What is beatification and canonization and are they biblical?

By no means. A "saint" is popularly supposed to be an eminently holy person. The Romish authorities still make saints by a lengthy process called "canonization." If we lived amongst Romanists and spoke of "going to visit the saints" they would probably imagine we are going to visit some local shrine and invoke the aid from the spirit world of some of these canonized people. And many who are not Romanists have not quite shaken off these ideas. A saint is not a person of unusual piety, who after death is entitled to be represented in effigy or picture with a halo round his or her head, but the ordinary, simple believer — each one who has been set apart for God by the blood of Christ, and by the possession of the Holy Spirit.

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.

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.

But this truth, elementary as it is, was far too much for Christendom to carry uncorrupted. Nor do I speak only of the grossness of Babylon, which canonizes her saints years after death, and actually not till alleged proofs are given of miracles from relics of the deceased candidate. But even where the pope is rejected, what can be more timid, what more unscriptural, than the unwillingness of most believers now to recognise each other as saints, and to confess themselves sanctified in Christ Jesus from the starting-point of their confession of the Lord's name? What is this but an unworthy shrinking both from accrediting the rich grace of God and the solemn responsibility of the believer? Saints they are however; and as such they are bound to walk. Not to own it is not exuberance of humility, but only ignorant unbelief to the dishonour of the Lord and their own souls' great loss. It is clear as light from the scriptures adduced that all who confessed Christ were called and treated as saints, and that sanctification is viewed as attached to every one who bore His name. They were set apart to God; and this from the first. (Compare Acts 9:13, Acts 20:32, Acts 26:18.)

It is by a reference to the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, that the heart of a sincere believer is enabled to free itself from the mischievous effects of this and other spiritual illusions. What these precious doctrines are, will be examined more at length in the progress of these Notes. At present, it is enough to remark generally with respect to the descriptive expressions employed by the Apostle in this prefatory greeting, that, in the language of Scripture, a "saint" is a sinner saved by grace; and both justified and sanctified through faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 26:18; 1 Cor. 1:30; Heb. 10:10). Such are God's saints. Men, it is true, confer the saintly title on each other upon very different grounds. But no room is found for these in Scripture. What nature canonizes, God condemns. Nothing is holy in His eyes but Christ, in whom alone His people stand accepted in His sight. Believers, then, are saints. On the other hand, "faithful" (or believing, pistoi) "brethren in Christ," are the same persons when described with reference to the living Object of their faith, just as they are styled "saints" with reference to the mighty efficacy of that work which has been wrought both for them and upon them by the grace of God.

But if this is so, what of the practice of the invocation of saints? To bring in the saints in heaven as go-betweens, as is done by the Romish church and by some prominent Anglicans, also, is to becloud and belittle the gospel. Not a single line of Scripture is there to support such a horrible idea. It savours of “the depths of Satan.” It is the very essence of worldly religion, for it puts God at a distance, and that is what the world has done from the beginning.

You justify next the invocation of saints and angels. In vain has Paul denounced the worshipping of angels (it is not latria, but threskia, all religious deference or service whatever) as a voluntary humility, saying, that it is leaving Christ the head. In vain has he declared that there is but one mediator, the Man Christ Jesus. Rome will return to heathenish ways and Jewish superstitions, for such they really are; and, in order to do so, she has consecrated books of Jewish superstitions, as if they were the word of God; and has dared to do it in the sixteenth century — a deed never ventured on before.

Lastly, no passage has been even attempted to be quoted of addressing saints or angels. But I will here also give the history of this matter. The first commemoration of the saints was praying for them, that they might speedily see the face of God. Gradually, between rhetoric and Jewish and heathen practices, the saints took the place of the heathen demi-gods. But Romish practice goes farther, because they found prayers on the merits of the saints, as may be seen in the Roman Missal (as on Patrick's day, for example, March 17). As to praying one for another on earth, it is clear and simple, and the New Testament teaches it, and shews it practised — never to saints absent. As to the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ghost, who knew what would come in, has recorded for us that she never asked anything of the Lord, without being rejected in her request, the Lord saying, What have I to do with thee?

122 The great and dreadful evil of this doctrine is this: the grace of the gospel shews us two great things: first, that Christ has wrought so great and glorious a work, that I can go directly to the Father, in His name, certain that He hears me, and have boldness to enter into the holiest by His blood; secondly, that Christ in His rich grace came down here, was tempted in all points as we are, without sin — that He is touched with the feeling of my infirmities, and knows, having learned here below, how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He has shrunk from no suffering, no humiliation, that I may have confidence in His love, and readiness to help. The invocation of saints and angels comes to deny all this. He is too high, too exalted; His heart not tender enough! Saints who never shared our place are to be more trusted; the tender mercies of the Virgin Mary, who never shed her blood for me, is to be more trusted. It is all shameful dishonour put upon Christ's grace and tenderness. I know no one so kind, so condescending, who is come down to the poor sinner, as He. I trust His love more than I do Mary's, or any saint's; not merely His power as God, but the tenderness of His heart as man — none ever shewed such, or had such, or proved it so well. None entered into my sorrows, none took a part in them, as He; none understands my heart so well; none has inspired me with such confidence in His. Let others go to saints and angels, if they like; I trust Jesus' kindness more. If it is said, He is too high, I answer, He became a man that we might know His tenderness; and He is not changed. And why go to them? Why, in Jesus' name, not go straight to the Father? The need of all this troop of mediators only shews that men do not believe the gospel. They cannot go to God Himself. Now Christ has brought us to God; suffering, the just for the unjust, He has brought us to a God of love, our Father, having put away our sins. Rome would turn us out again, to leave us trembling at the doors of the saints. I would rather go to God Himself. He, I know, loves me; He has given His Son for me. Which of the saints has done that? As to angels, they are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation. Looking to them is treated as apostasy in scripture.

When our Lord was on earth, did not the sinful and distressed, the sick and the diseased, come direct to Him? Never one was rebuffed. Never once do we read of their asking His mother to intercede for them. The Lord never refused any supplicant. “And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them ALL” (Mark 12:15). Does not 1 Timothy 2:5, at one stroke sweep away the intercessor and saints of the Romish system, when it says definitely, “There is… ONE Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5-6). The Virgin Mary did not give herself a ransom, but our Lord did, and He, who did that, may well be trusted in the matter of approach to Him, and not to any intermediary. Such an attitude puts more honour on the Virgin than approaching her, as if her qualities of tenderness and compassion were superior to His, and that He needed intercession to soften His heart and persuade Him to be compassionate.

Long before Christ appeared the hearts of men yearned for a mediator. The book of Job is evidence of this, for that patriarch felt the immense gulf that lay between God and himself. "He is not a man as I am" was his complaint, "neither is there any Daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both" (Job 9:32-33). The One who takes up the part of Daysman or Mediator must Himself be God to fully represent God, and must be Man to rightly represent man. The Man Christ Jesus is He. Being Man we have no need of further men to come in as subsidiary mediators between Him and ourselves.