Our talk today has got to do with being a saint. We’re thinking together about the subject “What is a Christian?,” and we are looking at different titles that the New Testament uses for Christians – and this by no means exhausts the different ways in which the New Testament describes a Christian. At some point or another somebody or another would have to give a talk on a Christian as a saint, and so I have chosen these two passages from Acts 9 as our beginning place and then Ephesians 3. The first gives us the first record in the life of the New Testament church of someone referring to Christians as saints. The second contains a very brief reflection on what Saint Paul thought about himself as one of the saints.

So, Saul of Tarsus has been going to persecute the Christians. Christ has literally floored him, and now the Lord is sending a Christian by the name of Ananias to help him.

Reading of Acts 9:10-19.

(Transcription of audio file from 01:26 to 03:09 omitted.)

I wonder if you were playing Bible Trivial Pursuit and were asked the question, “Who was Ananias?” if you would have been able of answer that, because he appears and he disappears. But just think of the significance of the ministry that the Lord gave to this otherwise completely anonymous individual. He is such an illustration of the principle that God’s wonderful purposes in my life may actually have more to do with somebody else’s life than they have with my life. And Ananias was sensitive to that. He departed and entered the house of Brother Saul, and he receives his sight and was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Reading of Ephesians 3:7-13.

(Transcription of audio file from 03:54 to 05:59 omitted.)

In the middle of the 18^th century (I think about 1756-1758) a very famous and rather long-lived book was published. It was not, I suppose, widely purchased, but it became enormously important. It was written by a man called Butler – not the philosopher, but a man called Alban Butler. It was entitled The Lives of the Saints, and when it was published in 1756-1759 it listed 1486 saints. It is a book that lasted into the 20^th century and was then revised in 1956, this time appearing in four volumes which you can still purchase. In that particular edition there were 2565 saints. It is under process of revision, and when the revision is completed it will come out in twelve handsome volumes. I mention this because I am not even sure if the editor and publisher yet know how many saints there are going to be in The Lives of the Saints when the twelfth volume is completed.

There is actually a little controversy about that in the Roman Catholic Church, and some of you may know that. About five years ago, Cardinal Martins (who is what they call the Prefect for the Congregation for Sacred Causes, or the Causes of Saints; in other words, he is the man who leads the entire exploration into whether an individual should be first of all beatified and then canonized by the Pope). It is a very striking thing that during the papacy of John Paul II (which was a relatively decent length of time), there were more individuals named for beatification and then for canonization as saints than in the whole period of time from the end of the 16^th century until late on in the 20^th century. And so there has been a little controversy in the Roman Catholic Church, particularly as to whether there are too many saints these days. They even have an expression for it; they call it “saint inflation”! But what we know is that from the lives of the saints in 1956 there were 2565 of them who were actually worth writing about, and one presumes that these twelve expensive volumes are going to mean that they have more. When Cardinal Martins was asked about this, he gave this answer (and I quote him in translation): He said, “I answer at once that there are not too many saints!”

And here I stand in an old Reformed Church to say I agree precisely with Cardinal Martins. But when I say "saint" I don’t think I mean the same thing that he is talking about, and I am quite sure that the New Testament does not mean the same thing that he is talking about. When we speak of people being saints – my patron saint is Saint Clare. I am actually named after a saint: Saint Clare. If we have time I’ll tell you all about him; it is a pretty remarkable story. Who is Saint Clare? – he and all of these saints are people who attained high levels of holiness in their lives, or through whom miracles it is believed have been performed during their life or after their death. There is a substantial organization that investigates these claims in great detail before anybody becomes a saint. But in the New Testament, anybody who is a Christian is a saint. Anybody who is a Christian is a saint! Indeed, there are some people addressed in the New Testament as saints who then are told that they are behaving in a far from saintly fashion. So for the gospel, for the New Testament, a saint is not somebody who has attained a particularly high level of growth in Christian life or has done marvelous and extraordinary things, a saint is simply somebody who has become a Christian. If you are a Christian, then by definition you are a saint.

