That name does not appear in the Gospels, but it begins to show in the
Acts of the Apostles, and it becomes extremely common throughout the
Epistles of Paul. He had no hesitation in calling the very imperfect
disciples in Corinth by this great name. He was going to rebuke them for
some very great offences, not only against Christian elevation of
conduct, but against common pagan morality; but he began by calling them
'saints.'
What is a saint? First and foremost, a man who has given himself to God,
and is consecrated thereby. Whoever has cast himself on Christ, and has
taken Christ for his, therein and in the same degree as he is exercising
faith, has thus yielded himself to God. If your faith has not led you
to such a consecration of will and heart and self, you had better look
out and see whether it is faith at all. But then, because faith involves
the consecration of a man to God, and consecration necessarily implies
purity, since nothing can be laid on God's altar which is not sanctified
thereby, the name of saint comes to imply purity of character. Sanctity
is the Christian word which means the very flower and fragrant aroma of
what the world calls virtue.
But sanctity is not emotion, A man may luxuriate in devout feeling, and
sing and praise and pray, and be very far from being a saint; and there
is a great deal of the emotional Christianity of this day which has a
strange affinity for the opposite of saintship. Sanctity is not
aloofness. 'There were saints in Cæsar's household'--a very unlikely
place; they were flowers on a dunghill, and perhaps their blossoms were
all the brighter because of what they grew on, and which they could
transmute from corruption into beauty. So sanctity is no blue ribbon of
the Christian profession, to be given to a few select (and mostly
ascetic) specimens of consecration, but it is the designation of each of
us, if we are disciples who are more than disciples, that is,
'believers.' And thus, brethren, we have to see to it that, in our own
cases, our faith leads to surrender, and our self-surrender to purity of
life and conduct. Faith, if real, brings sanctity; sanctity, if real, is
progressive. Sanctity, though imperfect, may be real.