Law and Gospel: Saint and Sinner

By Steven Newell

This is the final of a four part series on Law and Gospel that as originally posted on post-emergent.com on May 25, 2006.

As a person under both the Law and the Gospel, we find ourselves as both Saint and Sinner, at the same time. This situation appears to be a paradox in that how can we be both at the same time.

What is a Saint?

Depending on who you ask, you may get an answer such as “Someone is very holy” or someone who did miracles”. With the death of Pope John Paul II, many Roman Catholic Christians believed that the late Pope should be put on “fast track” for sainthood. What they fail to realize, along with many Christians outside of the Roman Church, is what if the Pope died in Christ, he is already a saint in heaven. Since there is only heaven and hell, he cannot be purgatory as the current Pope has said. A problem is any of these definitions is that they all rely on the merits of the individual. As we have learned, no one can merit any righteousness through their own actions.

A proper definition of a saint is someone who in Christ.

St. Paul addresses his letter to the “saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:1). These Christians are just like us. A saint isn’t what a person does, but who a person is. Martin Luther defined saint as a forgiven sinner. This is the Gospel

What is a Sinner?
 
It’s easy to find sinners. We are very good at finding the sinner in other people. When we understand the Law, then we see what we are: SINNERS!
 
Simultaneously Saint and Sinner

As Christians, we are both saint and sinners at the same time. This is a paradox unique to Christianity. We are declared righteous by God through Christ while at the same time asking God to forgive our sins.

In St. Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia, he starts by blessing them with grace and peace. Then St. Paul questions their faithfulness, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6). Yet, St. Paul continues to call the Galatians “brothers” (Galatians 1:11)

Even St. Paul, in Romans 7, show how he continues to sin even through he wants to be holy. This is the struggle that all Christians must deal with. The good news is that we are not alone in the struggle. God is with us. He provides his Holy Spirit and protects us. When we sin, we know that we can go to the cross of Christ for forgiveness of our sins.

Comments

[bobby grow]

Excellent post, Steve! I like Luther's little saying:

. . . we are all snow covered dung . . .

that's my paraphrase of him anyway. Thanks for this excellent series!!

[Lito Cruz]

Steve,

There is a disconnect that happens to an evangelical when you say this...
We are declared righteous by God through Christ while at the same time asking God to forgive our sins.

They think a person is a poor demented soul who still asks God to forgive him.

Lord have mercy! (pun intended)

Lito

[J. K. Jones]

Thanks for a great post. I look forward to the rest.

Seems incomplete without the Latin phrases, though.

[Steve]

JK,

This the last of a series. If you click on the Law and Gospel category, you will see all four posts. Thanks for the kind words.

[Larry - KY]

Lito,

That is a big hurdle so to speak. It’s hard to grasp that continuum of 100% saint 100% sinner in this life. Nobody wants to be a “real” sinner. It’s contrary to the “getting better” or “victorious living” paradigms. It’s also why the means of grace are looked down upon in an implied indirect way. Who needs a means of grace that is communicating again and again “you are forgiven”, when what you need is an infusion of some kind of magic power that is labeled as grace and some other way in which you work too. To that paradigm to continue to ask God to forgive our sins sounds Roman Catholic or works righteousness. It’s reactionary to Rome but in doing so it goes in the opposing direction so much that it ends up being another Rome. It’s like baptism, “believers baptism” is not biblically derived but a doctrine that is singularly anti-Rome. “Anti-Rome” is not necessarily Biblical, even if what Rome does is anti-biblical…one can simply end up with another anti-biblical doctrines (no Gospel at all).

Second, it’s a hidden way in which we can still eschew the folly of the Cross for ourselves. It is a; “I needed it x-years ago when I was “really” a pre-conversion sinner, but I’m getting along better and better now days…most of my “real” sin was always “yesterday”, not so much in the present.”

Third, it’s an incorrect view of sin, namely that inward curving. It does not recognize that when I “do good” I’m sinning as much if not more than when I do outward bad/evil. It views sin as mostly the ‘negative sin lists’, not the pride over say ‘doing the church yard work’, which is the real deadly sin that pulls one away from free grace. It does not grasp that when you pray the Lord’s prayer, “forgive us our sins”, that it is a continuum AND especially includes my sin when I’m doing outwardly good things and not just the negative sins. Most often “forgive us our sins” is thought of as those things even pagans recognize as evil, but rarely if ever when I’m doing “good”.

Fourth, it does not really grasp “forgive” in its fullness. That is not only “forget about” but suffer and allow us our sins for we are sinners. It doesn’t grasp that God suffers evil to happen for Christ’s sake (Father forgive them for they do not know what they do).

Larry - KY