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

Now, some things said about the Christian faith will not work today. They don’t work today because the incubator in which they are supposed to exist does not exist. The words holy, holy-fied, and holy-fication are words that belong within the walls of the church by Jesus Christ. You tell a man who just got saved, who has never been to a church building…first of all, if he went to the church building, it wouldn’t be the church…and if he went to a meeting on Sunday morning, it would still not be the church. That word has its meaning only in the corporate body of Christ. It only has its outworking in the body of Christ. It is meaningless and powerless outside of the community of the believer, but within the boundary of the community of the believer…try it on. Put it on. It is overwhelming. It may be one of the greatest keys to the Christian life you will ever encounter.

I think every one of us knows that at some point or other we have a problem with sin. Maybe someone here doesn’t have a problem with sin. I put you in a room, in a community where everybody, everyone in that room, everybody, everyone in that neighborhood, everybody in that community is walking around here calling you holy and reminding you that you are holy, was one of the great keys to the Christian faith in the first century. You’d wake up to the reminder that you were holy. You went to bed, reminded that you were holy. You got up the next morning; you were still reminded that you were holy. There is something so edifying about this, so building up within our inwards, our spirit as well as our soul must be continually reminded of not only our state before the Lord, but our very nature before the Lord.

Now we’ve got two more passages here. I’ll let you know which ones to read. I think I will go with the one in Matthew. Listen very carefully to this because there’s nothing else in Scripture quite like this very passage. This is one of the worst passages of Scripture in the life of Jesus Christ. It’s just line after line after line of condemnation of a bunch of hypocrites and the way they have twisted the law and twisted the words of God. He’s very angry, but He makes a statement here. Audience: You fools and blind men, which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold?

Have you ever heard of positional truth? If anybody ever says this is positional truth, stick your tongue out and go say, “There is no such thing as positional truth.” I will tell you, positional truth was invented by theologians who could not face reality. This passage is used to show positional truth. If gold is sitting in someone’s home, that’s its position, but if you pick it up and put it in the temple as part of the temple, then its position changes, and it’s sanctified. It’s made holy.

Now I think the Lord Jesus Christ was saying something very profound here. You know, He said, “Tear down this temple, and in three days I’ll build it back up again.” They had no idea what He was talking about. He was talking about himself as being God’s temple. Now let’s look at it again. Are you holy because you are holy, because you have made yourself holy? Or are you holy because you are a part of Jesus Christ? Sisters, brothers, you have done nothing to make yourselves holy. And contrary to what the holiness bug teaches, there’s nothing you’re going to do that will make you holy or holier.

I was very embarrassed one day when a Baptist minister standing by my side…he was attacking the holiness movement, and this lady was talking to him. She began explaining her holiness doctrine, and he said to her, “I know what you are. You are as holy as God and getting better.” Well, it is a bit of a problem for them, you know, in that…I am holy, but don’t lie, don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do this, don’t do that, and otherwise you will lose some of your holiness.

You’re holy. You were holy. You are holy. You’re going to stay holy. That’s disconcerting, and to anybody who feels that we can fall from grace, that’s why we cover this up with all these other difficult words. This is one of the hardest things God ever asked us to swallow and live with. I’ll say it again: it is of no value to us unless we are in the community of the church. It is something we should remind one another of.

Now, how did you become holy? Well, you’re about to hear the first theological discussion on holiness that I have ever heard that is coming out of my mouth. One, the state of God is holy. It is not His character. It is His very essence. By His essence, He is holy. As sure as God is agape, He is also agioi. Not easy to pronounce. He is by His very essence…holy. There is one who came out of Him, who is also the very essence of holy.

Now, you’re going to have a lot of passages of Scripture here to look at, but I want you to notice one of them, the one that says, “called to be holy ones.” You and I know that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. A great deal of things got settled upon before the foundation of the world. The fact that you’re sitting in this room is strong evidence that He loved you even before He created. He marked you off in Christ. He called you…He called you in Christ.

Now, one day I said to you, anytime you come to the word “in”, if you’re having a problem with it, just say “into”. So let’s read it again. You have been called “into” Christ. You have been marked off inside of Christ, and you’ve been called “into” Christ. Your geographical location is in Christ. And Jesus Christ made Himself the very essence of holy; He made Himself holy. You have been called, and according to the clearest understanding of Scripture, your calling in itself made you holy. Before the foundations of the world, you were already in a state of holiness, inside Him who is holy, who was also inside Him who was holy, even Christ in God, and you in Christ. Your very essence in the eyes of God, because you are in Christ, has by the very essence of Christ made you holy. Why do you think you’re called a Christian? You are part of Christ.

Now, there is much more to be said, but here is more than any of us can handle: that right now, in this room, you’re holy. Remember this. He has crucified the flesh, sin, and sins. He’s crucified the world. He’s crucified you. He’s crucified the devil, He’s crucified death, then He’s crucified everything. Now you come peeking out to look around at your enemies, and you don’t have any. You and I are really taxed to “faith” that statement, to believe that statement…to “faith” that statement. I don’t really care whether you believe it or not. It’s nonetheless a fact. Now, I know the Arminians have a great deal of problems with this, because you’re going out there and living like the devil himself and then going to be saved. I didn’t say that. Have you not heard the Edwardian statement on the reconciliation of Calvinists and Arminians? And that is that without time and space, the Lord Jesus Christ can go to the very end of time and see those who have made it, and then walk to the other end of time,  the beginning of time, or before time, and write our names into the book of Life based on those whom He has seen are in the great crowd of the redeemed ones.

Now…I don’t know who they are. I’m not going to trouble myself with deciding who is and who is not, but I can tell you this: according to holy Scripture and the teaching of the apostles… You were holy. You know something? You’re going to be very uncomfortable being unholy for very long…or acting unholy very long… I heard this story…I think I heard it myself from the lips of someone who told it to me. It happened at the beginning of my Christian life. Let me tell it as I recall: a missionary was telling me this story, he had led someone to the Lord, and he saw this man the next day. Now, here was a man who had never heard of Jesus Christ the day before. Knew nothing about the Christian faith, who was living wherever he was living. How do you assume somewhere in the darkest part of New York? It could have been darkest Africa, South America, China, or any place.