The Truth About Saints

We continue today with the second part of the first verse inPaul’s letter to the believers in Ephesus. (Yes, we are only on the second half of the first verse. I told you this could take a while!) The verse reads as follows:

“To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Jesus Christ.”

There is a simple yet profound point that needs to be made here. Actually, I would like to pose it to you as a question. Who are these saints? If you, like myself, were at one time raised under certain types of teachers within the Christian church, or are still being taught from certain traditions, your answer to my question will be wrong. I say this not to point out the errors of my readers, but to simply point out the misconceptions and false teachings that have found their way into the Christian church. So again, my question is, “Who are these saints?” and even broader than this arises the question,  “What is a saint”?

When I was younger I was always taught that a saint was someone who had gotten “it” right. The “it” I am referring to is their behavior. They had attained a level of obedience to God that bordered on perfection. And in fact, I was lead to believe that they had died in perfection and that is how they became saints. Their earthly lives were devoted solely to God, as evidenced by their behavior and their service to mankind. Of course, for all of us, the primary example of a saint was Mother Theresa. But there are many others as well. Just about every major character in the Bible who was a believer or did anything miraculous for God is considered a saint by many in the church today. And in the not too distant past, just a few years ago, the Catholic church voted to declare sainthood upon a few more that had given their lives in service to God. (These people had died centuries ago).

Does this match your idea of a saint? If so, you are not alone. But I want you to know that according to the Bible this definition is incorrect on several levels. I would like to clarify the truth about sainthood, which will in turn begin to reveal something shocking about the nature of God’s grace.

According to the Bible, a saint is anyone who believes that Jesus Christ is Lord. Which is to say that you, oh believer, are a saint. But if you are going to believe what I say then you must have patience to hear me out because at the moment I am sure you have questions.

To be sure, the one thing we all thought was true of saints really is true–that a saint is one who has attained perfection in God’s sight. But what we all got wrong was how that perfection was obtained. There is no one, including you or myself, who has perfect behavior. Not the Pope, not Mother Theresa, nor any one else who ever lived. If you have trouble believing this, just read what the Bible has to say in this matter:

             “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:9-12.

These verses apply to all people. They were not just directed at the nation of Israel at the time they were spoken but to all people. To emphasize this point, I will include another verse:

        “God saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” Genesis 6:5.

This verse was written before the nation of Israel ever existed. So again, I stress that it is directed at the state of all mankind. But now I must make another point. The Lord, because He is God, can see and know things that mortal man cannot see and know, right? So I want you to know that what He is talking about here when it says that He “saw” how great man’s wickedness had become, is not the behavior of people. No, what He saw was the condition of their heart, also known as the “sinful nature” of man. To be sure, everyone was not running around doing evil things every minute of every day. I am sure there were people who were “nice” some of the time. Yet the first verse I quoted to you says there is “no one who does good, not even one” and “there is no one who understands”. So how is it that God judges good and evil? He judges these things not based on our behavior, but based on the condition of the heart.

The reason He wrote in Romans that “no one understands” is that we all want to put a human definition on what is good and what is not. But of course that does not work because different people will have different definitions and, of course, their own definition will always include things that they do as “good”. No one wants to look bad or think of themselves as bad. But God wants us to “understand” that it is His definition that counts–only His. And we already know what God thinks: He says there is “no one who does good, not even one”.

The prophet Jeremiah was given these words to say, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard change his spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.” Jer 13:23

One more thing to tell you before I explain how you became a saint. God once said in the Scriptures that “My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts”. This is the easiest way to understand why God does not look at what we humans do the same way we do. Ask yourself, “Is it possible that God is so muich greater than I that I really have no idea what good really is? The answer is “yes”. Furthermore, is it possible that God is so great, that He is actually the defining characteristic of “Good”? The answer again is “yes”. Since that is true, do you realize that all things that exist apart from Him must by definition be described as “evil” because there is no “goodness” or “Godliness” in that person? That is why all who do not believe in Him are considered evil. It is also why “there is no one who is righteous… no one who does good, not even one”.

SO how does “good” happen to a person? Or to put it another way, how does a person become “Godly” in God’s sight? Well, let’s look at what God says about “good”.

“This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all me to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1Tim2:3  You see, goodness has nothing to do with being good as far as behavior is concerned. Goodness has to to with knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The fact of the matter is that in order for salvation to come to a person, God does not demand goodness, He demands perfection. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. Matt 5:48  This perfection, I hope you have already agreed with me, is not humanly possible.

But pefection is possible through Jesus Christ since He died on the cross to forgive the sins of the whole world.Your sins have all been forgiven. Even before you believed all your sins were forgiven and God says, “I will remember them no more”. There was only one sin that Jesus could not take away when He died on the Cross–the sin of unbelief. That is the sin that all mankind is guilty of. That is the reason “there is no one who does good”.

So when you received the gift of faith to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, the sin of unbelief was taken away and you became perfect. Not by your behavior, mind you, but by the declaration of God. By the same God who declared, “Let there be light” and thereby created the world and everything in it, you have received the label of “perfect” in God’s sight. In other words, you have the perfection of His Son Jesus. And by the way, this became true of you from the moment you believed. There is no such thing as a Christian in the making, or a believer in progress. Once the gift of faith is received, you are complete in Christ–you are a saint.

There are thousands fo saints walking the earth today. Paul was writing to the saints of his time, those who lived in Ephesus and believed that Jesus Christ is Lord. I am writing to the saints of my time–people who believe in the Lord as their Savior. I hope this clarifies things for you. I hope it encourages you to know how the Lord views those whom He loves! I will write more soon.

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