Romans 1:6 Called Saints
Peculiar People called to be saints The end of the Divine calling is to convert sinners into saints or holy persons (1 Peter 2:9-12). The word “saints,” hagioi means those who are holy, or those who are devoted or consecrated to God. The word speaks of what is separated from a common to a sacred use, In the OT anything that is set apart to the service of God, to the temple, to the sacrifices, to the utensils in the temple, to the garments of the priests, and to the priests themselves. It was applied to the Jews as a people separated from other nations, and devoted or consecrated to God, while other nations were devoted to the service of idols. It is also applied to Christians, as being a people devoted or set apart to the service of God 1 Pet 2. Christians are separated from other men, and other objects and pursuits, and consecrated to the service of God. (Barnes) It means that we are separated from anything that separates us from God. It is not just separation from the things, cause that would make us no different than a moral person, but it is a separation to God. (Jones). Christians are saints—i.e., separated from the world and consecrated to the service of God—holy in principle, and destined to become more and more holy and perfect in their whole life and conduct. (Phil 2:12-13) (Schaff) They were saints because they were called, and they were called because they were beloved of God. They were not then saints by natural birth, nor did they make themselves saints either in whole or in part; but they were made so altogether by sovereign grace resulting from sovereign love. All believers are saints, and in one sense all of them are equally sanctified. They are equally separated or consecrated to God, and equally justified, but they are not all equally holy. The work of sanctification in them is progressive. There are babes, and young men, and fathers in Christ. Some are weak in faith, and some are strong; but none of them are yet perfect, neither have they attained to that measure of holiness at which it is their duty constantly to aim for, Phil 3:12. (Haldane) We love him, because he first loved us, 1 John 4:10. The love of God is the cause of our holiness. They were called out of the world that is, separated from the world, and consecrated to the service of Christ, and so lay under a necessary obligation to be true and real saints. (Expository Notes) The name saint does not denote a perfection in holiness, but one that is devoted and consecrated to God, who is holy in heart and life, though he has many imperfections. (Poole). To sanctify means ‘to set apart for a holy purpose, to make holy’ and from the Christian point of view that means to be conformed to the image of Christ. Sanctification is both positional and practical. We are holy and set apart through Christ’s holiness put upon our account and we are becoming holy and set apart (growing in Godliness) through the work of the Holy Spirit within us. So, the result of being put in this position is that we will now be ‘in process of being sanctified’ (set apart by being made holy) by Christ Jesus and the Spirit. The purity of Christ, which has been set to our account, must now become an actuality. We must therefore go through the process of ‘being set apart for God’ by being constantly changed by the Spirit (present tense - Heb 2:11; 10:14; Rom 6:19; 6:22; 1 Thess 4:3; 2 Thess 2:13, 2 Cor 3:18; Phi 2:13). If we are His, He will carry out this work in us (Pett) Do you realize what God has done to us? We are what we are, not because of anything in us. It comes from the love of God. Whatever made him look at us? We don’t know. It is amazing. While we were enemies of God, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). While we were sinners, and opposed and aliens- it was then he died for us. Beloved of God. Called saints. That is what we are. Because we are that let us show it
(1 Peter 2:11-12). Let us not object to the demands of the gospel, let us cease to try to live as near as we can to the world. If we are saints, lets us proclaim that fact. Let it be evident to all (Jones).