That is so countercultural that it is actually stunning. I remember when I first learned this (I think I was 15 or 16) and it just rocked me. Having been so familiar with the notion that saints are very special people, the idea that that kind of being very special actually was part and parcel of God’s gift to me as a Christian just blew me out of the water. I thought the better of it, but one of my schemes was going to be whenever anybody asked me what my name was I was going to say, “I am Saint Clair.”

The Origin of the Title "Saint"⤒🔗

Let me say a few things about what this means in the Bible. First of all, the origin of this term. Where does it come from, calling Christians "saints"? Well, it was not invented by Ananias. Actually, it is an Old Testament term. It is used in a number of books in the Old Testament. You will find it variously translated – sometimes "saints," sometimes "holy ones" – in the Old Testament scriptures. It is sometimes used in the Psalms to refer to those who have been brought into contact, saving contact, with the Lord. And so in the Old Testament it refers to God’s people. Although it is not used all that often in the Old Testament, there is one chapter in the Old Testament where in the space of about ten verses it is used six or seven times. And that, therefore, is a very important passage for us to understand “What does it mean to be a saint?” Actually, it is one of the key passages in the Old Testament to help us to understand the person and the ministry and the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is Daniel 7.

Now, I know Daniel is a book that is difficult to find in the Old Testament, and once you get past the middle of it it can be quite difficult to understand. But in Daniel 7, Daniel has this vision of the throne of God, the Ancient of Days, as he describes Him, as seated on an exalted throne, and he sees someone coming to him in the clouds of heaven who he describes as the Son of Man. “I saw the Son of Man coming to the Ancient of Days, and he received from him a kingdom, dominion, and authority.” And then, having received that kingdom and dominion, he shared its blessings with a group of people known as “the saints of the Most High” So here, actually, in this little passage you have three very big New Testament words. You have “Son of Man,” which is of course Jesus’ favorite way of describing himself, and only Jesus describes Himself in this way. You have “kingdom.” Jesus came preaching the kingdom, saying the kingdom of God has come because the Son of Man is here. The King has arrived to establish his kingdom and to begin God’s gracious work of restoration in the lives of men and women, boys and girls and young people.

And then there is this word "saints." Actually, it is just a little cameo picture of the story of the Gospels. Jesus comes as this Son of Man who preaches and establishes His kingdom, and having established His kingdom He says, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.” “Now I want you to share in the blessings and in the extension of this Kingdom because (and this is what the early Christians very quickly understood) you Christians are the saints of the Most High.” So its background largely is here in this marvelous little picture of how the gospel will come and how Christ will gather to Himself this community of people who have contact with Him. And because they have this contact with Him in faith and trust and obedience, they are being set apart as saints – every last one of them.

The Meaning of the Title "Saint"←⤒🔗

The second thing I want you to notice is the meaning of this description. We have something of a tendency to (and it is really the traditional meaning, isn’t it? It is not the New Testament’s meaning, but it is the traditional meaning) a saint is somebody who lives a very good life. But in the Bible’s teaching, that is to put the cart before the horse. That is to stand the gospel on its head. And actually, the same is true in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament a person is not a saint because he or she has attained high levels of ethical purity, but because he or she has come into, can I say, contact by faith with the Holy One of Israel. And there is something kind of radioactive about that. Remember that picture in Isaiah 6, where Isaiah sees God high and lifted up in the temple? And the strange creatures chanting to one another, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts,” and covering their face and covering their feet with four of their wings and using their other two to keep themselves in the air as they fly, although they are perfectly holy creatures. And that’s just the stunning thing, isn’t it, about Isaiah 6. These are not sinful creatures who veil their faces before the presence of God because they are sinful. They veil their faces before the presence of God because God is, as it were, nuclear holiness!

