit “departed from Saul” (1 Samuel 16:14), and we also read David praying, in Psalm 51:11, “Do not…take your Holy Spirit from me.”   It’s important, however, to keep in mind that in the Old Testament, the Spirit of God is never said to indwell believers permanently.  He just “came upon” people to accomplish specific tasks, like he did for Bezalel (Exodus 31:3) to build articles of the tabernacle, or Gideon (Judges 6:34) to unite the Israelites and defeat the Midianites, or Samson (Judges 15:14) to perform incredible acts of strength and rescue Israel.   Before Christ’s death and resurrection, the Holy Sprit came upon people but then also departed from them (for example, Samson in Judges 16:20).   All that changed in the New Testament, where, after Pentecost (Acts 2), a new pattern emerged: the Holy Spirit indwelling believers forever. 

Why then do some people who profess Christ fall away? Since there is no possibility that the Holy Spirit can leave a believer under the new covenant, it must mean that a person who falls away was never really saved in the first place, and therefore never actually had the Spirit of God inside them.  John the apostle described such people in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.”  Their falling away showed that they had not belonged to Christ or his church. The Lord warned us about this in Matthew 7:21 when he said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”  There are empty professions, and there are genuine professions. The genuine ones will demonstrate the fruit of that confession.

A good place to end this discussion is the reassuring words of promise for all who do believe.  The apostle John, in 1 John 5:13 said, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”   Notice that it says “believe” present tense.  If someone believed in Jesus for salvation in the past, if it was real, then they will still believe in the present, and into the future! May it be so with each of us by the gracious work of the Holy Spirit.