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

What I am about to tell you is that, by its very reality, it is, and always has belonged, to the corporate body. I’m going to read passages of Scripture to you, and you will be astonished at how church-centered and corporate-centered this is. I will go beyond that. Some of the greatest emphasis in Scripture is not only a corporate standard of what Christ has done, but also an inter-church standard. I feel like some fellow who never made this discovery in his whole life because all I have is Scripture. Usually, we have some things we can turn to saints of old who have given us something. Well, that may be, but I have never found it. And as I said, I have an awesome library. Not one single chapter, much less a book. You’re probably saying, “Gene, what in the world are you talking about?” I’m not ready to get there yet.

I think you’re going to be uncomfortable embracing this, and I will implore you to continue to embrace it until it is no longer uncomfortable. I want you to know that it was one of the most impactful and vital aspects of power in the first century. It goes against our grain. It goes against our nature. I can see someone in some peasants’ field who cannot read and cannot write and is a heathen, and he’s deep steeped in superstition, and he has just found Christ, and someone says to him, and tells him, “There’s no way you would grasp it.”

One more thing I want to say, I want you to listen. I don’t think any individual Christian can grasp this, and certainly no individual Christian can hold onto it. It seems to belong entirely within the church, and if I were a Baptist pastor preaching it to my church, and I preached it to them for seven Sundays in a row, on the eighth Sunday, it would have gone because, as you know, there are no practical handles in the institutional church. There are just sermons and listening. You must make this right.

Alright, saints. Let’s look at 1 Peter 1:15. And I want to tell you a little bit about how far off our translations are. Audience: But like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. This is the New American Standard.

That’s the only one I know of that translates this. Okay. In the King James, it says saint…I think it’s saints. But in that same word, you find the word “holy.” Is that not true? H O L Y. Now, saints… and for the rest of the night, I’m going to lay aside that word. In every translation you will find, except the New American that I have ever seen, and this includes translations that are supposed to be literal Greek translations, out of a little Greek, you’ll find the word saint in one place and holy in the other.

I am going to spell out to you, using the Roman alphabet, our alphabet, the difference in those two words. And would you write this down? It’s a very short word. It’s not complex at all. A G I O N. Agion. Agion. And that means ‘the holy ones.’ But it’s always translated as ” saint or saints because that’s how the Roman Catholics translated it in a version that was written 1600 years ago and was carried right over into the Protestant religion.

Now, listen to the spelling of the word holy. A G I O I. Now look at the two. What’s the difference between these two words? One is an I, and the other is an N, and that’s the only difference when the word’ holy ones’ is used. It has about four more letters at the end of it, and that’s just how many letters you have to put on a Greek word to make it plural. It’s still the same word. It’s holy. It’s holy one. And it’s holy ones. Now, obviously, you know what the word is. You don’t find this throughout the New Testament. All you find is the word ‘saint’ or ‘saints’.

We now, as believers in Lithia Springs, as new Christians here, hereby banish the word ‘saints’. It is not the proper translation. We would then have to call God a saint. He is holy. And if He is holy, it’s got an “I” on the end of it. Then you are holy; you got an “N” on the end of it. It’s the only difference. The word is holy, or it is holy one or holy ones.

Now then, I’m going to ask you to listen again very carefully. We are now faced with a gross mistranslation of the word of God. Here is a mistranslation. Sanctify. Sanctifies. Sanctification. Now, let me think about the other one? There’s one more. I’ll find it in a moment. Now, holy ones, saints, holy ones, those words should never have existed. They were invented by William Tyndale to express something, but he missed it.

Let me back up and tell you another mistranslation; somewhere that we really missed it. You know, you have, all your life, said to believe in Christ, and then you’ve also heard put your faith in Christ, and so we’ve got putting our faith in Christ and believing in Christ. The word ‘believe’ should not exist in the New Testament in reference to Christians. The word ‘faith’ should be a verb. It is not. Mr. Tyndale could have made it a verb. He is the father of the English language and the father of the Christian language. You and I should put our faith in Christ, and we should be “faithers”. And here’s the verb. I “faithed” Christ the day I was saved. I “faithed” him. I am a “faither”. I have faith. You have faith. We all have faith because we are “faithers,” because faith is built into us by the very faith of Christ. So we’re a little late here. I don’t think we are going to be able to convince anybody to make the word ‘faith’ a verb. But Mr. Tyndale used a word, and he said ‘believe in’, instead of ‘faithed’. F A I T H E D. ‘Faithed’ has been mistranslated into ‘believe in’.

So has the word sanctification. There are some words that should exist. Holy-fied. I want you to write it down. I am a holy one who has been holy-fied. Spell it any way you wish because it does not exist. I have spelled it this way. H O L Y- F I E D. There are those who are holy…those who have been holy-fied. Sanctification, sanctify. I am holy. I have been holy-fied. There has been the work of holy-fication in my life. Now those are the terms that should exist in your New Testament, but do not.

Now then, I said to you it’s going to be uncomfortable, but I wish that the church had been here together tonight to speak to one another about what is true. You have not been made holy, but holy-fied. If you want to, you can say “made holy”, but don’t say sanctified; that comes back to that mistranslation – ‘saint’. The word is holy. Now, you might be in Bible class someday, and they say it means separation; it does not. It means holy. Holy is the only word you can derive from this. There is no other word. For you to say to someone else, “You’re a holy one. You have been made holy.” Listen to a Christian who’s been saved for about a week, a day, or even an hour. No matter his background, unless he is rather unique, he has a sense of guilt. To now be told that he is holy is jarring. Now, look around this room. Do you, by your five senses, see anybody in this room who looks to you as though anyone else in this room is holy? Well, look again, and this time, look with the eyes of Jesus Christ. Do you know why you’ve never heard this before? Christians are scared silly of it.