What are Christian saints according to the Bible?

In the N.T. the word used is ἅγιος, which means 'holy one.' A saint is one set apart for God; he is such by calling (not 'called to be a saint'). Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; cf. Heb. 3:1. Saints are thus a distinct, recognised class of persons belonging to God — His saints. Acts 9:13; Col 1:26; 1 Thess. 3:13; Jude 14. All Christians are embraced in this class, so that the apostle could speak of 'all saints.' Eph. 1:15; Eph. 3:18; Col. 1:4; Philemon 5. Christians therefore need not shrink from acknowledging the designation by which God has been pleased to distinguish them, and should ever remember that there is a line of conduct that 'becometh saints.' Rom. 16:2; Eph. 5:3. The word ἅγιος corresponds with the Hebrew qadosh. The word chasid corresponds more with ὅσιος, translated 'holy' in 1 Tim. 2:8; Titus 1:8; Heb. 7:26; Rev. 15:4; and 'Holy One' in Acts 2:27; Acts 13:35.

Let me show, you what it is to he a Christian. Look at verse 12 — "Giving thanks to the Father, which has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." The moment you have faith in God's Son, you are fit to be with Him. The work of Christ alone makes us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. And who are the saints? Are you a saint? "Oh, no, sir." Why not? "Why, a saint is a very holy person." A saint is one who has been set apart to God by the work of Christ and the action of the Holy Ghost. But, you will say, there must he sanctification. What does being sanctified mean? Separated to God. There is nothing so simple as sanctification as it is given us in Scripture. If you call practical holiness sanctification, it follows justification. But there is a sanctification which comes before it — "Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." So that really, viewed in one aspect, a man is sanctified before he is justified.

I learn that we are sanctified, or set apart to God, by God the Father, through the offering of Jesus Christ once for all, and by the operation and power of the Holy Ghost through the truth, so that all Christians are saints,14 and that in our practical state we have to follow after holiness,15 and grow up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, being changed into His image, to whom we are to be perfectly conformed in glory.16

The Christian is called holy because he is set apart for God absolutely, according to the rights won by Christ in His death, and made good when he is born again, and thus set apart in a real way; and more perfectly, and with more intelligence, when he is sealed by the Holy Ghost, as cleansed by the blood of Christ. Then he is sanctified in his relationship with God, and, in fact, as to the new man; also as we have seen, the old man is held to be dead. Thus when Christians are called holy, it is indeed the expression of a relationship with God, but this relationship is formed by the gift of life, and founded on the fact that Christ has purchased them by His death. But there is no other relationship, and when a man calls himself a Christian he calls himself holy, consecrated to God, set apart from the world for God. It has likewise been the will of God that a church should be formed on the earth, and all who are introduced into the church according to the ordinance of God are accounted holy. They deceive themselves terribly if they have not life, but according to their profession they are holy; such is their relationship as to their position. But when the word says "saints," it is of course supposed that they have been really born again, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, the possibility of a false profession excepted. The word "saint" is therefore the name of a relationship; that is, that a man is set apart for God; but this relationship, if it is a true one, is formed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by the word according to the order appointed by God for the external manifestation in the world of this relationship. Now it is worth while to remark, that sanctification is attributed to each of the three Persons of the Trinity: to God and to the Father, Heb. 10:10; Jude 1; it is by the blood of Christ, and by the offering up of His body, Heb. 13:12; 10:10, 29; by the Holy Ghost, 2 Thess 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2. This is in various aspects, naturally: there are the counsels and the will of God the Father; through the offering of Christ in order to redeem them to be sanctified; by the power of the Holy Ghost to set them apart in fact: we may add, by the word, as the means employed by the Holy Ghost. It is important to draw the reader's attention to the use of the word "sanctification" in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Sanctification by the Holy Ghost is never spoken of there, but by the will of God, by the offering of Christ, and by His blood; because Christ died for the nation, and as many as received Jesus as the Christ were reckoned as being, as it were, a part of the nation that belonged to God according to the offering of Christ; not that it does not treat of the true value of the offering for those who believe, but the nation sanctified by the blood of the covenant is always in view, and not the operation of the Holy Ghost in the individual.

The saints then in the New Testament are accounted as having entered into a new relationship with God through the blood of Christ, set apart for God. This is the order according to God, but it is always supposed that this relationship is founded on reality, save to demonstrate its falseness; only that sanctifying by the blood of Christ is used in a more general, external way: nevertheless it is held to be real if the contrary is not demonstrated. Christians are called holy in Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:2, but in chapter 10 of the latter epistle it is supposed possible that admission to this relationship may have taken place without the possession of life.

But the Christian is not only justified, he is also sanctified; he is a saint (mind, Scripture does not say, as men do, that a few dead Christians are saints, but it says on the contrary that all living Christians are saints). This may startle some who are accustomed to the usual theological expression, that justification is an act done at once, and that sanctification is gradual and progressive. It is not of course denied that there is such a thing as gradual sanctification, i.e. increasing holiness of walk in him, who by abiding in the Son, grows from a little child into a young man and from a young man into a father in the family of God (see 1 John 2:13; Eph. 5:26). This growth is a matter of deep importance, and God forbid that we should make light of it. Nevertheless, it is boldly stated that the Christian is said to be in Scripture, according to the ordinary use of the term, a sanctified one, or saint: by which is meant, not one especially holy in walk, but one set apart for God, by the call of God. The Apostle Paul, after enumerating a terrible list of sins, goes on to say: "And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor. 6:11.) In the second verse of the Epistle he writes to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. This last expression is not quite clear in English. In the Greek it is plain enough "saints by calling"; i.e. by the call of God. In Heb. 10:10 it is written: "By the which will" (viz. the will of God) "we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The Apostle Jude also speaks of believers as "sanctified by God the Father" (verse 1). And it must be borne in mind, that Jesus Christ is our Sanctification, as well as our Righteousness. (1 Cor. 1:30.) This sanctification will be better understood by our Lord's words: "For their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified through the truth." (John 17:19.) It is evident that the Lord could not be made holy, for He ever was holy; but He was set apart as the Holy One for a special purpose: and so believers are set apart as sanctified ones, or saints; not by holiness of walk, but by the call and will of God, though the result of this sanctification should be, indeed must be, holiness of walk. Any one, who will take a concordance, and look up the word "saints," will find that in the Acts and the Epistles, believers are called saints more than fifty times, and that the word is always applied to all believers, and never to certain special believers, whose walk was more holy than that of others. Moreover, God never calls believers sinners. On the contrary Scripture says: "When we were yet sinners" (Rom. 5:8); plainly implying that we are not so now. The passage in 2 Timothy 1:15, which is sometimes referred to, is spoken by the Apostle Paul of himself and in it he refers to what he did in his unconverted state. It is therefore very evident that God's people are sanctified ones or saints, and not sinners in His sight.