Practicing Saints
Be Called out, but remaining in 1 Cor 6:17(Is 52:11) It is wrong for good people to join in with the wicked and profane. . . . because there is more danger that the bad will damage the good than hope that the good will benefit the bad. We should not yoke ourselves in friendship and acquaintance with wicked men and unbelievers. Though we cannot wholly avoid seeing, and hearing, and being with such, yet we should never choose them for our bosom-friends (Henry) Saints are characterized by:
Abandonment 1 Cor 6:17, Eph 5:7-8, 4:17-19, Col 3:9
Abstinence 1 Thess 4:3, 5:2; 1 Pet 2:11
Attire Rom 13:12, Eph 4:17-24; 6:11, Col 3:10
Attesting 1 Pet 2:9-12
Be Called in, but not of John 17:15-18
Though Christ loves his disciples, he does not presently send for them to heaven, as soon as they are effectually called, but leaves them for some time in this world, that they may do good and glorify God upon earth, and be ripened for heaven. Many good people are spared to live, because they can ill be spared to die. It is more the honor of a Christian soldier by faith to overcome the world than by a monastical vow to retreat from it; and more for the honor of Christ to serve him in a city than to serve him in a cell (Henry) He does not suggest that believers should seclude themselves from the world by going to the desert, or to the cloisters; but that they should continue in and among the world, that they may have the opportunity to proclaim the salvation of God. (Clarke) If God were to exempt His friends from trial, He would take away from Christians one of the most effective means of their training, and one of the most striking ways in which they can prove their likeness to Christ. The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor, but it is not seen in his being saved from suffering; it is in the way in which he meets it. Why don’t saints die as soon as they are converted? Because God meant that they should be the means of the salvation of their brethren. You would not, surely, wish to go out of the world if there were a soul to be saved by you. A tried saint brings more glory to God than an untried one. (Excel)
Jesus did not wish the disciples to be taken out of the world because such a thing would have made impossible the conversion of the world. That the disciples should be kept "out of" the devil was the important thing. It was Christ's desire that the apostles should remain in the world, in contact with its populations, exposed to its culture, and in direct confrontation with its evil. Only this could enable them to convert the world (Coffman) If all God's people were to seclude themselves and fly from temptation, where would be the work of the Church on earth? Was not the Lord’s last command, Go ye into all the world and evangelize every creature? The kingdom of heaven is as leaven. Where does leaven work? From without? No—but from within. And if the leaven is kept out of the lump, how shall the lump become leavened? We must not take ourselves out of the world; for the world's sake, if not for our own (Alford). The Disciples were to be the instructors and evangelists of mankind (Matt 28:19), and to be living examples of true piety (Matt 5:14). They were also to intercede on behalf of their fellow-creatures; but, if they were taken away together with our Lord, their commission could not be executed, and the world would lose the benefit of their instructions and prayer. The Disciples were altogether men of like passions with ourselves. They didn’t have any more sufficiency in themselves than the weakest of us (2 Cor 3:5). The most confident of them fell, as soon as he boasted of his strength (Matt26:33; 35; 26:74). Almighty power was then, as well as now, necessary to keep any man from falling (Jude 24-25). That is why he prayed to keep them from the evil one. You can only be happy in proportion as you rise above this world to the pursuit and enjoyment of heavenly things. Look at the Savior, and see how superior he was to all the things of time and sense. It is, in fact, a wilderness, through which we are to pass to the Promised Land; and we are but pilgrims passing through it, or sojourners taking up our residence in it for a few days at most. Whether we have a more or less gratifying accommodation in it, is a matter of small moment. We are going to our Father’s house, where we shall possess all that our souls can wish; and present things are only of importance as they advance or retard our meetness for our heavenly inheritance. The instant that we have arrived at our journey’s end, we shall see what judgment we ought to have formed of the world, and everything in it. Let us anticipate that judgment now; and we shall rise superior to the attractions of all created things, and to the solicitations of every unhallowed appetite (Simeon).
