The Great Doctrine of Salvation Pt. 3

Consider a child growing up without ever tasting ice cream. They hear friends rave about it but never experience it themselves. One sunny day, they finally get a cone and their face lights up with joy! That first taste of salvation is like that first scoop of ice cream—delicious and life-changing. In Christ, we discover joy, peace, and love that we've only heard about, but never truly experienced until we receive it.

This is our focus tonight, the benefits of salvation! Listen to what the psalmist said, Psalm 68:19

Psalm 68:19 (KJV 1900)

19 Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loadeth us with benefits, Even the God of our salvation. Selah.

The word “loadeth” means to overburden. Isn’t that good? God overloads us with the benefits of His salvation. In fact, there are at least twelve “benefits” which a person obtains upon salvation. We will explore the first six tonight. The first is:

Sanctification

When a person is saved, they are set apart, no longer a “sinner” but now a “saint”

Rather we should understand they are no longer identified by their sin, but by their new relationship in the family of God.

We understand that this new position does not mean a Christian “can’t” or “won’t” sin, but rather they are no longer identified by their sin. Sanctification refers to the category which we are found in 1 Cor. 1:2

1 Corinthians 1:2 KJV 1900

2 Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 KJV 1900

9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

The first benefit of salvation is sanctification, the next is:

Justification

Someone explained it this way:

“Just as if I’d” never sinned!

The word literally means to be declared righteous, to be freed from the condemnation of sin!

Romans 5:1 KJV 1900

1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

Romans 5:9 KJV 1900

9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Romans 5:18 KJV 1900

18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

Romans 8:1 KJV 1900

1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 5:21 KJV 1900

21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Justification is the embodiment of the goodness of God — that God could/would declare us righteous as sinful and undeserving as we are! But his benefits don’t stop there, the next benefit is our...

New Allegiance

We have been delivered from the bondage of sin and of Satan. Do you the sad truth is that sinners today do not even realize how deeply they are bound to their sin, nor that they are under the control of Satan. At salvation you become a servant of God instead of Satan Romans 6:16-18

Romans 6:16–18 KJV 1900

16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

The benefits keep getting better! Sanctification, justification, a new allegiance, and next...

Imputed Righteousness

At the moment of salvation, not only are all your sins forgiven, but your unrighteousness is exchanged for the righteousness of Christ!

Ephesians 1:7 KJV 1900

7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

Ephesians 2:1 KJV 1900

1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Colossians 2:13 KJV 1900

13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

Just think about it! Whenever God looks at you He does not see your sinful unrighteousness, but the perfect righteousness of His Son Jesus Christ! Talk about a benefit! Wouldn’t it be nice if when your debtors looked at your bank account they saw Elon Musk’s instead? God’s Word teaches us an even better truth, we get all our unrighteousness wiped away and Jesus’ righteousness in its place.

Sanctification, justification, a new allegiance, the righteousness of Jesus, and...

Adoption

This is the process by which we are made a spiritual child of God and cease to be a child of the devil. John 1:12

John 1:12 KJV 1900

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Do you want to hear something great? An adoption is permanent. Do you realize if you have natural born children and then you and your spouse decide to adopt a child, when the adoption is finalized the adoptee received a new birth certificate declaring they are now your child, with your last name, and are entitled to an inheritance. But wait, there’s more! Not only are they entitled to an inheritance, but they cannot be disinherited! Your natural born children can be written out of your will, but your adopted child cannot!

Tell me this is not proof for eternal security!

We have seen five benefits of salvation so far: Sanctification, justification, new allegiance, imputed righteousness, adoption, and the last one for tonight, at the moment of salvation we are given...

Spiritual Life

Ephesians 2:1 KJV 1900

1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

In sin, we are all dead — death = separation. Spiritual death is separation from God and it implies our condition before salvation.

At the moment of salvation we are given new spiritual life John 3:3

With this new spiritual life we can enjoy fellowship with Him. Did you realize you had these benefits? This is only the beginning! We still have six more benefits to explore, but we’ll get to those next week!