Welcome to part two of this book titled “Christ in You the Hope of Glory”. In part one of this book, I have shared with you from the Bible what you were saved from: that is, Satan’s kingdom of eternal death and darkness and all the eternal pain and suffering in hell which comes with it. But here in part two of this book, I will be sharing with you from the Bible what you were saved for when you became truly and eternally saved: that is, God’s Kingdom of eternal life and light and all the blessings which comes with it. Therefore my main task here in part two of this book which comprises of chapters four, five and six is to show you from the Bible what you were saved for when you renounced Satan’s kingdom of eternal death and darkness and henceforth entered into God’s Kingdom of eternal life and light by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. However, what you were saved for is such abroad subject that it cannot be adequately tackled in a small book like this one. Therefore I will try my level best to give you a synopsis of what you were saved for when you became a true born again believer in Jesus Christ who is truly and eternally saved. To do that, I will show you from the Bible what you were saved for using what you were saved from as the springboard. By so doing, I will be aiming at helping you to appreciate what you were saved for inasmuch as you will know and understand all the blessings which became yours in Jesus Christ as a result of being saved from (1) the penalty for all your sins in hell, (2) the power of all sins, and (3) the presence of all sins. Consequently, you will be eternally grateful to Jesus Christ for saving you from the penalty, the power and the presence of all sins in addition to saving you for God’s Kingdom of eternal life and light and all the blessings which comes with it. [1]

And this is how I will go about exploring all these blessings which became yours in Jesus Christ when you got saved. Here in chapter four titled “Your Position in Jesus Christ,” I will be showing from the Bible what happened in you, to you and for you at the moment of your conversion when you were immediately saved from the PENALTY for all your sins in hell and you were there and then justified. That is, you were immediately declared righteous or right with God by God Himself just as if you have never sinned. This is known as justification: the first facet of your salvation which deals with “who you are in Jesus Christ”. Next, in chapter five titled “Your Practice and Conduct in Jesus Christ,” I will be showing from the Bible what should be happening in you, to you, for you and through you as you are continuously being saved from the POWER of all sins hence you are being sanctified. That is, you are continuously being set free from the power of all sins every day of your life. This is known as sanctification: the second facet of your salvation which deals with “what you do in Jesus Christ”. And lastly, in chapter six titled “Your Permanent Eternal State in Jesus Christ,” I will be showing from the Bible what shall happen in you, to you and for you in the future when you shall depart from this world into eternity in heaven and be instantly saved from the PRESENCE of all sins hence you shall be glorified. That is, you shall receive a glorified body that cannot sin, cannot become sick, cannot be disabled, cannot age and cannot die, which shall house your saved soul and your living/regenerated spirit forever and ever in heaven. This is known as glorification: the third and the last facet of your salvation which deals with “where and how you shall be forever and ever in Jesus Christ”.

So, let us now turn to chapter four where I will be showing you from the Bible what happened in you, to you and for you at the moment of your conversion when you were immediately saved from the penalty for all your sins in hell and you were there and then justified. In short, let us explore justification: the first facet of your salvation which deals with “Your Position in Jesus Christ”. Now, the best way to explore justification, the first facet of your salvation is to use the following chronological order so that you can clearly see in a logical sequence what happened in you, to you and for you when you became a born again believer in Jesus Christ:

1) You were chosen by God the Father before the foundation of the world to be saved.

2) You were converted at the moment of your salvation and became a child of God.

3) You became a true worshipper of God the Father at the moment of your salvation.

With that brief introduction, let us now start exploring the above three major blessings which became yours in Jesus Christ when you were saved from the penalty for all your sins in hell and you were immediately justified.

1) YOU WERE CHOSEN BY GOD THE FATHER BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD TO BE SAVED

This is the starting point and the strong unshakable foundation of your position in Jesus Christ. You were chosen by God the Father before the foundation of the world to be saved. Unbelievable as it may sound, the irrefutable biblical fact is that your salvation did not begin in time but it actually began way back in eternity before God had ever created the universe and everything in it. Before God created time, space and matter the main building blocks of the universe; before God created Adam and Eve the father and the mother of human race respectively; before Satan tempted Adam and Eve leading them to sin against God thereby introducing sin and death to the whole of humanity; before any of that had happened, Yahweh our God who knows all things knew all about you and chose you to be saved according to His sovereign eternal plan and purposes. In other words, you were in the mind of God way back in eternity past when He chose you to be saved from Satan’s kingdom of eternal death and darkness and to be saved for God’s Kingdom of eternal life and light having all the rights, privileges and blessings of a child of God who is eternally adopted into the family of God. This is how the Bible records this wonderful truth, “3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. 5Having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Ephesians 1:3-5). This truth is also repeated in 2nd Thessalonians 2:13 which says, “But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” This means that your salvation was not accomplished through unexpected arbitrary plan that God had to put in place at that time when you believed and received Jesus Christ into your life to become your personal lord and savior. No, not at all! Instead and much to the contrary, Yahweh our God planned your salvation way back in eternity past which makes your salvation sure, solid and unshakable because it does not depend on you but it depends on Yahweh God of the Bible whose plan to save you cannot change, cannot fail and cannot be reversed!

This remarkable truth that you were chosen by God the Father before the foundation of the world to be saved is clearly corroborated by the fact that your name was not written in the book of life when you received your salvation but it was written in the book of life in eternity past as is clearly revealed in Revelation 17:8. Surprised! Amazed! You shouldn’t be surprised or amazed that God the Father chose or elected you to be saved way back in eternity past. This is because, God the Father like the other two members of the holy trinity (God the Son and God the Holy Spirit) always wills and acts in accordance with His eternal, unchanging and all knowing nature. In other words, Yahweh God of the Bible who by nature is eternal, unchanging and is all knowing wills and determines all His plans and purposes without any limitations of either knowledge, or space or even time. Hence, what He wills and plans: He does it eternally, in an unchanging way and knowing everything there is to be known about it. Therefore God the Father knowing all there is to be known about you, and knowing all there is to be known about you all at once in eternity past, He willed and determined to elect you to be saved in eternity past. Here is how the Bible records this amazing fact, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1st Peter 1:2). And this is simply because, “Known to God are all His works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18), as James the half brother of Jesus Christ correctly noted in this verse. That’s why the Bible gives you these comforting words of the unimpeachable assurance of your salvation, “29For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30). What a blessed assurance of your salvation this is, that God who cannot lie speaks of your glorification in past tense even though it is yet in the future! But to God who knows all things: your glorification which is yet in the future is as good as if it has already happened. That is how sure, solid and unshakable your salvation is!

How do you feel now that you know that your salvation is that sure, solid and unshakable? I believe that you must be overflowing with joy unspeakable in addition to being eternally grateful to God the Father for choosing you to be saved in eternity past with such a sure, solid and unshakable salvation. It is also very likely that you might be wondering whether or not your unsaved family members and friends were also chosen as you were by God the Father in eternity past to be saved and therefore they will ultimately get saved. So in that vein, you might be wondering whether or not God the Father chose some people to be saved and some other people to be lost thereby sealing the eternal destiny of all human beings way back in eternity past. Now, if that is your concern, know for sure that while it is true that God the Father chose all the people who will ever be saved way back in eternity past, He nevertheless did not chose any person to die unsaved and be condemned forever and ever in hell. For, the fact of the matter is that every person who has died unsaved or will ever die unsaved and therefore go to hell will sadly die unsaved and go to hell because they exercised their freedom of choice and rejected salvation which God freely and repeatedly offered them not just for a day, or for a week, or for a month, or even for a year but for decades upon decades, with some of these people having rejected this offer of salvation for close to a whole century! But, with creation around pointing to the existence of God (Romans 1:18-20 and Psalm 19:1-3) and with conscience within each person pointing them to the general will of God (Romans 2:12-16), nobody can blame God if they die unsaved because any person who honestly observes creation around them and diligently listens to the undefiled conscience within them; God graciously reveals to them His Son Jesus Christ (John 6:37, 44) so that they can know Him, believe in Him and receive Him into their lives to become their personal lord and savior and thus be truly and eternally saved.

The bottom line is this: God is sovereign hence He chose in eternity past all those people who will ever be saved while each human being is responsible to choose either to receive or to reject salvation which God freely offers him or her. To get a sneak preview of how this truth works, consider the sovereignty of God and the human responsibility as the two wheels of a bicycle. Sovereignty of God is the front wheel which must move first while human responsibility is the rear wheel which must follow next. Therefore in order for this bicycle to move a sinner from Satan’s kingdom of eternal death and darkness into God’s Kingdom of eternal life and light the following three things must happen. First, the two wheels of this bicycle must be present and functioning properly. No wheel should be missing or malfunctioning. This means that neither the sovereignty of God nor the human responsibility should be missing but both of them must be executed as and when they should in order for a person to be truly and eternally saved. Secondly, the front wheel of this bicycle must move first guiding and directing the rear wheel to the desired destination. This means that as the initiator and the finisher of salvation of sinful mankind, God who is sovereign meaning that He rules all and overrules all, chose in eternity past all the people who will ever be saved according to His foreknowledge and then He also determined that every person who will ever be saved must exercise their freedom of choice and freely choose to receive their salvation by sincerely repenting toward God and truly believing in Jesus Christ. Thirdly, the rear wheel of this bicycle must move next following the guidance and the direction of the front wheel so that this bicycle can finally reach the destination which the front wheel is directing it to. Therefore rear wheel cannot chart its own direction but it must strictly follow the direction that is determined by the front wheel. This means that every human being who will ever be saved has a personal unavoidable responsibility to obey the clear instructions of Sovereign Yahweh God of the Bible regarding how to receive their salvation. And that is, he or she must sincerely repent toward God and truly believe in Jesus Christ in order to be truly and eternally saved. Like the rear wheel of this bicycle, they must follow the front wheel and promptly obey the call of God to receive their salvation by sincerely repenting toward God and truly believing in Jesus Christ so that they can be truly and eternally saved.

