The prompt for Monday Morning with Jesus typically happens in class on Sunday and is easy to spot. I’ll be honest. This one caught me off guard a little. We were covering the question about what it means to be adopted into the family of God rather than “slaves” to the Law, and I quoted Ephesians 2:18-22.
18for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,
20having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,
21in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,
22in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
Ephesians 2:18–22 (NASB95)
“But we aren’t saints. No one is.” That one came out of the blue and caught me off guard.
If we take the common, accepted understanding of a saint without looking up the definition we would all agree no one alive is a “saint” as we mentally perceive that word. However, looking at the book definition of saint from Dictionary.com, we might find a few alive.
Saint
[ seynt ]
noun
Any of certain persons of exceptional holiness of life, formally recognized as such by the Christian Church, especially by canonization.
A person of great holiness, virtue, or benevolence.
A founder, sponsor, or patron, as of a movement or organization.
(In certain religious groups) a designation applied by the members to themselves.
Number four is the commonly understood theological definition meaning the members of the Church Universal are the “saints” such as the “great cloud of witnesses.”
1Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1–2 (NASB95)
But that got me thinking. Clearly, everyone doesn’t take that use of “saint” in scripture to mean all of us, though many in class did. I had to step back and think about it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized, this is what was to be written this morning.
I found a great, short explanation from GotQuestions.org on this very topic. You can read their fairly short explanation HERE and I encourage you to do that. The short version is that there are 67 occurrences of the word “saints” in the Bible. In those instances, the word is referring to the body of Christ, the church, and us as “the saints”. We are the saints.
Reading that article, I realized the Catholic understanding of a saint being someone who has died, gone to Heaven, and then been canonized by the Catholic church as a saint is what colors our understanding of the word away from the scriptural meaning. In the Catholic understanding, and the spirit in which the question in class was offered, no one on earth is a saint. In the protestant understanding, and I believe the biblical one too, we are all the saints referenced by scripture.
Now, that is not to imply we are saintly meaning righteous. If we accept the idea that scripture is calling us all “the saints” we should not puff ourselves up and take that to mean we are any better than anyone else because of it. What it means is that we are considered “the saints” because of our adoption into God’s family through Jesus Christ. It is only because of Jesus’ sacrifice that we are “the saints” and not anything we did, said, or thought. The title of saints is conveyed upon us through grace by our faith in Jesus and nothing else.
Are we still sinners wrapped in ungodly behavior deserving of God’s wrath? Yes, we are. Does that change the fact that we are still considered “the saints” by God because of our faith in Jesus? No, it doesn’t. What does that mean and how can both those be true?
It means we are saved through grace by the sacrifice of Jesus. It is true because God said it is true. We have but to accept the gift, thank God, and act accordingly going forward. God bless and Godspeed.