There is an intensity in God’s holiness which seems to combine the absolute integrity and perfection of His being and at the same time the intensity of His outgoing towards His people in love and devotion. I mean, in a sense you might say these creatures veil their faces because they can hardly bear that their eyes would look upon the intensity that their Creator’s love means for them. Have you ever been loved so intensely by somebody that you’ve wanted to run away, because you can hardly bear that somebody would have such passionate devotion to you and your blessing far more than you might have for your own blessing? That is especially true, of course, if you are sinful, as Isaiah experienced. And actually, it is that that transforms our moral lives and transforms the way in which we become devoted. It is a bit like radiation escaping in a nuclear reactor, and you know what you need to do with those who have been present in the building – they have got to go into isolation. They have got to be separated off from others.

And that is, actually, the other sense of the word "holy" in the Bible. It means by grace and through faith being brought into the presence of the infinitely Holy One, because Jesus Christ has shed His blood to bring pardon and forgiveness. But once we have come by faith to Him we become, in a sense, radioactive ourselves and are transformed, and there is a sense in which we are put into isolation – not isolation from living in the world, but isolation from living the way the world around us lives. In such a way, sometimes, that the world is not very sure whether it comes too near, because it might be contaminated by us. “You don’t want to spend too much time with so-and-so the neighborhood; you might catch what they have got, and then you would become separated from us and from the old lifestyle.” That is what it means to be a saint. It means to have met God through Christ, and for Christ to have put His “reserved” sticker on your life, saying your life is now isolated from all other loyalties to loyalty to me, that will then impact on all your other loyalties.

The Significance of the Title "Saint"←⤒🔗

That leads us to the third thing, which is the significance of this title. The origin of the title; the meaning of the title; the significance of the title. Well, I’ve already spelt it out, really. This is who you are if you are a Christian. This is not that to which some of us, perhaps, will attain – although I doubt very much that there are many of us in this room who will ever be canonized and called Saint. But privately among ourselves we can say to one another, “How are you doing today, Saint so-and-so?” Why would we do that? Well, we would do that because we need a constant reminder of who we are in Christ. That we are no longer what we once were. That we have been set on reserve for the Lord Jesus. And this is why in Paul’s letters Paul will call Christians in different churches "saints," and then he’ll essentially say to them, “If you are saints, in the name of the Lord Jesus I urge you to live like saints!” Not as dysfunctional Christians, but as those who, as it were, spread through their lives elements of the radioactivity of the power of God’s holy presence.

And so, for example, Paul writes to the Corinthians (who were a pretty shaky lot. There was division in the Corinthian church; there were people seeking position in the Corinthian church; there was immorality in the Christian church in Corinth. It was a mess!), and he says to them in 1 Corinthians 6, “This are not to be!” because “You were washed, you were sanctified” (past tense) “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” We see something here that is so helpful for us: it is that we are saints! We have been set apart, but we understand that that radioactivity has got to work into the whole of our lives, and is not yet there. When it is, we will explode in a burst of glory, but we are not yet there.

I don’t think when my parents gave me the name Sinclair, I don’t think it crossed their minds, “Let’s name our little boy after Saint Clare.” Saint Clare was a very devoted Christian of the middle of the 9^th century in England. He came from a noble family, and his father wanted him to marry a rich heiress and had it all set up. And she did not like his lifestyle, and he would not marry her. He so would not marry her that he ended up going to France. She was so livid that he had turned her down that she took a contract out on his life, and one of the contractors found him in Normandy on an occasion when he was praying and put a sword through his neck. Some of that may be true. What happened thereafter probably is not: the blood poured out of his neck and turned into a spring, and the spring washed all the blood away.

So that is my namesake! But he helps me in this respect, because he helps me to remember two things about myself: first of all as a Christian I remember I am Saint Claire, but at the same time I also remember that I am Sin Claire. And since both of these things are true, we need so many of these other descriptions of what it means to be a Christian to encourage us to live faithfully, to battle sin earnestly, to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord sincerely, and to grow in grace daily, because we are saints who are still sinners. But thank God, if we are Christians we are sinners who are now saints. So that is what it means to be a saint. Welcome to the publication of God’s book of saints, which has more volumes (Praise Him!) than the world can contain.