The Saints
Bible Study Time 7-22-07
Bible Study Time 7-22-07
Nine times in the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul refers to the saints. In fact, he begins this epistle, saying:
Ephesians 1:1 (NKJ)
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus:
The Greek word that Paul uses for saints is hagios, which is the same word that is used throughout the New Testament to describe the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is most of the time referred to as the Hagios Spirit or the Holy Spirit.
Paul was very much aware and no doubt awestruck, as we should be, by the fact that believers are positioned in Christ in such a way that we are actually identified with and made a part of that which is hagios. We are a part of that which is sacred and holy.
In Ephesians 1 and verse 4, Paul says that we, as believers were chosen by God before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before God in love. The word for holy is hagios. Paul confirms this as he writes to the Colossians, saying:
Colossians 1:21-22 (NKJ)
21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled
22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight--
Again the word for holy is hagios, and we see that our holiness was made possible by the work of Christ upon the cross. Christ bore our sins in His body of flesh and died the just for the unjust that we might be made holy.
When we believe, we are identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, and through this process, we are made holy in the sight of God. We go down into the grave a sinner, and we come up out of the grave a saint.
Since the Greek word for saint is the same word as the Greek word for holy, we have to wonder if the word saint is more of an adjective or more of a noun. We usually think of the word saint as a noun, but we usually think of the word holy as an adjective.
Well, it appears that the word is really more of an adjective. It would not make much sense to say that God has called us to be saint and without blame before Him in love. But it would make sense for Paul to write to all those who are called to be holy.
We are not just one of those who is trying to be holy (as true as that is). And we are not just one of those who is in the process of becoming holy (as true as that is), but we are actually counted as holy in the sight of God.
In Exodus, Chapter 19, at Mt. Sinai, God told the nation of Israel:
Exodus 19:5-6 (NKJ)
5 'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.
6 'And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'
God told the nation of Israel that He would make them a holy nation, that He would consider them to be blameless in His sight if they would keep His commandments. Of course, if they had been able to keep His commandments, they would have been blameless in God’s sight, but for 1500 years after the Law was given, the nation of Israel went about proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that no human being can actually keep the commandments of God. No one can keep the Ten Commandments much less the other 600 and some odd laws that are contained in the Law of Moses.
People sometimes have a tendency to make quite an issue out of the Ten Commandments, but when Jesus was asked which was the greatest of all the commandments, Jesus said that the first was, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and then He said that the second was, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now, isn’t it interesting that neither of these two commandments is listed with the Ten Commandments.
Well, all of the Law of God was just and holy, but it did not have the power to make the nation of Israel a holy nation. Therefore, God allowed them to be conquered by the Babylonians, who carried them far away into captivity. When Habakkuk foresaw the impending Babylonian invasion, he asked God:
Habakkuk 1:12 (NKJ)
12 Are You not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, You have appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for correction.
Habakkuk knew that the promise of God could not fail. He knew that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. He knew that the nation of Israel could never be destroyed by the Babylonians because God had at that time and still does have a great plan for the nation of Israel. But it is truly a miracle of the Lord that the nation of Israel survived the attack by the Babylonian army. As God told Habakkuk:
Habakkuk 1:7-10 (NKJ)
7 They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
8 Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead; their cavalry comes from afar; they fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.
9 "They all come for violence; their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings, and princes are scorned by them. They deride every stronghold, for they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.
Many of the nations that were conquered by the Babylonians have long since disappeared from the face of the earth, but not the nation of Israel. The very existence of the nation of Israel on the scene today is one of the greatest proofs of the truth of the Bible. Against all odds, the nation of Israel is still very much alive and well today. As Habakkuk said, “We shall not die. O LORD, You have ultimately appointed them for judgment, not us.”
God told Habakkuk in Chapter 2, verse 14, that after all is said and done:
Habakkuk 2:14 (NKJ)
14 . . . the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
Jeremiah was a contemporary of Habakkuk, and he said that before the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, Israel would have to become a holy nation, but before Israel could became a holy nation, God would have to make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Jeremiah said:
Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NKJ)
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah--
32 "not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34 "No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
From this prophesy, it is clear that when this New Covenant Kingdom is established, all Jews will be saved. There will be no unsaved Jews on the earth during the kingdom. No more will every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all the Jews will know the Lord from the least of them to the greatest of them.
This is one of the prophesies to which Paul was referring in Romans, Chapter 11, when he said:
Romans 11:26-27 (NKJ)
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins."
Israel will indeed become a holy nation under the power of the New Covenant. They will look on Him whom they have pierced, and they will turn to the Lord Jesus in faith. Then, they will be holy even as God is holy. This is what it means to be a saint.
In the past few weeks we have seen some of the differences between the New Covenant believers of the Acts-period and the members of the Church of our present age, but sainthood is one of those spiritual blessings that we share together.
Israel’s rejection of the New Covenant was complete by the end of the Acts-period, and so it was at that time that God temporarily set aside Israel’s New Covenant Kingdom program. Then He called the Apostle Paul to reveal the mystery concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ.
