Biblical Worship

8. The Counterfeit Worship of Saints

By Dr. Paul M. Elliott
Sainthood is a status conferred not by officials of the church, but by God. Those who are truly His saints are worshippers, not the worshipped.

From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 8 of a 20-part series. Read part 7.

Sainthood is a status conferred not by officials of the church, but by God. Those who are truly His saints are worshippers, not the worshipped.

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (I John 5:21)

Over the centuries, the Roman Catholic church has designated over 10,000 dead people as saints - "special friends of God" who, they claim, can obtain favors for the living.

Rome's definition of sainthood is an un-Biblical definition. A church hierarchy does not declare a certain few people to be saints after they are dead. God declares every person who receives the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior to be a saint, set apart in Jesus Christ, the moment that person believes. Every member of the true church of Jesus Christ is a saint of God.

Roman Catholicism practices the veneration of those it arbitrarily designates as "saints". But as we demonstrated previously, what Rome calls veneration is, in reality, worship and idolatry. In fact, in Roman Catholic terminology it is called "the cult of the saints." Some Roman Catholic literature speaks quite openly not merely of the veneration but of the worship of saints.

Roman Catholicism says that these designated saints, as so-called "special friends of God," can be asked to intercede for those still on earth. In Roman Catholic teaching, a saint can be designated as the patron saint of a particular activity or profession. A saint can be prayed to, they say, in order to prevent disasters or heal illnesses.

But as we look at religious history we find the true source of the Roman Catholic doctrine of sainthood. We find that it was a way of bringing ancient pagan beliefs into the church, and putting a counterfeit Christian label on them.

There are many parallels between the Roman Catholic doctrine of saints and the worship of angels that we find in Colossians chapter two and in subsequent church history. There are likewise many parallels between the Roman Catholic worship of saints and the ancient pagan Greek and Roman worship of a pantheon of many gods who were said to hold special powers in specific areas of life.

Each one of those gods was to be prayed to. Each was to be the object of devotion in order to gain that god's favor in specific areas of life as a person needed it. The Roman Catholic doctrine of sainthood is one of the many areas in which the Roman church has blended elements of paganism, both old and new, into its false version of Christianity.

It is, in fact, exactly the sort of thing that Paul warns against in Colossians chapter two: "Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind..."

Who Is a True Saint?

Since the Roman Catholic teaching is a false view of sainthood, then who is a true saint according to Scripture? What is the definition of a saint, not according to man's word, but according to God's Word?

Let me remind you of the way in which Paul addresses this letter to the Colossian church, at chapter one, verse two. He addresses it "to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse." He uses similar forms of address in other epistles. Who are these people? Who is a saint, according to the Word of God?

To answer that question we must begin with the meaning of the word in the original language of Scripture. We find that the New Testament word for "saints" is the Greek hagiois, which means "holy ones" or "set-apart ones."

According to the Word of God, the one and only thing that qualifies someone for the title of "saint" is saving faith in Jesus Christ. We find throughout the New Testament that all people who have saving faith in Jesus Christ are called the saints of God. Hebrews 10:10 tells us that the saints are those who "have been sanctified [set apart] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

Sainthood is not granted by man, but by God. Sainthood is not a status that is conferred upon some dead person by canonization based on subjective, highly questionable, man-made criteria. Sainthood is not rooted in pagan superstition, as Roman Catholic counterfeit sainthood is. Sainthood is a God-given identification, not only for believers who have already passed on to glory, but also for the living members of Christ's true church on earth, and it is rooted solely in the objective criterion of a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The saints constitute the membership of the true Church of Jesus Christ. At the beginning of First Corinthians Paul makes the point that he is addressing not merely a visible local church, a church that is in all times and places a mixture of believers and unbelievers, but he is addressing members of the invisible Church which is made up only of those who have been set apart in Christ. He is addressing the body of true believers. The saints are the true Church, and the true Church is made up only of the saints.

Furthermore, the saints constitute the membership of the true Church not only locally, but universally. The title of "saint" applies to all believers, in all times and in all places. In his greeting to the Corinthians, Paul emphasizes the fact that the saints are "all those in every place who are calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" for salvation. All the saints - in every part of the earth - are one body in Christ.

Moreover, the saints are not only all believers in every place, but all believers of all time. The saints are not New Testament believers only. The Old Testament uses the companion Hebrew word for saint thirty-nine times, from Deuteronomy all the way through to Zechariah, to describe true believers in the Savior who was to come. The Biblical definition of a saint encompasses every believer in Christ, from the very beginning of time to the end.

The words "faithful brethren" in Colossians 1:2 would be more accurately translated "believing brethren." This is reinforced by the fact that Paul attaches the words "in Christ". In the very next verses, it is their belief in Christ for which Paul expresses thanksgiving. It is the saints who are the believing brethren, and the believing brethren who are the saints - the holy ones, those who have been justified by faith in Christ and set apart as His own.

No other person has legitimate claim to the title, no one but God in Christ can confer it, and no true saint of God is to be the object of veneration or worship - only the one true and living God. The true saints of God are worshippers, not the worshipped -

Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. (Psalm 30:4)

And the heavens will praise Your wonders, O Lord; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the saints. For who in the heavens can be compared to the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the Lord? God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence by all those around Him. (Psalm 89:5-7)

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