The disciples are in the world, and Jesus cannot yet pray that they may be taken out of it, for it is the very purpose of the Father that they shall be left in it to carry on His work. What He does pray for is, that, as their work and His will be identical, so also their preservation may be identical, with His own. Christ now pleads for a separation, not merely that they may be delivered from attacks of the evil one, but also that they may be kept ‘out of’ him, may have no fellowship with him, no weakening of their testimony by yielding to him, but may be single, pure, and faithful to the last as He had been (Schaff) He prays not that they should be taken out of the world before their work is done. The Christian ideal is not freedom from work, but strength to do it; not freedom from temptation, but power to overcome it; not freedom from suffering, but joy in an abiding sense of the Father’s love; not absence from the world, but grace to make the world better for our presence; not holy lives driven from the world, and living apart from it, but holy lives spent in the world and leavening it. (Ellicott). We are to shine as lights (Phil 2:12-16) in this world through our pursuit of holiness (Heb 12:14). Perfection comes at the end of life when we die or when Christ returns, but the pursuit of holy living begins with the first mustard seed of faith. That's the nature of saving faith. It finds satisfaction in Christ and so is weaned away from the satisfactions of sin. (Piper)
God’s purpose in calling you was that you might become holy. Holiness is the invincible purpose of God in your call. He would be unfaithful to his purpose if he just called and didn't sanctify. His purpose in calling you is your holiness. He will do it. He's faithful. (1 Thess 5:23-24 (Piper). Be Holy for I am holy (1 Peter 1:13-16, Matt 5:1 Peter 4:1-5
Job 23:11-12 Job had watched every step of God. He had been minute as to particulars, observing each precept which he looked upon as being a footprint which the Lord had made for him to set his foot in and, observing, also, each detail of the great example of His God. . . . He is the great example of His people, as He says—“Be you holy, for I am holy”(1 Pet 1:16)—and again, “Be you perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.”(Matt 5:48) Job had observed the steps of God’s Justice that he might be just. Job had observed the steps of God’s mercy that he might be pitiful and compassionate. He had observed the steps of God’s bounty that he might never be guilty of lack of liberality. And he had studied the steps of God’s Truth that he might never deceive. He had watched God’s steps of forgiveness, that he might forgive his adversaries and God’s steps of benevolence that he might, also, do good and communicate, according to his ability, to all that were in need. In consequence of this he became eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. He delivered the poor that cried and the fatherless and those that had none to help. “My foot,” he says, “has held fast to His steps.” He means that he had labored to be exact in his obedience towards God and in his imitation of the Divine Character. Beloved, we shall do well if we are, to the minutest point, observant of the precepts and example of God in all things. We must follow not only the right road, but His footprints in that road. We are to be obedient to our heavenly Father not only in somethings, but in all things—not in some places but in all places, abroad and at home, in business and in devotion—in the words of our lips and in the thoughts of our hearts. There is no holy walking without careful watching. When the Spirit of God speaks a text right into the soul. When God Himself takes the promise or the precept and sends it with living energy into the heart—this is that which makes a man have a reverence for the Word—he feels its awful majesty, its Divine supremacy and while he trembles at it he rejoices and goes forward to obey because God has spoken to him! Dear Friends, when God speaks, be sure that you have open ears to hear, for oftentimes He speaks and men regard Him not. In a vision of the night when deep sleep falls upon men, God has spoken to His Prophets, but now He speaks by His Word, applying it to the heart with power by His Spirit. If God speaks but little to us, it is because we are dull of hearing. Renewed hearts are never long without a whisper from the Lord. He is not a silent God, nor is He so far away that we cannot hear Him! They that keep His ways and hold His steps, as Job did, shall hear many of His Words to their soul’s delight and profit! God’s having spoken to Job was the secret of his consistently holy life. Bible study is the metal that makes a Christian! It is the strong meat on which holy men are nourished! It is that which makes the bone and sinew of men who keep God’s way in defiance of every adversary! Job would sooner that they took the bread out of his mouth than the Word of God out of his heart! He thought more of it than of his necessary food and I suppose it was because meat would only sustain his body, but the Word of God feeds the soul. The nourishment given by bread is soon gone, but the nourishment given by the Word of God abides in us and makes us live forever! The natural life is more than meat, but our spiritual life feeds on meat even nobler than itself, for it feeds on the Bread of Heaven, the Person of the Lord Jesus! Bread is sweet to the hungry man, but we are not always hungry and sometimes we have no appetite. But the best of God’s Word is that he who lives near to God has always an appetite for it and the more he eats of it the more he can eat! I confess I have often fed upon God’s Word when I have had no appetite for it, until I have gained an appetite. I have grown hungry in proportion as I have felt satisfied—my emptiness seemed to kill my hunger—but as I have been revived by the Word I have longed for more! you cannot be holy, my Brothers and Sisters, unless you, in secret, live upon the blessed Word of God (Spurgeon).