In conclusion, it is worthwhile noting that on this side of eternity, none of us can fully understand these two seemingly opposing truths: that is, sovereignty of God to choose whomsoever He wants to be saved versus human responsibility that every human being is free to choose either to receive or to reject salvation which God freely offers them. Therefore, when you carefully ponder these things, you can only burst forth with this glorious worship of Sovereign Yahweh God of the Bible who chose you to be saved way back in eternity past with such a sure, solid and unshakable salvation that cannot be changed, cannot fail and cannot be reversed: “33O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! 34For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? 35Or who has first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? 36For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36). It is my hope and prayer that this shall be your sincere response now that you are saved with such a sure, solid and unshakable salvation!

And with that truth well ingrained in your heart and mind, let us now turn to the second major blessing which became yours in Jesus Christ when you were saved from the penalty for all your sins in hell and you were immediately justified:

2)YOU WERE CONVERTED AT THE MOMENT OF YOUR SALVATION AND BECAME A CHILD OF GOD

At the moment of your conversion the following two major changes took place in your life as you were immediately saved from the penalty for all your sins in hell. The first major change that took place in your life at the moment of your conversion is the instant change of your spiritual nature from a condemned sinner to a declared saint. And the second major change that took place in your life at the moment of your conversion is the instant change of your spiritual status from a person who was haunted by guilty conscience to a person who is free of guilty conscience because you are totally forgiven of all your past, present and future sins. So, let us examine the first one.

I. When you got saved, you experienced instant change of your spiritual nature from a condemned sinner to a declared saint

Before you were saved, the Bible teaches that you were a condemned sinner who knowingly or unknowingly had entered by the wide gate into the wide road which was leading you to eternal destruction in hell (Matthew 7:13). To bring you up to speed on this sad yet sobering truth, listen carefully to these words of Jesus Christ which He spoke to Nicodemus underscoring the importance of being truly born again, “17For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. 18He that believes on Him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:17-18). Notice that Jesus Christ makes it crystal clear that any person who has not believed in Him (i.e. any person who is not truly born again) is condemned already. He emphasizes the fact that such a person is already condemned right now in the present hence he or she is sadly headed into a future whereby they will have to face the full consequences of this condemnation in hell should they die unsaved. So if you correctly apply this scripture to your life, you will realize that for all those days, months and years you had not repented toward God and believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you were in actual fact a condemned sinner sadly and tragically on your way to eternal destruction in hell. Furthermore, this sobering truth is strongly affirmed by this scripture which says, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). This scripture reminds us that the wrath of God abides on every person who is not truly born again because such a person is condemned already. In other words, such a person is a condemned sinner. Sadly, that is who you were up and until that very moment when you became a born again believer in Jesus Christ who is truly and eternally saved.

But thank God that, that is not who you are any more. This is because, when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ, you experienced instant change of nature from a condemned sinner to a declared saint. Yes! It is true that you were there and then declared a saint by Yahweh God of the Bible. Contrary to the common misconception that a saint is a perfect sinless person, the true biblical meaning of saint is any person who has sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior. So every true Christian is a saint. For clarity, the Greek word “Hagios” which is translated “saint” in our English Bibles means holy, separated, or set apart. Therefore in most instances “Hagios” is used in the Bible to refer to a person or even a thing that is separated from what is common and/or vile and is henceforth set apart for what is special and/or sacred. That is why throughout the New Testament, the Bible repeatedly calls all born again believers in Jesus Christ “saints” simply because they have all been separated from Satan’s kingdom of eternal death and darkness, and by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior, they have all been set apart for God’s Kingdom of eternal life and light. (See Acts 9:13, 32, 41; 26:9-10, Romans 1:7; 8:27; 12:13; 15:25, 26, 31; 16:15, and Ephesians 1:1, 15; 3:18; 4:12; 6:18). And this is exactly what happened to you when by grace through faith in Jesus Christ you became a born again believer in Jesus Christ. You were there and then separated from Satan’s kingdom of eternal death and darkness, and once and forever, you were set apart for God’s Kingdom of eternal life and light thereby experiencing instant change of nature from a condemned sinner to a declared saint. Apostle Peter alluding to this change of nature wrote, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1st Peter 2:9).

Just to give you a taste of how common it was in 1st century A.D. for born again believers in Jesus Christ to be called saints, consider the following three scriptures. The first scripture says, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia” (2nd Corinthians 1:1). Here we see Paul the Apostle sending his greetings to all the “saints” who were in all Achaia. This scripture and many others like it completely destroys the prevailing lie taught in some circles that a person becomes a saint after death. The second scripture says, “To me, who am less than the least of all saints” (Ephesians 3:8). Here we see that Apostle Paul inspired by God the Holy Spirit did not hesitate to call himself a “saint” simply because that is who he really was having been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as is clearly recorded in Acts 9:1-19. The third scripture says, “All the saints salute you” (2nd Corinthians 13:13). Here we see Paul the Apostle gladly informing the church of Corinth that they were saluted by all the “saints” who were in the region of Macedonia, perhaps in the city of Philippi where he most likely wrote this letter from according to the information given in 2nd Corinthians 2:12-13. This implies that all born again believers in Jesus Christ who were living there in the region of Macedonia (be they men or women, young or old, rich or poor) sent their greetings to the church of Corinth. Therefore from these three scriptures, it is clear and unmistakable that “saints” are all the believers: men and women, great and small, young and old, rich and poor, educated and uneducated who by grace through faith in Jesus Christ have become true born again believers in Jesus Christ having sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior. So thank God that regardless of your gender, age, level of education, social and economic status, when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, He immediately changed your spiritual nature from a condemned sinner to a declared saint.

Now, this major change from a condemned sinner to a declared saint (at the very least) comprises of the following ten profound blessings which became yours in Jesus Christ at the moment of your conversion when you were immediately saved from the penalty for all your sins in hell. First, you were born again by God the Holy Spirit. Second, you became a child of God. Third, you received everlasting life. Fourth, you were permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. Fifth, you were sealed with God the Holy Spirit. Sixth, you became a new creation in Jesus Christ. Seventh, you became a royal priest. Eighth, you were baptized by God the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ (Universal Church) as one of its members. Ninth, you became an ambassador for Christ. And tenth, you became heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. So join with me as we explore each one of these ten blessings stating them in the present tense to signify that they are here to stay as your permanent eternal blessings from Yahweh our God whose gifts and calling are irrevocable according to Romans 11:29.

1. You are Born Again by God the Holy Spirit

At the moment of your conversion, the very first profound change that took place in your life is the spiritual birth or what theologians call regeneration. Now, spiritual birth or regeneration is what is commonly referred to as being “born again” or literally being born the “second time” by God the Holy Spirit from above. So to understand this concept of being born again, it is important to note that the Bible teaches two kinds of births: physical birth and spiritual birth. The first birth to occur is obviously the physical birth through which a person is born physically by his or her own biological parents. Unfortunately, when a person experiences this first birth—the physical birth—they are born with a sin nature which all human beings without exceptions inherit from Adam (Romans 5:12). This means that they are born with (1) a natural body that is subject to death and decay, (2) a wounded soul that is prone to be governed by evil ungodly thoughts, evil ungodly feelings and unsurrendered self-destructive will, and (3) a dead spirit which makes them unwilling and unable to know God intimately, to love God supremely, to serve God faithfully and to glorify God exclusively. It is these chronic physical, psychical and spiritual defects which a person acquires through their first birth (physical birth) that makes it necessary for all human beings to experience the second birth (spiritual birth) as a matter of great urgency. Therefore the second birth which should occur in a person’s life as a matter of great urgency is the spiritual birth through which a person is born spiritually by God the Holy Spirit when He infuses everlasting life to the dead spirit of that person making it alive forevermore. This happens immediately a person sincerely repents toward God and then truly believes and willingly receives Jesus Christ into their life to become their personal lord and savior. When that happens, the dead spirit of that person is regenerated or rather it is made alive forevermore. And from that moment, that person becomes a born again believer in Jesus Christ who is truly and eternally saved.

This is exactly what happened to you when you sincerely repented toward God and then truly believed and willingly received Jesus Christ into your life to become your personal lord and savior. You were there and then born again! This important transformation started when you heeded this warning which Jesus Christ gave to Nicodemus and to the rest of humanity saying, “3Verily, verily, I say to you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. … 7Marvel not that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:3, 7). So when you heard the still small voice of Jesus Christ warning you that you must be born again in order to see and enter into the Kingdom of God, you gladly heeded His warning and became a born again believer in Jesus Christ. This happened when you sincerely repented toward God and then truly believed and willingly received Jesus Christ into your life to become your personal lord and savior. And true to His word, when you did that, God gave you the right to become a child of God, who is born again by God the Holy Spirit just as this scripture explains, “12But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13—NKJV). And as you can see from this scripture, the spiritual birth you experienced was caused by God, specifically God the Holy Spirit as is also confirmed by these words which Jesus Christ spoke to Nicodemus on the subject of being born again saying, “The wind blows where it lists, and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell from where it comes, and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). In other words, when you repented toward God and believed in Jesus Christ, you were immediately born again by God the Holy Spirit for the Bible says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). The clause “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” refers to the first birth by which you were born physically by your biological parents and the clause “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” refers to the second birth by which you were born spiritually by God the Holy Spirit when He infused everlasting life “in” to your dead spirit making it alive forevermore. Furthermore, when God the Holy Spirit infused everlasting life “in” to your dead spirit making it alive forevermore, He also moved “in” to your regenerated spirit and permanently indwelt it (John 14:16-17 and Romans 8:9, 11). Therefore, you now have a living or regenerated spirit that is born again by God the Holy Spirit!