In Paul’s Acts-period epistles and in his prison epistles, Paul refers to all believers as saints. We today no longer have the hope of the earthly kingdom, but we are certainly partakers in all of the spiritual blessings of the New Covenant.
We have been given eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and this spiritual baptism is the process by which we are made holy. This is the process by which we are born again. This is the process by which we become the Sons of God. This is the process by which we become a saint.
When Paul wrote to the Romans, he said:
Romans 1:1,7 (NKJ)
1 Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ . . .
7 To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints . . .
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he said:
1 Corinthians 1:1-2 (NKJ)
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God . . .
2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord . . .
(Here we see the close association between the word saint and the word sanctified. The word for sanctified is hagiazo. Those who are saints are those who have been sanctified or made holy in the sight of God.)
Well, we have already seen that Paul called the believers at Ephesus saints, and when he wrote to the believers in Colosse, he said:
Colossians 1:1-2 (NKJ)
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God . . .
2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse . . .
By using the word saint, Paul was identifying all believers with the holiness of God. We have been made holy even as the Holy Spirit is holy. We have been made holy even as the Lord Jesus is holy. And we have been made holy even as God the Father is holy.
When God called the nation of Israel to be a holy nation, He said, all the earth is mine, indicating that He can do whatever He wants to do. Well, all of the earth still belongs to God, and He has determined that all those who put their faith in Jesus will be counted as holy in the sight of God.
It was with this very thought in mind that Paul said to the Ephesians:
Ephesians 4:1 (NKJ)
1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,
What a tremendous calling we have in Jesus Christ, and unlike the nation of Israel who laboured under the weakness of man’s fallen nature, we have been given the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. We have been given the spirit of holiness so that we can walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called.
Ironically, in Ephesians 4, Paul concludes that if we have been exalted into the realm of holiness, we should walk with all lowliness and gentleness. How different things are in God’s realm of holiness than they are in our world.
In our world, those who have been exalted have a tendency to exalt themselves, but we are not to be conformed to this world. We are to be conformed to the image of Christ. As Paul put it in Philippians, Chapter 2:
Philippians 2:5-8 (NKJ)
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
When we get saved, we are crucified with Christ, but for us to walk worthy of our holy calling in Christ, we must be continually made conformable unto His death. Let this mind be in you.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. It’s been a pleasure studying with you, and I’ll look forward to studying with you again next week at this same time.
Church links:
http://www.peacechurch-ok.org/
http://www.eleventhavenuechurch.com/
http://gracebiblechurch-fw.com/
Ephesians 1:1 (NKJ)
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus:
The Greek word that Paul uses for saints is hagios, which is the same word that is used throughout the New Testament to describe the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is most of the time referred to as the Hagios Spirit or the Holy Spirit.
Paul was very much aware and no doubt awestruck, as we should be, by the fact that believers are positioned in Christ in such a way that we are actually identified with and made a part of that which is hagios. We are a part of that which is sacred and holy.
In Ephesians 1 and verse 4, Paul says that we, as believers were chosen by God before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before God in love. The word for holy is hagios. Paul confirms this as he writes to the Colossians, saying:
Colossians 1:21-22 (NKJ)
21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled
22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight--
Again the word for holy is hagios, and we see that our holiness was made possible by the work of Christ upon the cross. Christ bore our sins in His body of flesh and died the just for the unjust that we might be made holy.
When we believe, we are identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, and through this process, we are made holy in the sight of God. We go down into the grave a sinner, and we come up out of the grave a saint.
Since the Greek word for saint is the same word as the Greek word for holy, we have to wonder if the word saint is more of an adjective or more of a noun. We usually think of the word saint as a noun, but we usually think of the word holy as an adjective.
Well, it appears that the word is really more of an adjective. It would not make much sense to say that God has called us to be saint and without blame before Him in love. But it would make sense for Paul to write to all those who are called to be holy.
We are not just one of those who is trying to be holy (as true as that is). And we are not just one of those who is in the process of becoming holy (as true as that is), but we are actually counted as holy in the sight of God.
In Exodus, Chapter 19, at Mt. Sinai, God told the nation of Israel:
Exodus 19:5-6 (NKJ)
5 'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.
6 'And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'
God told the nation of Israel that He would make them a holy nation, that He would consider them to be blameless in His sight if they would keep His commandments. Of course, if they had been able to keep His commandments, they would have been blameless in God’s sight, but for 1500 years after the Law was given, the nation of Israel went about proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that no human being can actually keep the commandments of God. No one can keep the Ten Commandments much less the other 600 and some odd laws that are contained in the Law of Moses.
People sometimes have a tendency to make quite an issue out of the Ten Commandments, but when Jesus was asked which was the greatest of all the commandments, Jesus said that the first was, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and then He said that the second was, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now, isn’t it interesting that neither of these two commandments is listed with the Ten Commandments.
