“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:1).

In the opening salutations to the churches at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, and Colosse, the apostle Paul addresses the “saints” in those churches—a term essentially synonymous (as in our text above) with “the faithful in Christ Jesus.” The Greek word (hagios) is also translated even more frequently as “holy.” Evidently “saints” are “those who are holy.” For example, just three verses later Paul speaks thus of believers: “He hath chosen us in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy [same word] and without blame before Him in love” (v.4).

This immediately raises an obvious question. Paul’s rebukes to the “saints” in these churches (especially Corinth) certainly would indicate that the lives of many in them were anything but holy! How can sinners be called holy?

The answer to this problem must be, of course, in the fact that Christians are “saints in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:1), not necessarily saintly in behavior. It is a wonderful truth that God deals with us, not in our sins, but in Christ. In His sight, we are even seated “together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).

We have surely been “blessed . . . with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3), and it would surely please Him if we would seek to become as holy in our practice as in our position. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1,2). HMM