Saints

C. W, Andreasen – rev 12/6/23

I am willing to guess that very few Christians have ever questioned the term “Saint”, or where it comes from. One would assume it comes from the Bible, but hold on, the word that would be translated into ‘Saint’ is not in the Bible at all. There are NO Saints in the original manuscripts. Look through a modern translation from the original text and you will not find the word “Saint”, it is not in the Bible. No, the term ‘Saint’ was invented by the Catholic Church and they even gave themselves the authority to bestow Sainthood. The King James Version of the Bible refers to a few Saints, like “Saint John” but that is again, their invention. One should keep in mind that the King James Bible (KJV) was translated, not from the original manuscripts, but a third generation Latin script that was used by the Catholic Church at that time. I believe that all current versions of the Catholic Bible are translated from earlier Latin versions. In the Catholic tradition a Saint is an elevated position between mere mortals and God and you can pray to them... but again, this is not Biblical. In fact, the Bible tells us that Jesus is our High Priest and we can go directly to God the Father in his name. There is no chain of command; we approach our Heavenly Father as we would an Earthly Father.

The Christian has evolved a different meaning to ‘saint’. To a Christian, any saint is a Godly person, and any Godly person is a saint. It is more a term of respect than anything else. Who wants to be a Saint when they can be adopted into the Family of God as sons and daughters?

1Ti 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

Eph 3:11 God did this according to his eternal plan. And he was able to do what he had planned because of all that Christ Jesus our Lord had done.

Eph 3:12 Christ now gives us courage and confidence, so that we can come to God by faith. The conclusion here is that there is nobody, no one, that is between the believer and his Heavenly Father. There is no other priest than Christ, there are no Saints that hold special favor, and we are instructed to pray to the Father, in the name of Jesus.

The term Saint is endearing and if properly used to refer to Godly people who deserve great respect, there is nothing wrong with it, but there is no deity that is a “Saint”.