Baptist Catechism 39

Q. 39. What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?

A. The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end. (Rom. 5:1-5; 14:17; Prov. 4:18; 1 Peter 1:5;1 John 5:13)

Scripture Reading: Romans 5:1-5

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:1–5, ESV)

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Over the past few Sundays, we have considered the main, fountainhead benefits enjoyed by those who have faith in Christ in this life. Those main benefits or blessings are justification, adoption, and sanctification. Much more could be said about these great, fountainhead blessings, but today we move on to consider the several benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from them.   

We should remember the progression. 

Baptist Catechism 35 ask, What benefits do they that are effectually called, partake of in this life? A. They that are effectually called, do in this life partake of justification, adoption, sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them.

Baptist catechism questions 36, 37, and 38 then ask and answered, what is justification, adoption, and sanctification? Now we come to Baptist Catechism 39 which asks, What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?

The idea behind this question is that the main blessings of justification, adoption, and sanctification bring many other blessings with them. Those who are justified are blessed in many ways because of their justification. Those who are adopted are blessed in may ways because of their adoption. And those who are being sanctified are blessed in many ways because of their sanctification.  

 So, what are the benefits that in this life accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?  No doubt, our list could be very long. Our catechism mentions five. They are assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end. With just a little bit of reflection, I trust you will be able to see how each of these five benefits are related to the main benefits of justification, adoption, and sanctification.  

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Firstly, those who are justified and adopted, and are being sanctified by God’s grace through faith in Christ, may be assured of God’s love.  To be assured of God’s love is to be confident and convinced that God loves you.  There are a few things about assurance you should know.  One, obtaining this sense of the assurance of God’s love is possible in this life. Two, this sense of assurance does not come to the Christian automatically.  In other words, true Christians might sometimes doubt if God loves them.  Three, Christians should pursue this sense of assurance.  Four, this sense of assurance might sometimes be strong and at other times weak.  Five, the reasons for a lack of assurance are many. The Second London Confession Of Faith devotes an entire chapter to this doctrine of assurance.  I would encourage you to read it sometime soon.  In chapter 18 paragraph 3, some reasons for the lack of assurance are listed.  There we read, “True believers may have the assurance of their salvation [in a variety of] ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which woundeth the conscience and grieveth the Spirit; by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God’s withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light, yet are they never destitute of the seed of God and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart and conscience of duty out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived, and by the which, in the meantime, they are preserved from utter despair.”  That, I think, is a very good and helpful summary of the reasons this sense of assurance may sometimes be lost or diminished.  Six, the ways to grow in your sense of assurance concerning God’s love for you are many.  One, it is important to start, not by looking at yourself, but at Christ who lived, died, and rose again for you.  God loves you in Christ, remember?  Two, it is important to meditate on the promises found in God’s word.  For example, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).  And in John 6:37 we hear Christ say, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will  never cast out” (John 6:37, ESV).  Three, it is good and right to pray to God and to ask him to give you this sense of assurance by his Holy Spirit.  For it is the “Spirit himself [who] bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16, ESV).  Four, Christians should strive to obey God and avoid sin.  Sin wounds the conscience. Obedience to God is evidence of our salvation.  This is what John meant when he wrote, “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3, ESV).  That verse is about assurance.  When we turn from sin and keep God’s commandments, it is powerful evidence that we have been reborn, justified, adopted, and are being sanctified.  Stated negatively, when a Christian lives in unrepentant sin, it is no wonder they begin to doubt whether they are saved and loved by God.  Though true Christians do sin, they will not continue in it.  Instead, they will struggle against it and will experience progress in their sanctification over time. We are not saved because we are sanctified.  Instead, we are sanctified because we are saved.  Our growth in holiness is a powerful testimony to our true salvation in Christ Jesus.  Again, I do encourage you to read Second London Confession chapter 18 sometime soon.

For now, I hope you can see how a proper understanding of the doctrines of justification, adoption, and sanctification will help you to grow in your sense of assurance of God’s love for you.  First, these doctrines, when properly understood, should cause us to look away from ourselves to God and Christ to consider what God has done to save us from our sins.  Only after this should we look at ourselves to consider the progress we have made in our sanctification as evidence of God’s redeeming work within us.  And do not forget, your sanctification is by the grace of God, too. 

Secondly, those who are justified, adopted, and are being sanctified by God’s grace through faith in Christ, should have peace of conscience.  We should be at peace knowing that our sins have been forgiven and that we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness. 

Thirdly,  those who are justified, adopted, and are being sanctified by God’s grace through faith in Christ, ought to have joy in the Holy Spirit.  Psalm 32:1-2 comes to mind.  There David says, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1–2, ESV).  To be blessed is to be truly and deeply happy or joyous. Those who are justified and adopted and are being sanctified in Christ have every reason to be joyous.  

Fourthly, those who are justified, adopted, and are being sanctified by God’s grace through faith in Christ, will increase in grace.  This means they will, by God’s grace, grow in maturity and holiness over time.  This is one of the wonderful blessings that flows from justification, adoption, and sanctification in this life.  In 2 Peter 3:18 we are exhorted to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18, ESV).  And in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, we find a kind of benediction wherein the Apostle Paul blesses the Christians in Thessalonica, saying, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23, ESV).   

Fifthly, those who are justified, adopted, and are being sanctified by God’s grace through faith in Christ will persevere to the end.  God will preserve his elect, and this he will do by graciously enabling his elect to persevere.  Brothers and sisters, we must persevere in the faith.  We must trust that God will preserve us.  To quote again Philippians 1:6, we trust “that he who began a good work in [us] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6, ESV). 

If it is true that all who are justified, adopted, and sanctified will persevere to the end, how are we to understand those who profess faith in Christ and then fall away?  I do believe that 1 John 2:19 addresses this question.  There John speaks of those who have abandoned the faith, saying, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.  But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19, ESV).  There is such a thing as a false profession of faith.  Those who abandon the faith are to be regarded as false professors.  It is not that they lost their justification, adoption, and sanctification, but that they never truly had these things.  Their departure from the faith reveals that their religious profession was merely external all along. 

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I’ll move this little sermon to a conclusion by asking, do you have a sense of assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Spirit? Are you growing in grace and persevering in the faith? If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, there are many possible reasons. One reason I would ask you to consider is that you have not rightly understood or fully appreciated the good news of Jesus Christ, that all who come to him by faith are, by God’s grace, justified, adopted, and sanctified.  

These wonderful gifts cannot be earned but must be received. They are offered to us, not because of anything we have done, but because of what Christ has done for us. And these gifts are truly marvelous. Those who understand what the gifts of justification, adoption, and sanctification are believe that they have truly received them in Christ Jesus, by the grace of God alone through faith alone, are bound to enjoy a sense of assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Spirit? And we know that those with true faith in Christ will indeed grow in grace and persevere in the faith, for “he who began a good work in [us] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6, ESV).