To give you a clear picture of what happened to you when you got born again, have a closer look at the following two figures which clearly show you what changed in your soul and in your spirit when you got born again

The figure above shows your whole being before you were born again comprising of your dead spirit, your wounded soul and your natural body. In a nutshell, this is how these three dimensions of your whole being were before you were born again. First, your dead spirit was unwilling and unable to know God intimately (1st Corinthians 2:14), to love God supremely (1st John 2:15-17), to serve God faithfully (Philippians 3:17-19) and to glorify God exclusively (Galatians 5:19-21). Second, your wounded soul was controlled by your self-deceived mind that was prone to think evil ungodly thoughts (Ephesians 4:17-19), your self-consumed emotional centre that was prone to have evil ungodly feelings (Jeremiah 17:9), and your unsurrendered self-destructive will that was prone to make evil ungodly decisions (2nd Timothy 3:1-5). Third, your natural body (which housed your dead spirit and your wounded soul) was and still is subject to ageing process, disorders, defects, diseases, death and decay (2nd Corinthians 4:16-5:8). But thank Yahweh our God that these chronic spiritual and psychical defects were remedied at the moment of your conversion when you were born again as is clearly shown in the next figure below.

The figure above shows how your whole being looks like now that you are truly born again. It comprises of your living or regenerated spirit, your healing soul and your natural body. Now, when you got born again, your natural body remained the same. No changes took place in it. It still remained subject to ageing process, disorders, defects, diseases, death and decay. However your dead spirit and your wounded soul experienced significant changes as follows. First of all, your dead spirit that was previously unwilling and unable to know God intimately (1st Corinthians 2:14), to love God supremely (1st John 2:15-17), to serve God faithfully (Philippians 3:17-19) and to glorify God exclusively (Galatians 5:19-21) was instantly transformed into a living or regenerated spirit that is now willing and able to know God intimately (1st John 5:20), to love God supremely (Romans 8:35-39), to serve God faithfully (Philippians 3:12-15) and to glorify God exclusively (1st Corinthians 10:31). Secondly, your wounded soul comprising of your self-deceived mind that was prone to think evil ungodly thoughts (Ephesians 4:17-19), your self-consumed emotional centre that was prone to have evil ungodly feelings (Jeremiah 17:9), and your unsurrendered self-destructive will that was prone to make evil ungodly decisions (2nd Timothy 3:1-5) was instantly transformed into a healing soul comprising of your mind that is being transformed to think good godly thoughts (Romans 12:1-2), your emotional centre that is being transformed to have good godly feelings (Colossians 3:12-17), and your will that is being transformed to make good godly decisions (Philippians 2:12-13). In summary, as a true born again believer in Jesus Christ you now have a regenerated spirit, a healing soul and a natural body which shall continue to house your regenerated spirit and your healing soul until that time in the future when you shall depart from this life into eternity in heaven and receive a glorified body that cannot sin, cannot become sick, cannot be disabled, cannot age and cannot die (2nd Corinthians 4:16-5:8 and 1st Corinthians 15:50-57).

2. You are a child of God

Another change that took place in your life at the moment of your conversion is the instant change from a child of wrath destined to spend eternity in hell to a child of God destined to spend eternity in heaven. For all those days, months, and years you were not saved, the Bible teaches that you were a child of wrath destined to spend eternity in hell. This is how the Bible records this sad yet undeniable truth, “1And you has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience: 3Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Ephesians 2:1-3). With such elaborate details this scripture states that before any person is saved, he or she is by nature a child of wrath in addition to being a child of disobedience because of their sinful lifestyle. Moreover this truth is reiterated in John 3:36 where the Bible declares that, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.” Therefore all unsaved people are children of wrath and are tragically waiting for the wrath of God, should they unfortunately die unsaved and go to hell. So without a doubt, you were a child of wrath for all those days, months, and years you were not saved.

But thank God that this heart-rending nature of being a child of wrath changed. When you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, in that very instant, God changed your nature from a child of wrath destined to spend eternity in hell to a child of God destined to spend eternity in heaven. For, the Bible says that, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12—NKJV). So when you believed and received Jesus Christ into your life as your personal lord and savior, God gave you the right to become a child of God (or a son of God as it is usually rendered in King James Version of the Bible). Now, it is worthwhile noting that God gave you the right to become a child of God by the virtual of what He did in you (regeneration) as well as what He did for you (adoption). Through regeneration or being born again, God the Holy Spirit graciously infused everlasting life into your dead spirit making it alive forevermore and you immediately became a child of God. And through adoption, God the Father who had graciously chosen you in eternity past to be saved adopted you into His family as a child of God with all the rights and privileges to inherit and enjoy all the blessings of the Kingdom of God (Ephesians 1:3-5). So when you repented toward God and believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, this is exactly what happened to you. You were immediately born again and you became a child of God in addition to being adopted into the family of God as a child of God who is privileged and honored to inherit and enjoy all the blessings of the Kingdom of God. Apostle Paul expounding on this latter truth wrote, “15For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ 16The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17And if children then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:15-17—NKJV). And to sum it up, Paul the Apostle also wrote, “For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). So thank God that in Jesus Christ you are a child of God having been born again by God the Holy Spirit in addition to being adopted into the family of God by God the Father Himself!

3. You have everlasting life

Another change that took place in your life at the moment of your conversion is the change from a person who was physically alive but spiritually dead to a person who is now both physically and spiritually alive having received eternal life from God Himself. Since as we have seen earlier in this chapter that the Bible teaches two kinds of births (physical birth and spiritual birth), it therefore necessarily follows that there must also be two kinds of lives namely: physical life and spiritual life. While almost all people throughout the whole world understand physical life because they experience it, only few people and especially those who are truly saved understand spiritual life. Now, even though some of the unsaved people might know something about spiritual life, the Bible over and over again makes it abundantly clear that no unsaved person has spiritual life or what is known as eternal life in the Bible. Take for instance this scripture which says, “11And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life” (1st John 5:11-12). The same truth is recorded in John chapter three as follows, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). Therefore, if someone has not believed and received Jesus Christ (the Son of God) as their personal lord and savior, they do not have spiritual life or eternal life which comes from God Himself. So for all those days, months and years you had not truly believed and willingly received Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you did not have eternal life. Truly, you were physically alive but sadly and tragically, you were spiritually dead for all those years you were not saved!

But thank God that He graciously changed that grave and sad situation for you. For, when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, God changed you from a person who was alive physically but dead spiritually to a person who is both physically and spiritually alive. God the Father accomplished this glorious change in your life through God the Holy Spirit who infused everlasting life to your dead spirit making it alive forevermore. This is how the Bible describes this wonderful change in your life, “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Colossians 2:13). And how He quickened you or rather made your dead spirit alive was by giving you eternal life just as this most famous verse in the whole of the Bible clearly explains, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). And to assure you that everlasting life is not a gift you will receive in the future but rather it is a gift that you have already received and you have it right now on this side of eternity, Apostle John wrote, “These things have I written to you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God” (1st John 5:13). And to crown it all, Jesus Christ Himself gave this unbreakable assurance of everlasting life which you right now have because of believing and trusting in Him as your personal lord and savior, “Verily, verily, I say to you, He that believes on Me has everlasting life” (John 6:47). So thank God that in Jesus Christ you have everlasting life: this abundant life that is excellent in quantity because it has no end and is excellent in quality because it is God-glorifying and thus eternally satisfying life!

4. You are permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit

At the moment of your conversion, there was a remarkable change that took place in your life which stands head and shoulder above all the other changes. And that profound change was the fact that you were there and then permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. Yes indeed! When you truly believed and willingly received Jesus Christ into your life to become your personal lord and savior, God the Holy Spirit came into your life to permanently dwell in your spirit. Consequently, your body from that moment became the temple of God the Holy Spirit who now permanently dwells in your regenerated spirit. Imagine Yahweh God of the Bible Himself, the all-powerful and all-knowing God dwelling inside of you! And yet this is not an imaginary concept but rather it is inerrant biblical truth which became real in your life the very instant you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. Thenceforth God the Holy Spirit came “in” to your dead spirit: first of all to regenerate it and secondly to permanently indwell it. That is why in my opinion this change stands head and shoulder above all the other changes because it is the one that sets all the other changes on course. So let us see some of the scriptures which confirm that you were permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit when you became a true born again believer in Jesus Christ.

