Can Sinners Become Saints Today?

Can SINNERS Become SAINTS Today?

Saints are often depicted in religious paintings and stained glass windows. Halos of light around their heads are often used to identify them. Miracles are attributed to them. Some people even pray to them.

People have always been prone to hero worship. It was the custom in the ancient times, and still is today, to venerate and even idolize heroes. Athletes are often the objects of this worship. Young English athletes all want to be like England’s soccer star, David Beckham. They worship him.

For millions of people all over the world, Mohammed and Buddha are actually seen as saints according to the customs of their religions. They have an aura of super-humanity. Humans are naturally religious. Being alienated from the true God by sin, we tend to venerate things we can see.

What does “saint” mean?
The British writer, John Blanchard remarked how people feel it wrong or boastful to say, “I am a saint.” In his book, What in the World is a Christian? (Evangelical Press, 1996) he wrote, “The subconscious feeling seeping through centuries of misuse is that a saint is a particularly good Christian, a kind of honors graduate in holy living, a spiritual superstar.”

To make matters worse, there is a common usage which lowers the term “saint” to the everyday: “My mother was a saint.” Used this way, the word loses its true meaning and becomes just another term for a good person. How can we get an exact definition of a word which seems so inexact?

For the Christian the answer must be that the ultimate authority is God. Whatever traditions say on the subject of sainthood, only God is the Truth, the one who “cannot lie” (Jn. 14:6; 1 Jn. 5:20; Heb. 6:18 KJV). When Jesus said, “Thy Word is Truth” (Jn. 17:17), He confirmed that God has communicated to us in human language in the Bible. And to it we must turn to remove ourselves from the confusion on the subject of sainthood. Acts 17:11 tells us that the Bereans “were more noble in that they searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so.” We must do the same thing.

The word usually translated, “saint” or “holy” in the New Testament is hagios, which means “set apart.” Paul addressed Christians as “saints” wherever he went. Roman Christians were, “beloved of God, called saints” (Rom. 1:7). And he began his letter to the church in Corinth this way: “To them that are sanctified in Christ” (1 Cor. 1:2). He likewise addressed the Philippian and Colossian churches. Peter addressed his first letter to the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God ... through sanctification of the Spirit” (1 Pet. 1:2). Jude also addressed his letter to “them that are sanctified by God” (Jude 1). “Sanctified” is the verb for “saint.”

How does one become a saint?
These references make it clear that saints are not spiritual superheroes, but ordinary men and women who have been saved and sanctified by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Paul made this abundantly clear to the Corinthians who were anything but “saints” in their everyday lives. Having rebuked their lack of unity and disorderliness, he wrote the following: “Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:10-11).

When we were saved, we were immediately sanctified because, having “passed from death unto life” (Jn. 5:24), we were “set apart” for God. At that moment we were transferred from “the power of darkness” into “the kingdom of His dear Son” (Col. 1:13). Being “set apart” makes us “saints.”

While we live in bodies inherited from Adam, our state is often a mixture of the holy and unholy, and our practice not always worthy of the position we’ve been brought into by Christ’s salvation work. But we can learn and practice holiness, because the Spirit of holiness teaches us to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called” (Eph. 4:1).

This may be summed up in two words, “position” and “practice.” Though our position is that of being sanctified and seated in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6), by practice we are still walking on earth. Paul explained this to the Colossians, and exhorted them to “seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on earth” (Col. 3:1-2.)

Those who were once sinners are now made holy by the Lord’s work. We are not moral/spiritual supermen, but ordinary people who have received God’s love and grace. We are sinners lifted “out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay.” But now our feet are set “upon a rock,” our “goings” have been “established” and “a new song” is put in our mouths (Ps. 40:1-3).

Do we doubt this?
Perhaps we still doubt this. With impaired understanding and weakness, how can we ever be what God wants – for us to become more like His Son (Rom. 8:29)? How can God see us as holy when dreadful things lurk in our hearts, and come out in words and deeds that we later regret? How may we ever practice Peter’s words? “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of behavior; because it is written, ‘Be ye holy for I am holy’” (1 Pet. 1:14-16).

God does not shut His eyes to our shortcomings, pretending they are not there. Instead, He sees us in Christ, washed and sanctified, as Paul explained to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 6:10-11). This being the case, Peter’s exhortation for us to be holy as God is holy, is all the more compelling. We must strive to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord” (2 Pet. 3:18). We bring pleasure to the Father as He sees our character become more like His Son’s. We are to walk holy, talk holy and think holy, feeding all the time on God’s Holy Word, the Bible. Paul wrote, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ” (Phil. 2:5). In other words, as we mature in Christ, our daily practice should become more conformed to our heavenly position. We’ll never reach Christlikeness, but we should strive for it.

How did wrong thinking develop?
How then did some early Christians become so revered? It is really quite simple. We humans feel a need to look up to others. As the early Christians were persecuted by the Romans, the really brave ones were looked up to. More is heard of them than of the failures. However, there were failures who were put out of the local church because they recanted their faith. To be restored to fellowship they often sought a testimonial from a stronger Christian in prison awaiting execution as a martyr. These compassionate ones interceded for their weaker brethren to be reinstated. Tertullian wrote about this: “Some who have not this peace in the church are wont to beg it from the martyrs in prison” (H. Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, Oxford University Press, 1969).

As the churches lapsed more and more into ignorance and superstition, it became accepted that if imprisoned “saints” could successfully intercede with church authorities, then they could also do so with God. Many reasoned that if their intercessions were successful while alive, they might also be so after their death. So grew the cult of “praying to dead saints.” Increasingly, admiration led to veneration, and veneration to worship and idolatry. While intercessory prayer is something we should all do, and is even the special work of some, it is a different matter to raise dead saints to a position that, according to Hebrews 7:25, belongs only to Jesus, who “always lives to make intercession” for us.

What should we do?
While holiness is a state to be prayed for, it is also a state to be sought in dependence upon the Spirit and God’s grace. Though we are positionally holy because of Christ’s salvation, practical holiness is still something we are always in the process of achieving. One day we shall be brought into that bright state of holiness which is the very presence of God. We shall see the Lord Jesus and we shall ourselves be holy – completely pure and sinless in spirit, soul and body, even as He is pure (1 Jn. 3:2-3).

It might be said that we are now spiritually holy – that is our position. We are also being made practically holy – that is our present condition. And one day soon we shall be completely holy – that will be our permanent state for ever and ever.

By Roger Penney