Halloween has it's origin as the eve of All Saints Day or All Hallows
day. For many, the word "saints" brings to mind statues,
icons, pictures of people with halos floating above their heads -- all
of people now dead. Surprisingly the Bible uses the word very
differently. Just what are "saints"?
Though the words "saint" or "saints"
appear 100+ times in the Bible, one of the earliest appearances is
actually a very apt definition of "saint". It is Psalm
16:3 "As for the saints who live on the earth, they are the
excellent ones in whom is all my delight." Notice please the
term "saints who live on the earth" -- these are not dead people but
"living" people, and they are those who delight God. Quite
simply, a saint, is a person responding to God's love, one who has a
positive on-going relationship with God.
In Acts 9:13 Annanias, talking about
Saul, who was persecuting the church, spoke of much harm done to the
saints at Jerusalem. He was merely referring to the people of
the church in Jerusalem. Similarly in Acts 26:10 Paul,
recounting how he persecuted the Jerusalem church (while his name was
Saul), said that "many of the saints I shut up in prison."
These were not dead people. They were very much alive.
When the Apostle Paul wrote the letters
to the churches now part of the Bible and known as the Epistles, he
would address his letters to the "saints" who were in the churches he
was writting to. 1 Corinthians 1:2 is an example, where he
wrote: "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,..."
And in the book of Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 2 Paul simply writes,
"to the saints who are in Ephesus..."
Saints today are those who are
sanctified -- made holy -- by a relationship with Jesus Christ -- those
in whom God's Holy Spirit dwells. They are the people who
respond to God's reality -- His call in their lives. Saints
are those who comprise the church, the Body of Christ. |
