Called to be Saints
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2025 · 30 March 2025
The term saint in the word of God is simply defined right here in 1 Corinthians 1:2 which says, “To the church of God at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord—both their Lord and ours.” There ‘saints’ are people sanctified in Christ, who call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul declares that they are saints, and then proceeds immediately to discuss the benefits of sainthood in verses 4 - 9. He starts out by stating their identity as saints. They are made holy. What is so amazing about this is that the fact is that 1 Corinthians, from really the first chapter in verse 10, clear on out till it's finished, deals with the wrong doctrine and the wrong behavior.
The Corinthian people were holy; they just didn't act like it. Before God, they were in righteousness because of Christ. So Paul begins by telling them they're saints, and tell them what that means. Verse 10, “Now I urge you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and conviction.”
So Paul begins by saying, "Act like it." "Now I urge you," do you see it there? First four words! And he starts in on all of their sins. And so Paul then, is going to state the identity of these people, and he does so by giving them the benefits of being a saint. But let's look back at verse 1, “Paul, called as an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Sosthenes our brother.”
So, the usual form of a Greek letter begins with the name of the author. Then the identification of the reader in verse 2, "The church of God at Corinth." Then the greeting in verse 3, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He identifies his calling to be in identification with Christ and by God's expressed will. Now, Paul is not doing this to gain self-glory.
It actually could be establishing authority. What I am about to say to you comes from Jesus Christ at the will of God, for therein lies my calling." In 1 Corinthians, he says, "I am the least of the apostles. I don't deserve any of this. I am what I am by the grace of God." And there are five reasons why he does this. He does this, first of all, because of his relation to the twelve.
The apostles laid the foundation for the church, and the twelve were known by the church as the authoritative voice of Christ. Now, here comes Paul, one who at first introduction to the church was killing Christians, and maiming them, and throwing them in to prison, and doing all kinds of things against the church. He had not seen the resurrected Christ before He ascended into heaven.
And the qualifications for an apostle, according to Acts 1 were that they know Christ in His post-resurrection reality, and that they be specifically chosen by Christ. They had to have seen the resurrected Christ and been called specifically by Him into the apostolate. That's the reason we can't have any apostles today is because no one since has seen the living resurrected Christ.
But here came Paul, and he came along a bit late. You're not one of the twelve. You're not one with authority. And so, he continually establishes that he has authority, and that he was, in fact, one who saw Christ. He says, "Christ, having been raised from the dead, was seen of Peter, then of the twelve, verse 8, "And last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time."
And when did Paul see Him? On the Damascus Road at his conversion; he saw Him in blazing glory, and was blinded by it. And the Lord appeared to him on other occasions, once in Jerusalem, and then again when he was a prisoner later in Jerusalem, appearing to him to tell him he would go to Rome. He saw the resurrected Christ. He was specially called to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
Paul was continually being harassed by false teachers. They would say to the people whom Paul had just taught, "He has no authority. He is not one of the apostles." And he answers this in 1 Corinthians 4:9 when He says, “For I think God has displayed us, the apostles, in last place, like men condemned to die: We have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to people.”
He says in verse 11-12, “Up to the present hour we are both hungry and thirsty; we are poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless; 12 we labor, working with our own hands. When we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it.” False teachers are constantly doing this to Paul, and one of the reasons that he establishes his title as apostle because he defends himself against them.
Paul gives himself this title because of his relation to Christ. This has not to do with the false teachers as much as it has to do with the Christians. The Christians in Jerusalem, at least, were not really sure about Paul; and maybe in many other areas, initially they weren't too sure about him, either. About whether he had credibility; whether he had legitimate apostolate.
False teachers had infected them, and given them false information. When Paul came back to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey, he had to take his life in his hands, because even the Christians were after him. Even the Galatian Christians been told false information about the apostle. And he wants them to know that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ, and he is commissioned by Christ.
Paul is saying, "I am not an independent operator. I come as an envoy from the throne of God, and what I give you are God's judgments." So, he is establishing his authority every way possible. From the viewpoint of his relation to the other apostles, the viewpoint of his relation to the readers, his relation to Christ, and his relation to God. In every way, he has authority, and he verifies it.
Verse 1, “Paul, called as an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Sosthenes our brother.” You say, "What's Sosthenes doing in there? Paul usually used an amanuensis. Amanuensis is a name for a male secretary. Paul would dictate it, and he would write it, and very often Paul, in his letters, would sign with his own signature. So, here is this Sosthenes, unless there's a good reason.
And Sosthenes isn't just writing this, he's agreeing with it. Sosthenes knew the Corinthian situation. Acts 18 records the founding of the church at Corinth by Paul, and we'll meet Sosthenes. As was typical, the Jews threw him out. But after the Jews threw him out, the revival began; and the chief ruler of the synagogue got saved. Well, they had to get a new one. So, the new ruler was Sosthenes.