The first scripture we will look at emphatically asserts that no one can be truly saved unless they are permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. This is how it reads in NKJV, “9But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. … 11But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:9, 11). The second scripture we will look at explains how Jesus Christ promised His disciples that God the Holy Spirit who was “with” them before they were converted shall come “in” to them at the moment of their conversion and He shall abide with them forever. Here is how that scripture reads, “16And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; 17Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees Him not, neither knows Him: but you know Him; for He dwells with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:16-17). Moving on, we turn next to this scripture that clearly shows us when the original disciples of Jesus Christ were converted and were there and then permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, “21Then said Jesus to them again, peace be to you: as My Father has sent Me, even so send I you. 22And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, receive you the Holy Ghost” (John 20:21-22). This particular action of Jesus Christ was the starting point of the on-going fulfillment of the following prophecy which God spoke through Prophet Ezekiel saying, “26A new heart also will I give you, and a new Spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgments, and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Therefore anyone who truly partakes of the New Covenant in Jesus Christ by being born again must in fulfillment of this prophecy be indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. For, Yahweh God of the Bible who cannot lie will put His Spirit within them just as He promised in the above prophecy in Ezekiel 36:26-27!

Thank God that you are amongst the multiplied billions of people throughout the ages who have truly partaken of the New Covenant in Jesus Christ by being born again. And having done so, Yahweh God who cannot lie has graciously put His Spirit within you thereby fulfilling His promise in Ezekiel 36:26-27 for you. Consequently, this scripture in 1st John 4:13-16 exactly describes what has happened to you and to all other true born again believers in Jesus Christ: “13Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world. 15Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God. 16And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.” Therefore you can rest assured that at the very moment of your conversion: when you sincerely repented toward God and then truly believed and willingly received Jesus Christ into your life to become your personal lord and savior, there and then God the Holy Spirit moved “in” to your spirit and permanently indwell it. Henceforth your body became the temple of the Holy Spirit as is confirmed by this scripture, “19What? Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? 20For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1st Corinthians 6:19-20). So thank God that in Jesus Christ you are permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit since God the Holy Spirit lives in you and with you in such unfathomable gesture of love and grace!

5. You are sealed with God the Holy Spirit

Another change that took place in your life at the moment of your conversion is the fact that you were immediately sealed with God the Holy Spirit. The fact of the matter is that when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, the Bible teaches that you were in that very instant sealed with God the Holy Spirit. While being sealed with God the Holy Spirit may sound very similar to being permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, there is however a clear distinction between the two. And that distinction is primarily on the purpose why these changes were accomplished by God the Father in your life. First of all, you were permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit to initialize your salvation through regeneration and to sustain your salvation through the indwelling presence of God the Holy Spirit throughout your life. But as you will clearly see from the Bible, you were sealed with God the Holy Spirit for the following three reasons. The first reason was to mark you with an indelible mark of God as a child of God who is forever and ever owned by God having God the Holy Spirit as the very “mark” of that ownership (Romans 8:15-16 and Galatians 4:5-6). The second reason was to assure you of the unimpeachable eternal security of your salvation in the hands of God (Ephesians 4:30). And the third reason was to serve as down payment or guarantee that God shall surely complete your salvation by ultimately saving you from the presence of all sins here on earth and usher you into His presence in heaven with a glorified body that cannot sin, cannot become sick, cannot be disabled, cannot age and cannot die (Romans 8:22-23, Ephesians 1:14; 4:30 and 2nd Corinthians 5:1-8).

So let us now turn to the Bible so that you can see for yourself when and why you were sealed with God the Holy Spirit. The first scripture we will look at clearly explains when a person is sealed with God the Holy Spirit saying, “13In whom [Jesus Christ] you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, 14which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Ephesians 1:13-14—bracketed mine). In the first part of this verse, Apostle Paul goes to great length to underscore step by step what must happen to a person in order for them to be sealed with God the Holy Spirit. First of all, he makes it abundantly clear that being sealed with God the Holy Spirit is exclusively done to those people who have (1) trusted in Jesus Christ, and (2) after they have clearly heard and truly believed the word of truth—the gospel of their salvation. Then after that Paul proceeds on to the second part of this verse to state that, “after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise”. Here Paul the Apostle clearly tells us that it is after a person has truly believed in Jesus Christ that they are immediately sealed with God the Holy Spirit. It is therefore a biblical fact that when you trusted in Jesus Christ, after you clearly heard and truly believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were immediately sealed with God the Holy Spirit.

Having established that fact, let us now see the following scripture which clearly explains who sealed you with God the Holy Spirit and why, “21Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, 22who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2nd Corinthians 1:21-22—NKJV). First of all, this scripture makes it is plain and clear that God the Father is the one who sealed you with God the Holy Spirit. So you can rest assured that when you believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you were sealed or rather you were marked with an indelible and unbreakable mark of God as a child of God by God the Father Himself. Secondly, this scripture together with Ephesians 1:14 above, clearly explain that you were sealed with God the Holy Spirit so that God the Holy Spirit can serve as a guarantee to you that God the Father will ultimately save you from the presence of all sins here on earth and usher you into His presence in heaven with a glorified body that cannot sin, cannot become sick, cannot be disabled, cannot age and cannot die (Romans 8:22-23, Ephesians 4:30 and 2nd Corinthians 5:1-8). Therefore you can rest assured that your salvation is eternally secure because it is guaranteed by God the Holy Spirit who will see to it that you are ultimately ushered into heaven with a glorified body that cannot sin, cannot become sick, cannot be disabled, cannot age and cannot die.

6. You are a new creation in Jesus Christ

Another change that took place in your life at the moment of your conversion is the change from the “old” person you were in Adam earmarked for eternal death in hell to the “new” person you are in Jesus Christ infused with eternal life to sustain you here on earth and forever and ever in heaven. According to the Bible, there are two spiritual positions a person can be “in”. The first spiritual position is “In Adam,” the first Adam, where a person is sadly destined for eternal death in hell. The second spiritual position is “In Christ,” the last Adam, where a person is graciously infused with eternal life to sustain him or her here on earth and forever and ever in heaven. Therefore to be “In Adam” simply means that a person legally and justly bears all the consequences of Adam’s original sin also known as the sin nature which Adam the father of human race brought to the whole of humanity when he sinned in the Garden of Eden and ushered sin and death into the whole world (Romans 5:12). So a person is “In Adam” simply because of being conceived and born spiritually dead due to the sin nature he or she inherits from Adam. As a result, that person is tragically earmarked for eternal death in hell if he or she does not get saved (Psalm 51:5; 58:3). That is why the Bible says that, “In Adam all die” (1st Corinthians 15:22). In other words, if a person is “in” that spiritual position of being “In Adam,” he or she is destined to taste all the three jaws of deaths namely: spiritual death, physical death and eternal death. In view of the foregoing, all human beings are conceived and born “In Adam”. This therefore means that all human beings legally and justly bear all the consequences of Adam’s original sin and that is why without any exceptions: all human beings are subject to death and decay. So like the rest of humanity you too were conceived and born in this sad spiritual position of being “In Adam”. Therefore you were born spiritually dead due to the sin nature you inherited from Adam hence you were tragically earmarked for eternal death in hell.

But thank God that you are no longer in that deadly spiritual position of being “In Adam”. For, when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you immediately vacated from this “old” spiritual position of being “In Adam” and you were instantly ushered into your “new” spiritual position “In Christ”. Here is how the Bible describes this transformation, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2nd Corinthians 5:17). Truly, you became a new creation “In Christ Jesus” for right there and then you crossed from death to life as is clearly confirmed by these words of Jesus Christ, “Verily, verily, I say to you, he that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death to life” (John 5:24). And this is simply because, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,” just as the Bible declares in Romans 8:1. And here are three reasons why you are a new creation totally free of any condemnation. First, when you got saved, your old spiritual position of being spiritually dead “In Adam” was immediately replaced with your brand new spiritual position of being spiritually alive “In Christ,” the last Adam. Secondly, your heart-rending nature of being a child of wrath destined to spend eternity in hell was instantly changed to being a child of God destined to spend eternity in heaven. Lastly, your dead spirit and your wounded soul were radically changed as follows. Your dead spirit was instantly changed to a living or regenerated spirit that is sealed and permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit thereby making it possible for you to be willing and able to know God intimately, to love God supremely, to serve God faithfully and to glorify God exclusively. And your wounded soul was instantly changed to a healing soul that is undergoing the process of (1) transforming your mind to be thinking good godly thoughts, (2) transforming your emotions to be having good godly feelings, and (3) transforming your will to be making good godly decisions. So thank God that in Jesus Christ you have become a brand new creation!

7. You are a royal priest

At the moment of your conversion, you were radically changed from a person who was without Christ (Ephesians 2:12) hence you could not directly approach and access God the Father in heaven to a person who is now in Christ hence you can directly approach and access God the Father in heaven (Ephesians 2:18). To understand how glorious this change is, you need to know and understand what the Bible teaches about priesthood. In a nutshell, the Bible teaches that Yahweh God of the Bible who is holy, righteous and just cannot be approached and accessed directly by a guilty sinner unless through a mediator who offers to God a perfect sacrifice on behalf of that guilty sinner (Habakkuk 1:13 and 1st Timothy 2:5-6). Now, this mediator who offers to God sacrifices on behalf of guilty sinners is known as a priest. Inevitably, prior to the coming of Jesus Christ (our Great High Priest), this role of a priest or a mediator was performed by human priest(s) whom God ordained to perform that role (Exodus 28:1). Since all these human priests were sinners like the rest of humanity, they had to first of all offer sacrifices for their own sins before they could offer sacrifices for other sinners (Hebrews 9:7). Sadly, the animal sacrifices that these human priests offered could only cover sins but could never ever take away any sin from a guilty sinner (Hebrews 10:4). Hence there was a double problem. The first problem was that these human priests were not perfect substitutes for guilty sinners (as it was required by God) because they were sinners themselves. And secondly, these animal sacrifices were not perfect sacrifices (as it was required by God) and that is why they could only cover sins for some time but never ever take away any sin. The only solution to this double problem is Jesus Christ—our Great High Priest. First, as the perfect human being, Jesus Christ is the Perfect Substitute for all guilty sinners. And second, as God in the human flesh, Jesus Christ is the Perfect Sacrifice who died and rose again to take away all the sins of repentant sinners who believe in Him.