Well, all of the Law of God was just and holy, but it did not have the power to make the nation of Israel a holy nation. Therefore, God allowed them to be conquered by the Babylonians, who carried them far away into captivity. When Habakkuk foresaw the impending Babylonian invasion, he asked God:
Habakkuk 1:12 (NKJ)
12 Are You not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, You have appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for correction.
Habakkuk knew that the promise of God could not fail. He knew that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. He knew that the nation of Israel could never be destroyed by the Babylonians because God had at that time and still does have a great plan for the nation of Israel. But it is truly a miracle of the Lord that the nation of Israel survived the attack by the Babylonian army. As God told Habakkuk:
Habakkuk 1:7-10 (NKJ)
7 They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
8 Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead; their cavalry comes from afar; they fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.
9 "They all come for violence; their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings, and princes are scorned by them. They deride every stronghold, for they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.
Many of the nations that were conquered by the Babylonians have long since disappeared from the face of the earth, but not the nation of Israel. The very existence of the nation of Israel on the scene today is one of the greatest proofs of the truth of the Bible. Against all odds, the nation of Israel is still very much alive and well today. As Habakkuk said, “We shall not die. O LORD, You have ultimately appointed them for judgment, not us.”
God told Habakkuk in Chapter 2, verse 14, that after all is said and done:
Habakkuk 2:14 (NKJ)
14 . . . the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
Jeremiah was a contemporary of Habakkuk, and he said that before the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, Israel would have to become a holy nation, but before Israel could became a holy nation, God would have to make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Jeremiah said:
Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NKJ)
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah--
32 "not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34 "No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
From this prophesy, it is clear that when this New Covenant Kingdom is established, all Jews will be saved. There will be no unsaved Jews on the earth during the kingdom. No more will every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all the Jews will know the Lord from the least of them to the greatest of them.
This is one of the prophesies to which Paul was referring in Romans, Chapter 11, when he said:
Romans 11:26-27 (NKJ)
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins."
Israel will indeed become a holy nation under the power of the New Covenant. They will look on Him whom they have pierced, and they will turn to the Lord Jesus in faith. Then, they will be holy even as God is holy. This is what it means to be a saint.
In the past few weeks we have seen some of the differences between the New Covenant believers of the Acts-period and the members of the Church of our present age, but sainthood is one of those spiritual blessings that we share together.
Israel’s rejection of the New Covenant was complete by the end of the Acts-period, and so it was at that time that God temporarily set aside Israel’s New Covenant Kingdom program. Then He called the Apostle Paul to reveal the mystery concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ.
In Paul’s Acts-period epistles and in his prison epistles, Paul refers to all believers as saints. We today no longer have the hope of the earthly kingdom, but we are certainly partakers in all of the spiritual blessings of the New Covenant.
We have been given eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and this spiritual baptism is the process by which we are made holy. This is the process by which we are born again. This is the process by which we become the Sons of God. This is the process by which we become a saint.
When Paul wrote to the Romans, he said:
Romans 1:1,7 (NKJ)
1 Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ . . .
7 To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints . . .
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he said:
1 Corinthians 1:1-2 (NKJ)
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God . . .
2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord . . .
(Here we see the close association between the word saint and the word sanctified. The word for sanctified is hagiazo. Those who are saints are those who have been sanctified or made holy in the sight of God.)
Well, we have already seen that Paul called the believers at Ephesus saints, and when he wrote to the believers in Colosse, he said:
Colossians 1:1-2 (NKJ)
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God . . .
2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse . . .
By using the word saint, Paul was identifying all believers with the holiness of God. We have been made holy even as the Holy Spirit is holy. We have been made holy even as the Lord Jesus is holy. And we have been made holy even as God the Father is holy.
When God called the nation of Israel to be a holy nation, He said, all the earth is mine, indicating that He can do whatever He wants to do. Well, all of the earth still belongs to God, and He has determined that all those who put their faith in Jesus will be counted as holy in the sight of God.
It was with this very thought in mind that Paul said to the Ephesians:
Ephesians 4:1 (NKJ)
1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,
What a tremendous calling we have in Jesus Christ, and unlike the nation of Israel who laboured under the weakness of man’s fallen nature, we have been given the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. We have been given the spirit of holiness so that we can walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called.
Ironically, in Ephesians 4, Paul concludes that if we have been exalted into the realm of holiness, we should walk with all lowliness and gentleness. How different things are in God’s realm of holiness than they are in our world.
In our world, those who have been exalted have a tendency to exalt themselves, but we are not to be conformed to this world. We are to be conformed to the image of Christ. As Paul put it in Philippians, Chapter 2:
Philippians 2:5-8 (NKJ)
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
When we get saved, we are crucified with Christ, but for us to walk worthy of our holy calling in Christ, we must be continually made conformable unto His death. Let this mind be in you.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. It’s been a pleasure studying with you, and I’ll look forward to studying with you again next week at this same time.
Church links:
http://www.peacechurch-ok.org/
http://www.eleventhavenuechurch.com/
http://gracebiblechurch-fw.com/
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