He was anti-Paul. Well, they decided they were going to attack Paul, so they got him and dragged him to the judgment seat. And they said, "This guy is persuading men to worship God contrary to the law." They were trying to get an indictment against him and get rid of him. Some manuscripts say the Greeks beat him. Who did the beating? "Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue."
By the time Paul writes 1 Corinthians, he says, "brother Sosthenes." What an amazing and marvelous story of conversion, and Sosthenes, having been in on it in Corinth, would have known the situation. So, when he adds Sosthenes' name, all of a sudden, the people in Corinth say, “he knows us. He lived here. This guy's from this place." So, it just added some weight to his introduction.
All right, now let's go to verse 2. The letter is being written to "the church of God which is at Corinth." Keep in mind that the church is not the church of the Corinthians; it's the church of God. This is God's church. And one of the perspectives that a believer always must have is that the church is a body of people, not a building, and that that body of people belongs to God.
And that's the perspective of a steward, and that's the way you have to look at your life. Your responsibility is to minister to the church; just as well, to minister to other believers; and they are God's possession. So, minister knowing that they are God's. In fact, Paul, when he writes to the Ephesian elders says, "Remember, the church of God was purchased with His own blood."
All right, so it's the church of God and it's at Corinth. Now, Corinth is a fascinating place. Any glance at Corinth on the map would give you the idea that it was strategic, and indeed it was. Today, there's nothing there but a little town. But in ancient times, it was a tremendously strategic place, and I want to show you why. Greece is divided into two parts, the north and the south.
Right in the middle was Corinth. And so, Corinth was a very populous trade center. It also became a place of evil. There is a verb in the Greek language, which means to corinthianize. It means drunken debauchery and immorality. The name of that city became synonymous with evil. It was a vile city. Every town, every major city, usually had an acropolis to do debauchery.
In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul describes Corinth. That church was so messed up by what was going on in that city, the church had actually surpassed the city. They were doing some things that even the people weren't doing. You say, "Well, what about the church at Corinth?" Well, Paul founded it on his second missionary journey - and let's turn to Acts 18, and see how he started it.
So he left and came to Corinth in Acts 18:1. And he went to the synagogue. The Jews usually sat together with people of a like trade. And so he sat down with people who did leather work, who made tents. So, he met a couple of other leatherworkers by the name of Aquila and Priscilla. And he began to preach in verse 4 every Sabbath in the synagogue, persuading Jews and Greeks.
Aquila and Priscilla, those two leatherworkers in verse 26, got a hold of Apollos, a new pastor and told him about Christianity more perfectly. And he wound up in Corinth, verse 1 of 19; it came to pass while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul was coming to Ephesus. In 1 Corinthians 1, that becomes faction in the Corinthian church: "some of you are of Paul, some of you are of Apollos?"
Well, that's the church done by Paul. Apollos was the second pastor. So another brilliant man comes, and God blesses his work. But even with two pastors there were some problems in Corinth, and the major problem was they couldn't detach themselves from the morality of their world. They were into that Corinthian kind of living, and they just couldn't seem to get out of it.
So, Paul, wrote them a letter. We don't know what he said in that letter, because that letter is lost. First Corinthians is the second letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians. The first one, we call the lost letter. You say, "Well, how do you know that there was a first letter, if it was lost?" 1 Corinthians 5:9 is the answer. He says to the Corinthians, "I wrote to you in a letter not to company with fornicators."
He wrote to them, "I told you once before not to company with fornicators." But you know, they misunderstood what he meant. And he says that in verse 10. "Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world." I didn't mean don't ever go near the unsaved." Apparently, what they did was they just stopped talking to the unsaved people. If you do that, you don’t preach the Gospel.
1 Corinthians 5:11, “But actually, I wrote you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister and is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person.” He's not talking about unbelievers; he's talking about what? Believers. Paul is talking about sinning brothers and sisters in the church.
Now, after that first lost letter, Paul got some bad reports. 1 Corinthians 1:11, "For it has been reported to me about you, by members of Chloe’s people, that there is rivalry among you.” 1 Corinthians 5:1, “It is reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles, a man is sleeping with his father’s wife.”
And finally, he writes them 1 Corinthians. But not until he's founded the church, written them a first letter, dispatched Timothy to them, and even made a quick visit himself. 1 Corinthians, is setting the church right morally and doctrinally. Look at verse 2. He says: "You are sanctified in Christ Jesus. You are saints, along with everybody else who calls on His name."
How did they ever get holy? Hebrews 2:11 says that Christ, by His sufferings has sanctified all who believe. By Christ's death, He made men holy. Men can be holy, because He paid the price for sin. That's the point. Let me give you another verse: Hebrews 10:14. It says there simply, "By one offering Jesus Christ has perfected forever them that are sanctified."
He sanctifies men. He makes them holy, He sets them apart to Himself, by His offering, by His suffering, by His death. In Acts 26:18 Jesus said, "I've called you, Paul, 'to open their eyes, turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins.'" You can receive forgiveness among all those who are made holy. Let us pray.