Therefore in summary: no human being can directly approach or access God the Father in heaven unless through Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest who is the Perfect Substitute and the Perfect Sacrifice for all guilty sinners. That is why the Bible says, “5For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; 6Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1st Timothy 2:5-6). What it therefore means is that, when our Great High Priest—our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came—He technically abolished the need for human priesthood which was necessary and mandatory in the Old Testament times prior to His coming. Also, when Jesus Christ came and took our place as our Perfect Substitute and our Perfect Sacrifice, He made it possible for all repentant sinners who believe in Him to directly approach and access God the Father in heaven (John 14:6). It was therefore at the cross when Jesus Christ died for all the sins of mankind that human priesthood was turned upside down to turn the right side up. First of all, the human priesthood which was necessary and even mandatory prior to the coming of Jesus Christ was there and then abolished so that today we do not need a human priest to mediate for us before our God. For, according to Hebrews 10:10-14, we have one and only one High Priest—the Great High Priest—our lord and savior Jesus Christ! Secondly, with abolition of the forementioned human priesthood, Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest graciously inaugurated universal priesthood of all true born again believers in Jesus Christ. That is to say, all those people who have sincerely repented toward God and have truly believed in Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior have become “priests” and therefore they can boldly and directly approach and access God the Father in heaven as they are strongly encouraged to do in Hebrews 4:16.

Reminding Hebrews believers of this revolutionary truth, the author of the book of Hebrews wrote: “14Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16). Read also what he wrote in Hebrews 10:19-25. Since the universal priesthood of all true born again believers in Jesus Christ is in full operation, therefore, the author of the book of Hebrews encouraged all true born again believers in Jesus Christ to boldly and directly take themselves before Yahweh God Almighty in prayers and supplications making their requests known to Him. Also, Apostle Peter inspired by the Holy Spirit boldly affirmed universal priesthood of all true born again believers in Jesus Christ by these words he wrote to the persecuted Christians of all age, gender, level of education, etc., reminding them that, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1st Peter 2:9). Likewise Apostle John writing about what Jesus Christ has accomplished for all Christians reiterated that all believers are made priests of God. This is what he had to say, “5And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the First Begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the Kings of the earth. To Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6And has made us kings and priests to God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 1:5-6). And this is exactly what happened to you when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. You were there and then made a priest so that you can personally, boldly and directly approach and access God the Father in heaven. So thank God that in Jesus Christ you have become a royal priest hence you can personally, boldly and directly approach and access God the Father in heaven through prayers, praying fervently for yourself and others every day of your life!

8. You are baptized by God the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ (Universal Church) as one of its members

Another change that took place in your life at the moment of your conversion is the fact that you were immediately baptized by God the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ (Universal Church) as one of its members. When you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, the Bible teaches that you were in that very instant baptized by God the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ (Universal Church) as one of its members. To understand what this baptism into the Body of Christ is all about, it is important to note that the Bible teaches four kinds of baptisms namely: (1) water baptism, (2) baptism with the Holy Spirit, (3) baptism by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ—the Universal Church, and (4) baptism of suffering. Other than the baptism of suffering which refers to the unjust and unbearable suffering which a true Christian endures for the sake of fulfillment of God’s will in his or her life (Luke 12:50 cf. Matthew 26:36-46 and Mark 10:35-40 cf. Acts 12:1-2), the easiest way to understand the other three kinds of baptisms is to compare and contrast them considering carefully the following five facts. Who is baptized? Who is the baptizer? What is the medium of baptism? When does that baptism take place? And what is the purpose of that baptism? For water baptism: a truly born again believer in Jesus Christ is the one who is baptized (Acts 2:37-41) by another mature believer in Christ (Acts 8:35-38) by being immersed into water (Acts 8:35-38) either immediately he or she is saved (Acts 16:30-34) or some time later (Acts 19:1-7) for the purpose of publicly declaring their saving faith in Jesus Christ and obeying the command of Jesus Christ to be baptized in water (Matthew 28:18-20). For baptism with the Holy Spirit: a truly born again believer in Jesus Christ is the one who is baptized (Acts 1:4-5) by Jesus Christ (John 1:33-34) with the Holy Spirit either at that moment of conversion (Acts 10:44-48) or some time later after conversion (Acts 8:14-17; 19:1-7) for the purpose of receiving power to become a witness of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:4-8) and serving God faithfully (Acts 4:31).

Since baptism by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ is our main focus, we will follow the same format and examine one at a time, the above five facts regarding this baptism. First of all, who experiences this baptism? Baptism by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ can only be experienced by a truly repentant person who truly believes and then willingly receives Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior. This is how the Bible records that truth, “26For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27). Only those who by faith in Christ have put on Christ are baptized into Christ. Second, who is the baptizer? The baptizer into the Body of Christ is obviously the Holy Spirit as is clearly revealed in the following scripture, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (1st Corinthians 12:13). Third, what is the medium of this baptism? The medium into which a person experiences this baptism is the Body of Christ. Now, the Body of Christ is a biblical metaphor for describing the Universal Church of Jesus Christ which is made up of all true born again believers in Jesus Christ throughout the whole world from the start of the church on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-47) all the way to the time when Jesus Christ will come to rapture His church (1st Thessalonians 4:13-18). Therefore a person is baptized by the Holy Spirit into this Universal Church of Jesus Christ as one of its members. The following three scriptures confirm that the medium that a believer is baptized into is the body of Jesus Christ. The first scripture says, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). The second scripture says, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (1st Corinthians 12:13). And the third scripture says, “Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?” (Romans 6:3). All these three scriptures make it crystal clear that a person is baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Jesus Christ i.e. the Universal Church.

Fourth, when does this baptism take place? Baptism by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ takes place at conversion. At the very moment a person sincerely repents toward God and truly believes in Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior, he or she is immediately baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ. It simultaneously goes hand in hand with regeneration and therefore it can never be a subsequent work after salvation. For it is by this baptism that all true believers in Jesus Christ are spiritually united with Jesus Christ into His death, are buried with Him, and are risen with Him into the newness of spiritual life which He graciously bestows on them. In short, through this baptism, the saving work of Jesus Christ is directly imputed on to the person who is getting saved. That is why Apostle Paul inspired by God the Holy Spirit wrote the following words commenting on this baptism, “3Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? 4Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). See also Colossians 3:12-13. And fifth, what is the purpose of this baptism? The purpose of this baptism is first and foremost to permanently and eternally unite a believer with Jesus Christ so that Jesus Christ can impute to them His saving work so that he or she can be saved (Romans 6:3-4 and Colossians 2:12-13). Secondly, it is through this baptism that a believer is made a member of the Universal Church of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit (1st Corinthians 12:27). Lastly, through this baptism, Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to a believer so that he or she can faithfully and selflessly serve God in the Body of Christ (1st Peter 4:10). All these blessings became yours when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior because Holy Spirit immediately baptized you into the Body of Christ and made you one of its members! So thank God that in Jesus Christ you were baptized by God the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ (Universal Church) as one of its members.

9. You are an ambassador for Christ

Another change that took place in your life at the moment of your conversion is the change from a person who knowingly or unknowingly was in Satan’s kingdom of eternal death and darkness as an enemy of God to a person who is now reconciled to God as His dear friend and have since then been made an ambassador for Christ to enlarge and entrench the Kingdom of God here on earth. For all those days, months, and years you were not saved, the Bible teaches that you were an enemy of God who knowingly or unknowingly was in Satan’s kingdom of eternal death and darkness. This is how the Bible confirms this sad truth, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10). The Bible goes on to add that, “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled” (Colossians 1:21). And to explain the source of this enmity the Bible declares that, “1Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: 2But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2). And to crown it all, the Bible states that, “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7). And in the same vein, the Bible strongly warns against this enmity declaring that, “You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). It is therefore an irrefutable biblical fact that before you were saved, your sins separated you from God making you a friend of the world which means that you lived your life considering sinful attitudes and sinful actions to be both acceptable and pleasurable. Consequently, you were an enemy of God and you were therefore knowingly or unknowingly in Satan’s kingdom of eternal death and darkness. What a tragic and unfortunate situation this was!

But thank God that you are no longer an enemy of God. For, when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, two remarkable things happened to you in an instant. The first thing is that you were immediately reconciled to God as the enmity and broken fellowship which was between you and God came to an abrupt end and forthwith you became a friend of God. This is how the Bible records this blessed transformation, “10For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (Romans 5:10-11—NKJV). The second thing that happened at the moment of your conversion is the fact that God made you an ambassador for Christ so that He can use you as His representative to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with all the unsaved people He brings into your life in order to enlarge and entrench the Kingdom of God here on earth. For, the undeniable biblical fact is that when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, God made you an ambassador for Christ. Apostle Paul expounding on this truth wrote: “18And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19To say, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them; and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be you reconciled to God” (2nd Corinthians 5:18-20). Immediately a person is reconciled to God, God gives them the ministry of reconciliation and the word of reconciliation so that they can faithfully and fervently share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the unsaved people as an ambassador for Christ. And that is exactly what happened to you when you too were reconciled to God immediately you got born again. So thank God that in Jesus Christ you are an ambassador for Christ called by God to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with all the unsaved people whom God brings into your life so that they too can be truly and eternally saved just as you are!

