Saint, Not “Just a Sinner”

What Paul Called the Church in Corinth

Paul opens his letter to the church in Corinth with the word saints, and then spends sixteen chapters on their problems.

Think about who was sitting in the room when that letter was read aloud. Corinth had factions, each one loyal to a favorite teacher. Members were suing each other in public courts. Paul tells them about a man living with his father's wife, a situation he says even the unbelievers in town wouldn't tolerate. At the Lord's Supper, one person went hungry while another got drunk. Nobody in that room needed convincing that they'd fallen short. They knew what they had done that week.

Then somebody read the first two lines.

To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints... (1 Corinthians 1:2)

The Sentence Most of Us Learned

Most of us grew up with a different one: "I'm just a sinner saved by grace." It's usually said humbly, by people who love Jesus and mean every word. The instinct behind it is a good one. It keeps the cross from becoming a footnote and keeps pride off the table.

So I'm not arguing with the instinct, and I'm not saying you've stopped sinning or that the word sinner is off limits. I'm asking what your name is. When you say it, which word is the noun and which is the verb? There's a big difference between a sinner who sometimes saints and a saint who sometimes sins, and Paul chose one of them for the front of the letter.

What the Word Means

The Greek word is hagios, and it means holy, which means set apart. Nothing in it says flawless. Most of us hear "saint" and picture a stained-glass window, somebody who got everything right. The word doesn't ask for that.

Think about the wedding china in the cabinet. It's special because of whose it is and what it's for, and a spotless plate has nothing to do with it. When one plate chips, nobody carries it out to the garage with the mismatched mugs. It's still the wedding china.

Paul uses that word for the Corinthians and then doubles it. They're sanctified, which comes from the same root and describes a completed action with a lasting result. Set apart in Christ Jesus. The phrase in Christ Jesus is doing the work there, because their conduct certainly wasn't. The Corinthians didn't get this name by cleaning up the church first.

The Verse That Pushes Back

The strongest verse for the other side is Paul's own:

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15)

It's present tense. If Paul can say "I am chief," who are we to say we're past it?

Look at what the verse is doing. It tells you who the gospel is for, and it names Paul as the hardest case on file. Then the next verse gives the reason: for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern. Paul is holding himself up as the exhibit of how far mercy went. Meanwhile the same man addresses church after church as saints, and in Ephesians he calls himself less than the least of all the saints. Even at his lowest, he counts himself in. Mercy and an honest account of your sin don't compete in his letters. They sit in the same man. What he doesn't do is let the second one rename him. Read that way, "I am chief" is wonder at the size of the mercy, and the address on the letter is the name that mercy gave.

What Paul Does With the Mess

So what does Paul say to a church this far gone? He does warn them, and plainly. Just before the next passage he lists the kinds of people who won't inherit the kingdom. But watch where he plants the correction:

And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11)

A few verses later he tells them to flee sexual immorality, and the reason he gives isn't fear. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? He grounds the correction in what has happened to them, so who they are comes first and what they do follows from it.

That brings us to a regular Tuesday. The next time you lose your temper in the parking lot, "well, I'm just a sinner" will be sitting in the passenger seat, ready to make it sound like honesty. It lets you off the hook, and the apology you owe the person in the other car stays unwritten. A saint who snapped has somewhere to go with it. She owns it, says she's sorry, and makes it right, and she can do it without flinching because the name was given to her and doesn't need defending.

The new sentence will feel like claiming a seat you didn't earn. Saying "I'm a saint" out loud in a room full of people who grew up on the other one takes a steadiness you'll have to borrow from what Jesus did, because nothing about your week will back you up.

Nothing about the Corinthians' week backed them up either. Somebody stood in that house and read the first line to a room full of people who knew exactly what they'd done, and the word on the page was addressed to them anyway.