Today we observe the feast Day of All Saints, where we celebrate the victory given to all the Saints who from their labors rest. We give thanks to God through Jesus Christ for their confession of faith and lives here on earth and pray that we too might be remain faithful and be brought to that eternal rest through Christ.
By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John had a vision of that eternal rest. He saw the saints in heaven. He saw what it takes to make a saint, that is, a holy one. One of the elders speaking to John tells John the exact process for making a saint. The elder said, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
The blood of the Lamb is the blood of Jesus Christ as John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! The Apostle John wrote, [1 John 1:7] “The blood of Jesus [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin.” The writer of Hebrews said, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Therefore, becoming “holy ones” or saints, comes only from the holiness of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. It comes by the washing of regeneration and sprinkling in Christ’s Blood in the pure waters of baptism as the merits and righteousness of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for sins on the cross are applied to His people by faith.
The world has the idea that saints are declared to be Saints because of their own good works or in the Roman Catholic church the designation “saint” is given only when a very pious and holy person dies and then after a drawn out process involving miracles in that person’s name the pope must designate that person a saint. This too is not the biblical definition.
Sainthood cannot be achieved by a good effort and nobody can confer it upon themselves. In this life all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. Instead, sainthood is conferred from outside ourselves. It is given by God through His Grace for the sake of the perfect life, and the innocent suffering and death of Jesus Christ our Lord and savior.
If we were to call ourselves saints according to the world’s idea of sainthood, we would be pointing to our own accomplishments and the world would be right to call us arrogant and self-righteous. If we were honest, even all our loved ones who have gone before us in the faith who now rest were imperfect in their earthly endeavors. But if we look at how sainthood is conferred according to the Bible, then we see that it is given by God’s grace despite the failings of mortal men and women. People are declared holy for the sake of the work and grace of Jesus Christ crucified and raised. It is in Him that Christians glory for what He has done, that He has redeemed them. That He has taken our polluted garments and washed them by His blood.
When we say that someone is a saint in the Biblical sense of the word, we are simply saying that the Holy Spirit has worked faith in them – that they believe that the Son of God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and earned the forgiveness of sins for them with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.
Does the description of a saint sound a lot like the description of a Christian? It should. All Christians are saints and all saints are Christians.
When we talk of all the saints as one large group of believers, we are really talking about the Holy Christian Church. The Holy Christian Church is sometimes also called the Communion of Saints.
This Communion of Saints spans two different worlds. Here on this earth, in this life, we are the Church Militant. We continue to struggle against temptation, the devil and our flesh in this sin soaked world. Even though Jesus has defeated Satan with His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, Satan still tries to wrest the victory from God’s children by tormenting and tempting them from the confession of Christ’s name. This is why we are the church Militant, we are yet in this life upon the battlefield. We would be defeated, except as we sang last Tuesday, “for us, fights the Valiant One”, Jesus Christ is our Mighty Fortress who fights by our side and continues to give us strength and power as He feeds and empowers us through His Word and Sacraments by the forgiveness of our sin so that we may reach the goal and receive the victory by faith in His name.
Cheering us on, though not able to clearly see our struggles, is the Church Triumphant. The Church Triumphant is made up of all those saints who are already gathered at the throne of the Lamb, who are now at rest from this earth’s labors. They are now without sin, without hunger, without misery, without tears, because the one called the Lamb is their Shepherd – who leads His lambs to living fountains of water. All memory of pain, death, sin, sickness, poverty, hunger, persecution, and hatred are wiped from their eyes along with their tears.
Even though this church spans two worlds, there are not two churches: there is not one here on earth and another in heaven. We “believe in one holy Christian and apostolic church.” The oneness of the church is not destroyed even by the separation of death. For where Jesus is, there are His saints – those here on earth, and those who have “come out of the great tribulation” of life in this world.
The church on earth and the church in heaven are united around the throne of God and in the presence of the Lamb through faith in Jesus Christ. When we gather around the altar on Sunday, we know that our deceased relatives and friends who have likewise “washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb” are right there with us. When we sing “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world”, we sing along with the countless Christians of every age. When we chant “Holy, holy, holy”, we do so with billions of the faithful from every time and place. And when we come before the Body and Blood of the Lord, we are joined with those whom we love and remember but can no longer embrace. We are not only in the presence of Jesus, but are also surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, this host arrayed in white, those who fall on their faces night and day in worship before the Lord Himself.
So, it is proper that we praise God for the men and women of faith who have gone before us. It is appropriate that we honor the work that God had done in their lives to give them saving faith in Jesus Christ, and through them served others including you and me. It is good to give honor to those who have preceded us into the Church Triumphant.
When we honor the redeemed, we are also honoring the Redeemer. The saints who are holy in God’s eyes testify to the only One who is eternally holy: our Lord Jesus Christ. It is His blood that covers our sin and allows us to stand in His presence. It is being baptized into His death that gives us a white robe. It is His Word and Sacraments that usher us already into the throne room and gives us a foretaste of eternity where we will never again suffer or be unhappy.
What then shall we do while we wait for our turn to leave the battle of this world and enter the rest our Savior has prepared for us? Let us live humbly before our God, in service to Him and to our neighbor as He has served us with His salvation here.
Remember the Savior promises never to leave us or forsake us. So live by His grace and the forgiveness of sin given through faith in Jesus Christ. Be fed and forgiven through His Word, be empowered by His Spirit to confess His name in worship and in your vocations to His glory.
Though we live in a mortal body decaying with sin, these bodies will be raised and made new. Though our worship is imperfect, it will be perfected. Though our voices may crack and are imperfect now, they will one day sing in perfect harmony with the angels in eternal glory.
We who believe are already saints, holy ones. By His death on the cross, the Lord Himself clothes us with His righteousness, and through His resurrection He will one day shepherd us to everlasting life. In that blessed place we will experience the eternal joy of God’s presence along with the rest of the Communion of Saints. Amen
Pr. Aaron Kangas