10. You are heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ

Another change that took place in your life at the moment of your conversion is the change from a person who did not have any spiritual inheritance because you were without Christ, without hope and without God in the world to a person who has immeasurable spiritual inheritance because you are heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. For all those days, months, and years you were not saved, the Bible teaches that you were spiritually bankrupt having no any spiritual inheritance because you were without Christ, without hope and without God in the world. This is how the Bible records this sad yet incontestable truth, “11Wherefore remember, that you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; 12That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:11-12). First of all, before you were saved, you were without Christ. In other words, you had not received Jesus Christ in the way this scripture explains, “12But as many as received Him to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. 13who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13—NKJV). Secondly, before you were saved, you were without hope—the hope of eternal life just as this scripture reveals, “11And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has no life” (1st John 5:11-12). And thirdly, before you were saved, you were without God. Though you may have known about God and even believed in God (James 2:19), yet you were without God because you were not saved just as these words of Jesus Christ to unbelieving Jews confirms, “He that is of God hears God’s words: you therefore hear them not, because you are not of God” (John 8:47).

But thank God that you are no longer spiritually bankrupt: that is, you are no longer without Christ, without hope and without God. For, when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you were there and then made heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. This is how the Bible records that truth, “16The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God: 17And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together” (Romans 8:16-17—NKJV). The Bible also adds, “6And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7Wherefore you are no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:6-7). So you are heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. And to explain how this blessed spiritual inheritance became yours in Jesus Christ, the Bible goes on to explain that: “4But after that the kindness and love of God our savior toward man appeared, 5Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our savior; 7That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7). Moreover, the Bible does not even stop there for it goes on to reiterate that: “3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5Who are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1st Peter 1:3-5). So thank God that in Jesus Christ you are heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ having immeasurable spiritual inheritance!

This brings us to the end of exploring the first major change that took place in your life when you were converted at the moment of your salvation and became a child of God. That major change as we have seen in details is this unparalleled change of your spiritual nature from a condemned sinner to a declared saint. So with that firmly understood, let us explore together the second major change that took place in your life when you were converted at the moment of your salvation and became a child of God.

II. When you got saved, you experienced instant change of your spiritual status from a person who was haunted by guilty conscience to a person who is now free of guilty conscience

Before you were saved, the Bible teaches that you were a guilty sinner haunted by guilty conscience day in day out. That guilty conscience was a God-given tug in your heart and mind to help you recognize that you had sinned against God so that you could turn away from all your sins and turn to Jesus Christ to be saved. So before you were saved, God out of His grace and mercy ensured that your conscience actively played its role of reminding you that you were a guilty sinner in desperate and urgent need of salvation. And no matter how hard you might have tried to suppress your guilty conscience, it still broke through reminding you of some of the sinful attitudes and sinful actions you had engaged in. And even if you chose to regularly offer animal sacrifices to God according to the Law of Moses hoping to remove your guilty conscience, those animal sacrifices could not and did not remove your guilty conscience just as this scripture says: “1For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. 2For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. 3But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. 4For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:1-4). In short, no animal sacrifices or religious ordinances like water baptism, Holy Communion, etc, could remove your guilty conscience.

But thank God that you are no longer haunted by guilty conscience. This is because, when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you experienced instant removal of your guilty conscience. Yes indeed! You experienced instant change of your spiritual status from a person who had been haunted by guilty conscience to a person who is now totally free of guilty conscience because through your saving faith in Jesus Christ, you have received total forgiveness of all your past, present and future sins. This is how the Bible describes this blessed removal of your guilty conscience when you put your faith in Jesus Christ: “11But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; 12Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. 13For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: 14How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:11-14). And this is how Jesus Christ removed your guilty conscience: “10By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, 13from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. 14For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10-14—NKJV). How immeasurably glorious this truth is that Jesus Christ offered Himself once and for all so that through your saving faith in Him you can once and forever receive total forgiveness of all your past, present and future sins and with it receive total removal of your guilty conscience!

So thank Yahweh our God that when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, He immediately changed your spiritual status from a person haunted by guilty conscience to a person who is now free of guilty conscience. Now, this major change from a person who was haunted by guilty conscience to a person who is free of guilty conscience (at the very least) comprises of the following six blessings which became yours in Jesus Christ at the moment of your conversion when you were immediately saved from the penalty for all your sins in hell. First, you were totally forgiven by God. Second, you were justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Third, you have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Fourth, you were redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Fifth, you crossed from death to life. And sixth, you were delivered from the wrath of God in hell. So join with me as we explore together each one of these six blessings stating them in the present tense to signify that they are here to stay as your permanent eternal blessings from Yahweh our God whose gifts and calling are irrevocable according to Romans 11:29.

1. You are totally forgiven by God

At the moment of your conversion, God graciously changed you from a hopeless and a helpless guilty sinner to a born again believer in Jesus Christ who is totally forgiven by God. For all those days, months, and years you were not saved, the Bible teaches that you were a hopeless and a helpless guilty sinner who was destined to spend eternity in hell unless your sin debt was paid in full. This is how the Bible lays out this heart-wrenching condition, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This means that you were a guilty sinner who was destined to spend eternity in hell unless your sin debt was paid in full! Then the Bible goes on to explain the inevitable grave consequence of being a guilty sinner with these words, “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a). In other words, you had incurred a debt of sin that you could not pay hence you were bound to taste the jaws of spiritual, physical and eternal deaths. And the only way you could escape the jaws of spiritual and eternal deaths was by getting the Perfect Substitute and the Perfect Sacrifice who could willingly take your place and receive the full wrath of God for all your sins thereby paying your sin debt in full. Now, that Perfect Substitute and Perfect Sacrifice is the Lord Jesus Christ just as this scripture reveals, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). For, it only through believing and trusting in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior that a holy and a righteous God can forgive you of all your past, present and future sins thereby setting you free from your guilty conscience once and for all. It therefore means that for all those days, months and years you had not truly believed and willingly received Jesus Christ into your life as your personal lord and savior: 1) your sin debt remained unpaid, 2) you were haunted by guilty conscience, and 3) you were bound to be crushed by the jaws of spiritual, physical and eternal deaths.

But thank God that this heart-wrenching condition changed. For, when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior: 1) God graciously forgave you of all your sins, 2) God removed your guilty conscience once and for all, and 3) God saved you from the jaws of spiritual, physical and eternal deaths. The following three scriptures show you how God graciously forgave you of all your past, present and future sins. The first scripture says, “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Colossians 2:13). Note that God did not forgive you some of your sins or even many of your sins but He forgave you all your sins. This includes all your past sins up to the moment you got saved in addition to all the present sins you might be struggling with as well as all the future sins you will ever commit (for even a true Christian does sin as is clearly revealed in 1st John 1:5-2:2). The second scripture says, “Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18). Here God promises you to totally forgive you of all your sins regardless of how grave or gross they are, if only you would come to Him for salvation as you did. And guess what! That is exactly what happened to all your sins when you believed in Jesus Christ. God totally forgave you of all your sins just as this third scripture reveals, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). So thank God that in Jesus Christ, God has totally forgiven you of all your past, present and future sins!

2. You are justified by faith in Jesus Christ

At the moment of your conversion, God changed you from a person who was condemned because of all your trespasses and sins to a person who is now justified by faith in Jesus Christ. It bears repeating that for all the time you had not sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, the Bible teaches that you were a condemned sinner. For the Bible says that: “17For God sent not His Son in the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. 18He that believes on Him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:17-19). Furthermore, the Bible goes on to elaborate what this condemnation would ultimately result to declaring that, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). Therefore for all that time you were not saved, you were a condemned sinner and the wrath of God abode on you.

But thank Yahweh our God that this condemnation and the wrath of God which abode on you were immediately removed at the moment of your conversion. When you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, in that very instant, God changed your spiritual status from a person who was condemned because of all your trespasses and sins to a person who is now justified by faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible describes this grand transformation as follows, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). You are no longer condemned because your sin debt is paid in full. And this is because you are “in Jesus Christ” which means that God has graciously given you genuine living and lasting faith in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. Moreover, the Bible goes on to say that, “1Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2). Therefore when you sincerely repented toward God and you truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you were there and then justified. That is, you were in that very instant declared righteous or right with God by God Himself just as if you have never sinned. For the scripture unequivocally states that, “But to him that works not, but believes on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5). In short, it was by the grace of God through your true saving faith in Jesus Christ that you were justified. And that is why the Bible declares that, “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28). Knowing that you are justified by faith in Jesus Christ you ought to respond as Prophet Isaiah did saying, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Isaiah 61:10).