Scripture teaches otherwise. Every genuine believer is a saint, the most simple as truly as the most experienced. In nearly every New Testament epistle the term is applied to the whole Christian company without discrimination. The status of saint cannot be conferred by ecclesiastical authority after the soul has quitted this world; still less can it be acquired by self-effort in life. A person can no more become a saint by striving after holiness than he can become Prince of Wales by apeing the manners of that exalted personage. Persons become saints by divine call (Rom. 1:6-7). They hear the voice of God speaking to them in the Gospel, telling them of their sins and of the Saviour's atoning blood, and they bow believingly to the message. Hearing the loving invitation to believe and be saved they unfeignedly respond to the call. In a moment they are transformed from sinners into saints. It is God's doing; and it is a marvel of infinite grace. The robber of Calvary and the religious zealot of Tarsus; Mary Magdalene and the excellent Sarah, though drawn from widely different surroundings, were all alike saints, each one having experienced the same gracious work of God in their souls.

But who is a saint? Lydia was a saint: the jailor was a saint: Euodias was a saint, and also Syntache. A saint means a holy person, a person separated to God. A person who is a saint should live "as becometh saints." (Eph. 5:3). A saint should live a holy life, and walk in a way that pleases God. Yet that is not what makes a person a saint in God's eyes, for we find the Spirit of God calls the Corinthians saints, "saints by calling", (1 Cor. 1:2), and they were behaving very badly indeed, so the Spirit of God spends most of two long Epistles finding fault with them: but He begins by calling them "saints." What, then, is a saint? Every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is a saint. Every person bought with His precious blood is a saint: these are all separated from the world, because they are bought with that blood. In Eph. 2:19 the Spirit writes to men and women who once were without God, separated from God, (That is the meaning), but now they are separated to God; they are "saints." He calls them "fellow-citizens with the saints"; citizens of Heaven: holy men: saints. If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ: if you are washed in His precious blood: if you are born again, and have eternal life: then you are a saint: just as truly a saint as the saints in Philippi, or just as truly as the apostles Peter or Paul themselves. But the word saint should make us think especially of God's people, separated, or, consecrated, to God: set apart for Him.

God of His own sovereign will has sanctified, set apart for Himself through the sacrifice of His Son every believer in Christ. Therefore, in the New Testament, believers are uniformly called saints and holy, regardless of their moral or spiritual condition or walk. Every one who hears the call of God and puts faith in Christ then and there becomes a saint sanctified by the will of God through the offering of the body of Christ, and perfected forever by His one offering. This is the position or standing of all believers in Christ. God has set them apart for Himself through the offering of the body of Christ and henceforth ever sees them in Christ, clothed in all the value and perfection of that sacrifice that has for the eye of God purged away, once and for all when offered, all sin and defilement that ever attached or could attach itself to His saints. Therefore, believers in virtue of their sanctification through the blood of Jesus can boldly enter at all times into the very presence of their holy God. They cannot be made more holy as to their standing before God in Christ than His blood has already made them. Their standing in holiness is perfect, as perfect as the sacrifice of Christ, as perfect as Christ is; "as He is so are we" though we are still in this defiled and defiling world (1 John 4:17).

There is no such thought in Scripture as "sanctification by faith," as some speak of, i.e., an act of faith by which the saved soul suddenly becomes sanctified. The sanctification spoken of here the soul receives the moment it has faith in Jesus. Faith in Him places you among the saints. Are you a saint? Oh, I should not like to take that place. Why? Well, of course, saints are very holy persons. That is indeed what they should be, but they are saints first. Who are the saints? All those who are sanctified by the effectual work of the Spirit of God in them, and the work of Christ for them. "Them which are sanctified," include all the Lord's people. Do not let Satan trouble you about your experiences, and raise the question as to when you are sanctified. If you trust the Lord Jesus, and are under the shelter of His blood, you are separated to God, and that means a great deal, for He regards you as His from that moment.

This is literally “called saints”, not “called to be saints”. We do not believe in the idea that a certain person can be canonised after three centuries when it comes to light that miracles have been performed at his grave or because prayers have been given to him and they have been answered; all this is mere superstition and a lie of the Devil. The truth is that every believer is a saint for the simple reason that they belong to the sanctified company. They are constituted holy and they should act in a holy way. We are all holy in His sight. The work of Christ is so complete, its glory nothing can dim, all that we were has been removed forever and we stand before God in perfect holiness. Now we can see that all the exhortations that Paul gives in this epistle to this Christian company to do better stems from this point, that they are holy, that they are a separated company, that they are called out (this never alters), and, because they are in this position, their conduct ought to be different from those who were around.