Holy Ones in the New Testament: What “Saints” Really Means

I don’t think I will live long enough to bring a talk to Christians that is more remarkable than what we’re going to cover. I am going to talk to you about a subject I have never heard of addressed in my life. I have had a formidable library, probably much larger than most people would even believe. Now I don’t have it all on display because, as you well know, I have moved around a great deal in these last 45 years. But there was not a single book in my library, no matter whether it was theological or any other kind. I would even tell you I would have a difficult time finding a reference book on the subject.

Now, there is a movement in America. I think it’s fizzled, more or less. It’s leveled off and become a culture, as most of our denominations are a culture that emphasizes what I’m going to talk to you about. But it was basically a movement of legalism. It was a very narrowly confined legalism. Nonetheless, it was legalism. And quite frankly, I’ve known some of their people, and I’ve always admired them. They don’t seem weighed down by much guilt. They have this message spoken to them all the time. I’ll tell you in a moment what it is.

Now, not only is it a subject I’ve never heard discussed, including in the seminary, but I’ve never heard it dealt with. Not only that, but I’m also going to make a declaration. One of the reasons we never talk about it and certainly never address it to a new Christian is that I think the translation is poor. It doesn’t strike the heart. You can read over it and not even notice that you read it. Now, let me tell you why it’s a poor translation. Of all the people that I admire in church history, there’s none greater than William Tyndale. But he is the father of the English language. He is also the father of the language used in the English New Testament.

The word righteousness never existed in the English language until he embedded it. The words… let me think up some right quickly. Righteousness. The word freedom. The word sanctification. I’m not even sure the word redemption existed in the English language until he made it. He created, and looking at the Greek, he had to invent words that had never been spoken before.

I don’t think his influence on mistranslations was all that great until the King James translation came along. And there are two things you must know: that we are still to this day under the influence of the mistranslations of King James, and we are also under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. You’re going to find that out in just a moment. There are certain things we don’t teach or preach. They belong to the territory of the Roman Catholic Church. Much of our thoughts found in the New Testament are dominated by the theology of early Catholicism. And some of those would really surprise you.

Certainly, one of those is the concept of hell. Basically, the concept we have today is a heathen concept… or go to heaven. Well, if you do, you’re sure going to be awfully alone. You are not going to heaven, and I’m not going to heaven. Do you want to hear another one? You and I have never been born again, either. Now, and you can try me for heresy here, but I would like to quote a verse of Scripture. And I saw the new Jerusalem…which we all think of as heaven. But it says, I saw the new Jerusalem coming out of heaven. Now, you have to make your choice. Do you want to live in the New Jerusalem, or do you want to live in heaven?

Another one is to be born again, which is really not a good translation and should not be in Scripture. I flinch a little bit every time I hear it. The translation is that you must be born from above. Now we’ve got problems here. We got a word that Tyndale invented to express something, but he was utterly off base. It was picked up in the other passages after that in King James. It’s there now. If it’s in King James, it’s there forever.

By the way, saints, there are some other words that should not be in our language. One of them is the word baptism. The word “baptism” is not a word. It is a Greek word that has been transliterated, which means that if it had a B in Greek, they put a B there. And if it had a Z in it, we put a Z there, or an M there, we put an M. We did not use our own language. We transliterated someone else’s. The word baptism is not a word; it’s a transliteration. The word is immersion. Try to find a translation that says ‘immersion’; it’s not there.

Now, here is a word so rich and so powerful that the very use of this word is transforming. It is powerful beyond description, to the point that I am calling on the church to do something against its Christian nature: to use this word. If somebody had told you or if someone had told me this word that we would be Christians, if we call one another by this word, what an incredible impact it would be. Before I tell you what the word is, let me go a little further.

A large part of all that we usually preach on Sunday morning is based on guilt. Believe it or not, that’s why I brought up the word guilt just a few minutes ago. That’s not all. Religion, by its nature, has in its very essence the matter of guilt that you and I, whether we’re saved, unsaved, no matter who we are or whether we are a hot and tot or somebody from New Zealand or from Brazil, we walk around with a sense of guilt. What you just looked at, the very mind rejects: that Jesus Christ has crucified the world, that he has crucified you, that he has crucified Satan, that he has crucified the fallen angels, that he has crucified…why don’t you help me really quickly here? He has crucified everything. What have I overlooked? Talk to me, saints. Give me another one. I’ve left out nearly half of it.

Law. Yes. Thank you so much. Anything else? Alright. The last words I gave you were: “Now that Christ has done all these things on the cross, it’s safe to come out.” In other words, it’s safe to begin. That all these things in the eyes of God are done away with. You don’t believe that. I don’t believe that. It is an act of faith that we must live in. And I don’t mean a hypnotic thing, a hypnotic faith where we go around saying the world’s dead, I’m dead, everything’s dead, the world is dead, sin is dead, sin is dead. It is simply to acknowledge the reality, the truth that God Himself has established. He is not only the way and the life, but He is also the truth. And this is true. It’s for you to embrace, and me to embrace, but more than that, it is for the church in Lithia Springs to embrace and to remind one another of throughout the days and weeks and months of all your lives. It’s also up to me to remind you again and again. It’s important for me to be reminded by you. What a preparation He made to receive a new believer. Oh, what you are about to hear now taxes all of our spiritual nature to believe. So many things that you and I were never exposed to.