3. You are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ

At the moment of your conversion, God graciously changed you from a person who was a slave of sin living under the curse of the law to a person who is now redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ from the penalty for all your sins and the curse of the law. For all those days, months, and years you were not saved, the Bible teaches that you were a slave of your own sins of thoughts, words and deeds and as a result you were living under the curse of the law. For the Bible says the following about all human beings without any exceptions, “10As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one: 11There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. 12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10-12). Living in sin regardless of how small or insignificant it seemed to you made you a slave of sin. Speaking on this matter, Jesus Christ said, “Verily, verily, I say to you, whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34). And as for how you were living under the curse of the law, this is how the Bible explains it, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). It therefore means that, before you were saved, you were under the curse of the law because like all other human beings, you did not keep perfectly the whole law of God.

But thank God that you are no longer a slave of sin living under the curse of the law. For the undeniable biblical truth is that when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you were immediately redeemed from the penalty for all your sins and the curse of the law. First, you were immediately redeemed from the penalty for all your sins in hell by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Referring to this redemption, Apostle Paul wrote, “5For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; 6Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1st Timothy 2:5-6). And then the Bible goes on to explain how you were redeemed stating that, “18Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1st Peter 1:18-19). So your sin debt which you could not pay was paid in full by Jesus Christ when He died in your place on the cross washing away all your sins by His precious blood just as this verse declares, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7). Hence through Jesus Christ you were completely redeemed or rather set free from the penalty for all your sins in hell. Secondly, when you got saved, you were immediately redeemed from the curse of the law. For the Bible says that, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is every one that hangs on a tree” (Galatians 3:13). In other words, Jesus Christ redeemed you from condemnation that was upon you because of failing to keep perfectly the whole law of God. So thank God that in Jesus Christ you are completely redeemed from the penalty for all your sins in hell as well as from the curse of the law.

4. You have peace with God through Jesus Christ

At the moment of your conversion, God graciously changed you from a person who had no peace with God because of all your sins which separated you from a holy God to a person who is now having and enjoying peace with God through Jesus Christ by whom and in whom you have received total forgiveness of all your sins. Before you were saved, the Bible teaches that you did not have peace with God because your sins separated you from Yahweh God who is holy, righteous and just. One of the scriptures which makes this truth abundantly clear is Isaiah 59:1-2 which declares that, “1Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: 2But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” Even though none of your sins separated you from the everlasting and unconditional love of God (1st John 4:8 and Romans 5:8), it is a biblical fact that your sins separated you from God’s family and God’s Kingdom, both of which you could never be a part of unless you are truly born again hence all your past, present and future sins are totally forgiven (John 3:1-8 and Colossians 2:12-13). Whether you knew it or not, being excluded from God’s family and God’s Kingdom in addition to having hostile and broken relationship with God meant that you did not have peace with God but you were actually an enemy of God. That is why the Bible says that, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10). This explains why the Bible calls all those people who are excluded from God’s family and God’s Kingdom “wicked” declaring that, “There is no peace, says the LORD, to the wicked” (Isaiah 48:22). Sadly, that is who you were before you were saved. You did not have peace with God because you were actually an enemy of God and a “wicked” person!

But thank God that now you have peace with God through Jesus Christ by whom and in whom you have received total forgiveness of all your sins. For when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you were there and then reconciled to God because all your past, present and future sins were in that very moment totally forgiven. Writing on this subject to the Church at Colossae, Apostle Paul noted, “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Colossians 2:13). And having received total forgiveness of all your past, present and future sins, hostile and broken relationship between you and God came to an abrupt end. And from that moment you started having and enjoying peace with God just as this scripture reveals, “1Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2). Furthermore the Bible goes on to add, “20And, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things to Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. 21And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled” (Colossians 1:20-21). Finally, this scripture explains how this blessing of having peace with God was made possible by the everlasting and unconditional love of God for you: “8But God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:8-10). So thank God that in Jesus Christ you now have peace with God through Jesus Christ by whom and in whom you have received total forgiveness of all your sins.

5. You have crossed from death to life

At the moment of your conversion, God graciously changed you from a person who was spiritually dead having no eternal life from God to a person who is now spiritually alive having received eternal life from God. For all those days, months, and years you were not saved, the Bible teaches that you were spiritually dead hence you did not have eternal life from God. This is how Apostle Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit declared this truth to the Church in Ephesus, “And you has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Also, Apostle John inspired by the Holy Spirit wrote the following regarding how unsaved people are all spiritually dead, “He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life” (1st John 5:12). Sadly, this is how you were before you became a born again believer in Jesus Christ. You had physical life but you did not have spiritual life. In other words, your body was alive, your soul was also alive although it was wounded but your spirit was dead due to trespasses and sins. Therefore, for all practical purposes, you were spiritually dead totally without any spiritual life.

But thank God that you are no longer spiritually dead. This is because, when you sincerely repented toward God and you truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, right there and then, God the Holy Spirit infused eternal life “in” to your dead spirit instantly making it alive forevermore. Prophesying of this New Testament experience, Yahweh God of the Bible spoke through Prophet Ezekiel saying, “26A new heart also will I give you, and a new Spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgments, and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). So this prophecy was fulfilled in your life at the very instant of your conversion when God the Holy Spirit infused eternal life “in” to your dead spirit causing you to cross from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive. Explaining this glorious spiritual transformation, our lord and savior Jesus Christ said, “Verily, verily, I say to you, he that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death to life” (John 5:24). Since your spirit is alive and permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, then you are no longer condemned to die eternally in hell because you are not “in Adam” destined for eternal death in hell (1st Corinthians 15:22a) but you are “in Christ” assured of eternal life here on earth and forever and ever in heaven (Romans 8:1). Elsewhere, Jesus Christ reiterated this fact saying, “Verily, verily, I say to you, he that believes on Me has everlasting life” (John 6:47). And with these words of Jesus Christ, you can rest assured that physical death shall never ever end your life because you will still be alive spiritually waiting to receive your resurrected glorified body at the rapture of the church, “Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). So thank God that in Jesus Christ you have crossed from eternal death which waited for you in hell to eternal life here on earth and forever and ever in heaven!

6. You are delivered from the wrath of God in hell

At the moment of your conversion, God graciously changed you from a person who was destined to experience full wrath of God in hell to a person who is now delivered from the wrath of God in hell and is translated into the Kingdom of God as a child of God. Before you were saved, the Bible teaches that the wrath of God abode on you because of all your sins. This is how the Bible records that sad yet undeniable truth, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). Now, wrath of God abode on you because Yahweh God who is holy, righteous and just must ensure that all sins of all people from Adam all the way to the last person here on earth are justly and righteously punished (Habakkuk 1:13 and Romans 6:23). And just as we saw in Romans 6:23 that “the wages of sin is death,” it therefore means that before you were saved, the wrath of God which abode on you comprised of the three jaws of spiritual, physical and eternal deaths. Sadly, what this means is that for all those days, months and years you were not saved: the jaws of spiritual, physical and eternal deaths were waiting to crush you because of the original sin you inherited from Adam (Romans 5:12) and because of all your personal sins of evil thoughts, words and deeds (Romans 3:23). In fact, spiritual death was already at work in your life according to Ephesians 2:1. On the other hand, physical death was waiting as a dreadful gateway to usher you into eternity in hell (Hebrews 9:27 and Luke 16:19-31). And lastly, eternal death also known as the second death was waiting to subject you fully to everlasting pain, suffering and torment in hell forever and ever (Revelation 20:11-15).

But thank God that you are no longer destined to experience full wrath of God in hell. This is because, when you sincerely repented toward God and then truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, the Bible teaches that you were completely and eternally delivered from the wrath of God in hell. Starting with these words of Jesus Christ, it is crystal clear that at the moment of your conversion you were completely and eternally delivered from the wrath of God in hell and brought into the Kingdom of God as a child of God, “Verily, verily, I say to you, he that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death to life” (John 5:24). The same truth is reiterated in this next scripture which says, “And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1st Thessalonians 1:10). Lastly, Apostle Paul expounding on the same truth wrote to the Church in Colossae reminding them that they should be, “12Giving thanks to the Father, which has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son: 14In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:12-14). Consequently, at the moment of your conversion, spiritual death which was already at work in your life was instantly conquered (Colossians 2:13). Also, eternal death which was waiting for you in the future was from that instant forever and ever avoided (John 5:24). And the sting of physical death which was also waiting for you in the future was immediately plucked off, and there and then, physical death stopped being a dreadful gateway to eternity in hell for you and instead it became a harmless gateway to eternity in heaven for you according to 2nd Corinthians 5:1-8. So thank God that in Jesus Christ you are delivered from the wrath of God in hell.

And with that, we come to the end of exploring the second major change that took place in your life when you were converted at the moment of your salvation and became a child of God. In our study, we have seen that the first major change that took place in your life at the moment of your salvation was the instant change of your spiritual nature from a condemned sinner to a declared saint while the second major change was the instant change of your spiritual status from a person who was haunted by guilty conscience to a person who is totally free of guilty conscience. Therefore with that clearly understood, let us now turn to the following third and the final major blessing which became yours in Jesus Christ when you were saved from the penalty for all your sins in hell and you were immediately justified:

3) YOU BECAME A TRUE WORSHIPPER OF GOD THE FATHER AT THE MOMENT OF YOUR SALVATION

As important as forgiveness of all your sins is, know with certainty that, that is not the ultimate end result of your salvation. Also, as important as becoming a born again believer in Jesus Christ is, know with certainty that, that is not the ultimate end result of your salvation. And as important as becoming a child of God adopted into the family of God is, know with certainty that, that is not the ultimate end result of your salvation. The ultimate end result of your salvation is your Spirit-led transformation from a hopeless and a helpless guilty sinner to a true worshipper of God the Father here on earth in this space-time continuum and forever and ever in heaven the eternal dwelling place of Yahweh God of the Bible (see Revelation 4:11; 21:1-27 and 22:1-21)! Therefore all these glorious transformations we have looked at throughout this chapter were geared towards the ultimate end result of your salvation when you were once and for all transformed by God the Holy Spirit from a hopeless and a helpless guilty sinner to a true worshipper of God the Father at the moment of your salvation.

Inevitably and most appropriately, it was our lord and savior Jesus Christ who gave the deserved prominence to this important subject of becoming a true worshipper of God the Father. Speaking to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in Sychar a city of Samaria, Jesus Christ told her that: “21Woman, believe Me, the hour comes, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22You worship you know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him. 24God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21-24). From these four verses, we are brought face to face with this remarkable and most profound truth of the kind of worship and worshippers that God the Father is seeking. To begin with, God the Father is seeking worship that is not centred in a place but in a person. And the person who should be the centre and the focus of that worship is God the Father through Jesus Christ. Secondly, God the Father is seeking not just any worshippers but true worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. So then, here are two important questions you must ask. First, who is the true worshipper? And second, what does it mean to worship God the Father in spirit and in truth? As I conclude this chapter, I will seek to adequately answer these two questions showing you from the Bible that when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you immediately became a true worshipper of God the Father, who can and should worship God the Father in spirit and in truth all the days of your life.

First of all, who is a true worshipper of God Father? According to the holy Bible, a true worshipper of God the Father is and must be a person who is worshipping God the Father as per the ways and the means that God Himself has prescribed in the Bible. A person cannot worship however they want and expect that God the Father is going to receive their self-invented worship! So in Old Testament times before Jesus the Messiah had come to pay in full for all the sins of mankind, a true worshipper had to offer all the prescribed animal sacrifices for the atonement of his or her sins (see Leviticus chapters 1 to 7). However, these animal sacrifices could only cover the worshipper’s sins but they could not take away completely and eternally all the sins of that worshipper (Hebrews 10:1-4). Therefore these animal sacrifices were prescribed by Yahweh our God to act as types and symbols which were foreshadowing the coming final and Perfect Sacrifice in the person of Jesus the Messiah (Hebrews 10:1-14). So by obediently offering these animals, the worshipper was in actual fact looking ahead in saving faith beyond the animal he or she was offering to Jesus Christ Himself—The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Hence they too (i.e. the true worshippers of Old Testament times) had saving faith in Jesus the Messiah and that is how they got saved just like us: by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9)! Something else to note is that none of these worshippers of Old Testament times could approach God directly. They had to go through a priest. And even the high priest could not enter at any time or in any way he wanted into the holy of holies where the Shekinah Glory of God was in the temple. He could only enter there once a year and with blood to atone for his owns sins (Hebrews 9:6-10). That is how hard it was to access Yahweh our God prior to the coming of Jesus Christ.

But when we turn to the New Testament dispensation (i.e. from the birth of the church in year 32 A.D. and beyond), the prescribed way to worship God the Father is similar to that of Old Testament in terms of accessing Him through a sacrifice. Yet, it is vastly different in terms of “whom” that sacrifice must be and “what” that sacrifice is able to accomplish for the worshipper. A New Testament worshipper has to approach God the Father not through animal sacrifice as it was for the Old Testament worshippers but only through Jesus Christ, the Great High priest—who is the final Perfect Sacrifice that all the Old Testament true worshippers were eagerly looking forward to His first coming. Affirming this truth, Jesus Christ Himself categorically declared that, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). Apostle Paul underscoring the same truth wrote, “5For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; 6Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1st Timothy 2:5-6). And unlike the Old Testament animal sacrifices which could only cover sins for some time (Hebrews 10:4), Jesus Christ’s final and Perfect Sacrifice on the cross took away all the sins of mankind so that whosoever believes in Him can be truly and eternally saved. This is how the Bible records that truth, “For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” (1st Peter 3:18). Therefore you now know and have the answer to the first question on who is a true worshipper of God Father both for the Old and New Testament worshippers.

So let us now turn to the second question on what does it mean to worship God the Father in spirit and in truth? A careful examination of these words of Jesus Christ in John 4:23 where He said to the Samaritan woman, “But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him,” reveal to us that Old Testament worshippers did not have or even enjoy this unique experience of worshipping God the Father in spirit and in truth. This is because, in John 4:23 where Jesus Christ uses the words, “But the hour comes,” He clearly reveals that worshipping of God the Father in spirit and in truth had not yet been experienced by any of the true worshippers before His first coming. But after He came into the world, it was to be experienced and to be expected as a mandatory unique worship experience for all true worshippers of God the Father during the whole of the New Testament dispensation. For, He goes on to say in the latter part of that verse that, “And now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him.”

So how can it be that the true worshippers of Old Testament times did not worship God the Father in spirit and in truth? Definitely, it cannot mean that Holy Spirit was not with them, for without a doubt He was with them (see John 14:17). It also cannot mean that Holy Spirit could not come upon them, for surely He did come upon some of them (see Judges 3:9-10; 6:34; 11:29 and 1st Samuel 16:13). Moreover, it cannot mean that they did not know the truth or that they did not worship God in accordance with the truth, for they certainly knew the truth and they truly worshipped God in accordance with the truth revealed in the Old Testament scriptures (see Deuteronomy 30:10-20). So what did these true worshippers of Old Testament times lack? This is what they lacked. First, their dead human spirits due to trespasses and sins were not regenerated (Ezekiel 36:25-28 and John 1:12-13; 3:3-8) neither were they permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit (Ezekiel 11:19 and John 14:16-17). And second, though they worshipped God in accordance with the Word of God or the Bible which is truth according to John 17:17, they nevertheless did not worship “in truth”, that is, in spiritual union with Jesus the Messiah who is the truth according to John 14:6. And this is simply because Jesus the Messiah had not yet come hence they could not worship in truth incarnate. That is, they could not worship in the Person of Truth—one who is truth by His very nature—our lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Now, while all the Old Testament true worshippers did not worship God the Father in spirit and in truth due to some of the reasons I have highlighted above, all the New Testament true worshippers of God the Father must (out of necessity and design) worship God the Father in spirit and in truth. Explaining why this is the case, Jesus Christ told the Samaritan woman that, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Out of necessity and design, God the Father who is a Spirit can only be truly worshipped by a human spirit which is no longer dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1) but is born again and thus made alive by being infused with eternal life by God the Holy Spirit in addition to being permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit Himself (Romans 8:9-11). This is what it means to worship God the Father in spirit for only then can a person be willing and able to access and thus truly worship God the Father who is a Spirit just as this scripture confirms, “15For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ 16The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:15-16—NKJV). Therefore a born again human spirit that is infused with eternal life and is also permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit is both necessary and essential for a person to truly worship God the Father in spirit for God is a Spirit. This mandatory worship experience for all New Testament true worshippers was prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-34 cf. Hebrews 8:8-13 and in Ezekiel 36:25-28 as we saw earlier on in this chapter.

And to crown it all, worshipping of God the Father in truth simply means that the worshipper must worship God the Father in accordance with the Word of God (the Bible) and in Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior. First, the worshipper must worship in truth, that is, in accordance with the written inspired Word of God or the Bible. For, the Bible is truly indeed “the truth” according to John 17:17. Second, the worshipper must worship in truth, that is, they must be in spiritual union with Jesus Christ who is “the truth” according to John 14:6. This simply means that the worshiper must be truly born again. In short, a person can only worship God the Father in truth if he or she is guided by the Word of Truth (the Bible) and is in spiritual union with the Person of Truth (Jesus Christ). Therefore, a person can only worship God the Father in spirit and in truth if and only if that person is truly born again so that he or she can access God the Father who is a Spirit with his or her regenerated spirit that is permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit in addition to being led strictly by Jesus Christ (the Person of Truth) through the Bible (the Word of Truth) as the guide.

Thank God that this is exactly what happened to you when you sincerely repented toward God and truly believed in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. For, when you got saved, your dead spirit was immediately made alive by God the Holy Spirit who infused it with eternal life and permanently indwelt it thereby making you a born again believer in Jesus Christ who is truly and eternally saved. Consequently, you now have a born again human spirit that is infused with eternal life and is also permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. This makes you willing and able to truly worship God the Father in spirit (i.e. in your regenerated spirit) because God the Father is a Spirit and you can only access Him through your regenerated spirit (Romans 8:9-11). Secondly, at the moment of your conversion when you were getting saved, you experienced instant spiritual union with Jesus Christ. Henceforth you became willing and able to truly worship God the Father in truth: that is, in accordance with the Word of Truth—the Bible (John 17:17) and in spiritual union with the Person of Truth—Jesus Christ (John 14:6). In summary, therefore, at the very moment of your conversion, you experienced ultimate end result of your salvation inasmuch as you were once and for all transformed by God the Holy Spirit from a hopeless and a helpless guilty sinner to a true worshipper of God the Father, who can and should worship God the Father in spirit and in truth all the days of your life. Therefore, knowing that as a born again believer in Jesus Christ you are a true worshipper of God the Father who can and should worship God the Father in spirit and in truth, may you ever live worshipping God the Father with all you are (body, soul and spirit), with all you have (material and immaterial possessions) and with all you do (occupation, vocation and vacation) all the days of your life!

Therefore “Your Position in Jesus Christ” can be summarized as follows:-